I'm afraid this isn't going to be a positive or cheerful blog post. Usually when I'm feeling this down I try to stay away from blogging because I don't really want to commit the bad stuff "to paper" but I feel like I really need to vent.

So, as I had said in my previous post, I've been experiencing some trouble when it came to my period. I had spotting around ovulation time and went to a doctor and she did an ultrasound and said there were no "major anomalies" and that it was just a hormonal imbalance and if it persisted she'd put me on the pill.

My period was due last Saturday. On the Thursday night before, I had some dark brown spotting again and assumed my period had started two days earlier. Oh well, shit happens, right? Except nothing more happened the following days. I didn't get any pre-menstrual symptoms (tender breasts, lower-abdomen pains, bloating) and it didn't seem like my period was going to start at all. So I decided to go to a different doctor because frankly I didn't like the dismissive attitude of the one I'd seen two weeks earlier. The gyno I went to see this time is the one who was supervising my sister's attempt to conceive, and later her pregnancy. She's also my mother's and younger sister's doctor. I had only been to see her once before and I don't understand why I never went again. She's awesome and she has an excellent reputation.

Anyway, on the fifth day of no-period (last Thursday) I went to her office and had to wait all morning to get in (arrived at 8:40 and saw her around midday) so I had to spend that time in the company of pregnant women who were spouting all sorts of nonsense, among other things how physical punishment is the best way to educate a child (even was lucky enough to witness one of them beating on her son because he choked on a biscuit. Little asshole, how dare he choke!) I was dying to see the doctor because my bladder was about to burst but I didn't go to the bathroom because I wasn't sure if she was going to do an ultrasound or not. I still let this woman who came in after me, go in before me because it appeared to me she was having a miscarriage :S I heard her on the phone talking about lots of bleeding and severe cramping, but she wasn't sure what was going on, so I said better find out ASAP. Turns out she was 1.5 month pregnant and had lost the baby. I felt very sad, though she wasn't. She was in her early 40's, I think, already had three children and this pregnancy wasn't planned at all. So I guess it worked out in the end.

Anyway, in I go, and I explained everything to her, and she did indeed give me an ultrasound. Before she started, she asked me if I shave/pluck the hairs I had growing from my bellybutton to my pubis and I said yes, usually they're longer/thicker/more apparent than that. She asked me if I got hairs on my nipples and my chin and I said yes, sometimes (it's not really an issue, I just pluck them when I notice them, which is rarely enough). That gave her pause, apparently. And then the ultrasound showed "micro-cysts" around my ovaries. She concluded that I had a "minor" or "beginning" micro-cystic ovarian dystrophia, which according to Google is another name for PCOS.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycystic_ovary_syndrome

Of course, being a professional, she ordered blood tests for several hormones (including testosterone, which high level is apparently what's causing the excess hair in weird places) but I have to take those tests on the third day of my period, so she gave me this hormonal pill (not THE pill) to take for five days, and it's supposed to make me bleed. It's been four days now and I've been experiencing so far the lower-abdominal pains I've had whenever I had taken birth control pills. Hopefully my period will start soon after I finish treatment.

As you can see in the Wiki article, this syndrome basically represents my second worst nightmare (after cancer) because it makes it very difficult to conceive a child. It raises risk of miscarriage, of gestational diabetes and all sorts of illnesses (hypertension etc.) so I have been down in the pits since Thursday. Can't feel positive about anything.

Of course I'm being overly dramatic because when you look at the symptoms, mine are very minor. This is my first missed period ever. I have always been very regular. But then, those microcysts are actually unreleased ovules, so obviously I haven't been ovulating normally. I just can't make sense of it. Why would this shit happen at 31? I keep reading stories about women who found out they had PCOS at 20 or earlier. I know I'm getting way ahead of myself, because I need the test results to confirm what's wrong with me. The doctor was very reassuring, telling me that she's become an expert in the field, she's treated so many patients with PCOS. She said conceiving would be difficult but definitely not impossible. But it's all so disheartening. I feel old and useless.

And of course there's the trip to Vienna that's causing me additional stress. I'm supposed to be leaving in ten days. Everything is ready: ticket, travel insurance, money, even public transportation pass, for god's sake. But I keep worrying that my period will start while I'm in Austria and so I won't be able to take the tests and then I'll spend the rest of the month freaking out even more. I also worry that my current state of mind will go unchanged and I will not be able to enjoy my trip at all. The way things stand right now, I don't even want to go. Or if I do I want to stay curled up in my hotel bed and not go anywhere. I'm not even sure I want to see Timo and subject him to all of this. Of course he's being as supportive as ever, telling me that he doesn't care if we never have children, that he only wants to be with me, but it doesn't make me feel any better.

So that's what's been happening lately.