Women's intuition

AF arrived last night, at Day 27 on my cycle so that's the third period I've had in a row in three months! No big deal, you may think to yourself. But remember, I didn't have a period for over six months! So to have regular cycles is a big deal for me. It will be interesting to see what next month brings cycle-wise. The Provera seems to have regulated my cycles - if not the Clomid. Not sure if that played a part or not.

IF is a time of great mystery, it would seem. I'm pretty sure I did ovulate last cycle on Clomid, but I didn't on the first round of Clomid. I never got a chance to mention this to my gyno. I guess it wouldn't make much difference as far as the cyst goes - it still needs to come out. As my gyno put it "it's not going away by itself."

The Cyst Episode has been another lesson about women's intuition for me. When I was carrying my daughter at 37 weeks and I had unexplained pain on my right side for three weeks off and on, I knew it was unrelated to my pregnancy. But as a first-time Mum I felt many of the health professionals that I turned to at that time just thought I was exaggerating some kind of pregnancy discomfort - even though I was vomiting green bile and couldn't move when the pain stuck.

I was finally admitted into A & E when I was a few days off my due date. The mystery pain settled a little with the pain killers I was given and my midwife wanted to discharge me but I had to fight to stay in hospital. Luckily I did as just hours later my daughter was delivered via an emergency c-section and the culprit was found shortly afterwards - my right ovary that had twisted on itself and had to be removed. I could see it on the faces of the staff at the hospital that a torted ovary was the last thing they thought was wrong with me. I wasn't completely shocked. I knew something wasn't right at all to be experiencing such severe pain.

With The Cyst Episode I knew late last year that something was amiss with me hormonally. I hadn't had a proper period for so long and my abs were bloated a lot. I'd recently lost 6/7kg and had had a flat stomach for a bit so it didn't make sense that I should have a bloated stomach all of a sudden. My Dr at the time did an internal examination and did refer me on for an ultrasound as she picked up that something wasn't right. However I did have to push for the ultrasound. Sure enough a cyst was revealed, as I expected (after all the research I did on the internet around cysts) and my gyno decided to go ahead with the Clomid anyway. I felt it was probably going to be a waste of time putting me on the Clomid as my body has felt "off" with this cyst all along. I have always thought the cyst was probably playing a bigger part in the whole IF side of things than deemed.

Anyway, now that Clomid has failed to bring on ovulation (for the first round at least) and the cyst has grown, my gyno of course wants to remove the cyst. So my operation will be next month - that is five months after the cyst was originally found on the first ultrasound. It's not a long period of time, but long enough in the IF game.

The point is, us women know our bodies well. It pays to push for what feels right as the bottom-line is, doctors don't always get it right. This certainly applies to IF.