PCOS To Pregnancy – Part 3

Click to catch up and parts one and two.

Let’s Try Again

I went back to my doctor about a month after my hospital stay for a checkup and ultrasound to make sure things were good and a few days later we were able to start back on our journey to conceive. Because the lining of my uterus was a good thickness, my doctor didn’t require the progesterone/induced period this time (thank God) and just let me start again on the 2.5mg of Letrozole. So, after six weeks of recovery, I started my first full cycle of infertility meds at the beginning of February 2020. 

Unfortunately, 2.5mg was not enough to make me ovulate. Since I wouldn’t naturally have a period (although it did make me spot some), my doctor said we would need to do another round of progesterone to induce a period before we tried again with a higher dosage of Letrozole. I was terrified. But, I was able to get another prescription of the medicine (tranexamic acid) I was given in the hospital that reduces bleeding and was given the okay to take it as soon as my period started. 

Cycle Two

I took the progesterone and started my second cycle with infertility drugs in mid-March. We upped my Letrozole dosage to 5mg this time in hopes that would trigger ovulation. I followed all the steps and went in for my blood draw on cycle day 21 to check if ovulation occurred (ovulation should occur around cycle day 14). My results showed that I had not ovulated yet, but my doctor asked me to wait until cycle day 35 to see if I started a period on my own (as opposed to CD 28) before starting another round of Letrozole. I did end up starting a period on my own on CD 35, which was a good sign that I probably did ovulate, but not until around CD 21 (when I got my blood drawn) so we missed the “window of opportunity” but things were starting to look up. 

Cycle Three

My doctor did decide to up my dosage to 7.5mg, with the intention to make me ovulate closer to CD 14. Which I started during our third cycle of infertility drugs in mid-April. We did everything else the same as before and I went in for my 21-day blood draw. A couple of days later my doctor messaged me that the results showed that I had indeed ovulated this cycle with strong numbers! She warned that it may take a few cycles to get pregnant now that we found the dosage that “worked” for ovulation but said to take a pregnancy test in about a week and to let her know the results, if it was negative, we would do another round of Letrozole. 

That was one of the longest weeks of my life, I didn’t want to take a test too early and be disappointed. Finally, on May 14^th (CD 28) I took an early detection test and saw the FAINTEST line. I had taken SO many tests in the last 9 months and had never seen even a slight trace of a line and I just knew this was a line. Miguel was downstairs and I rushed down to show him and he couldn’t see it and thought I was crazy. But I knew it was there. I took tests the next three days and each one got a little darker and I think I was finally convincing Miguel lol. I also took a ClearBlue test that prints out the words and I think he was finally convinced it was for real. I couldn’t believe that it worked the first cycle I ovulated. We were so lucky that all we needed was ovulation in order to conceive (and we had no other fertility issues). I called my doctor and set up our first appointment. The infertility clinic wanted to see us at 7 weeks so we set it up for then. We were officially pregnant! There were about 11 months between my last birth control pill and my first positive test. Which I know is not that long compared to other infertility journeys and I am so blessed that it was less than a year. But it definitely was a challenging year and getting pregnant didn’t come “easy” by any means. We had the advantage of already having a fertility doctor and infertility diagnosis before we even tried getting pregnant, which definitely gave us an advantage in terms of how much time it took. 

If you made it this far through our entire infertility story, thank you! I enjoy reading other’s stories like this and I am happy to share my story in hopes that it provides comfort, hope or ideas to those going through something similar, or just awareness to those who are not. Please don’t hesitate to reach out with questions either!