Conceiving Baby #2 with PCOS
Photo credit to AME Photography
Life has a funny way of keeping you on your toes doesn’t it? I still remember getting diagnosed with PCOS six years ago way before the thought of having kids was even on my mind. Still, I remember the doctor telling me it would be very difficult to have kids on my own when that day came. To say I was devastated would be an understatement. Call it the little extra motivation I needed (when people tell me “no” it usually just motivates me to prove them wrong), I took a couple of years to clean up everything in my life that might be negatively contributing to my PCOS. I switched to a whole real foods diet, reduced stressed, exercised regularly, got rid of toxic chemicals in all my products and added in quality supplements. Was I a little bit obsessed with my health? Absolutely!
When it came time to try for baby #1, we barely had to try at all. The first month of trying we conceived our baby girl right away. I was ECSTATIC! All of my hard work and effort over the years to put my PCOS into remission had worked! I thought for sure it would be a long road of trying to conceive, fertility doctors and medication but it happened quickly and naturally.
Fast forward to mid-2021 when we were ready to try for baby #2. Based off of how quickly it took us to conceive baby #1, I thought it would be the same for baby #2. I was wrong! I tried all of the fertility tracking things such as basal body thermometer tracking, looking at my cervical mucus, ovulation strips, progesterone strips, progesterone oil… the list goes on. Month after month went by with no luck getting pregnant, every test came back negative and I would get my period. You can imagine my frustration, especially since I was tracking and planning like crazy.
I went to see my OB who ordered some basic blood work to see how my hormone levels were doing. I love my OB but the frustrating thing about basic blood work from your doctor is it doesn’t measure every hormone level. It really only measures a few basic ones and even then doesn’t always show the appropriate range. Again, I have no beef with my doctor but the traditional medical system just isn’t always set up to help those of us with hormone issues. So, I took matters into my own hands and ordered the Everlywell complete hormone panel. I love that services like these exist where it’s affordable to do your own labs and then send them back to a credible healthcare professional for your results. After doing the Everlywell tests which included blood and saliva samples, the only hormone level that was slightly off was my testosterone. I struggled with high testosterone back when I first got diagnosed with PCOS but this was showing I actually had LOW testosterone. I let my doctor know about the low testosterone and she said it really wasn’t a concern for trying to conceive (although I think the data is still split on whether or not this actually affects fertility) but I let it go.
We started approaching the year mark of trying and my doctor brought up the possibility of IUI. We decided to wait a few more months as we were planning a move across the country and had some other big life changes where it didn’t make sense to commit to IUI right away. We also thought about fertility medication but since all my hormone levels were coming back normal, my doctor recommended against it as she thought it might not help anything.
So, I let ALL the tracking go (BBT, ovulation strips, progesterone strips). I just stopped everything cold turkey and stopped stressing about getting pregnant. When you’re trying to conceive for a long period of time, it can be all consuming and really weigh you down as many of you have probably experienced. It felt so good just to live my life and not even think about it (okay, I thought about it a little. It’s impossible not to). My husband also started focusing on his health and started exercising regularly and taking a few key supplements which I do think helped. This month where we stopped tracking and stressing over trying is when we naturally became pregnant. I started having pregnancy symptoms around 11-12 DPO (days post ovulation) and officially took a test around day 13-14 DPO and sure enough it said I was pregnant!
All in all, if I had to sum up what worked for us: we stopped stressing and overly trying. We focused on good health habits, quality supplementation and reduced our stress.
Every TTC story is so different, and my first and second time are on completely opposite ends of the spectrum. I’m thankful I was able to conceive naturally twice despite my PCOS and only share this story with the intention that it’s helpful to someone out there.
Sending all the baby dust your way!