Visit With the Spesh

Me with my new best friend, almonds!

Last week Tim and I went to see a fertility specialist.

I’ll go ahead and begin my very first post with some over-sharing. Prior to this specialist visit, I hadn’t gotten a period in months. Four months to be exact. This has been a source of great frustration and angst for me. Tim and I are ready to have a baby, oh, like, now, but that’s not going to happen without the ole monthly cycle. I stopped taking birth control pills in October. Since then, I’ve had a few regular periods, one very late period, and then they just disappeared altogether.

I went to see an OBGYN after a couple of months of this no-show business. The doctor ran some basic hormone tests, seriously freaked me out by saying I might be in early menopause (sayonara, dream of having children), and sent me away with a prescription called Provera. Provera is basically progesterone in pill form. You take it for five days, and once you stop, the progesterone withdrawal is supposed to bring on a period. It didn’t work. Boo.

Luckily, my hormone tests came back normal, so early menopause was out, along with a variety of other scary things (sigh of relief). But still, no period. Hence, the specialist referral.

Now, onto the visit: From the moment we stepped into the office, I knew we were in good hands. The receptionists were friendly. Friendly. This is rarity in my experience. Maybe it has something to do with living in a city, I don’t know.  When I walked back to get my blood pressure taken, etc., a woman passed by and smiled at Tim and me. A real, genuine smile. Even though she was wearing a breezy summer top and not an imposing lab coat, I knew this was our doctor, and that made me very happy. After a few minutes, we went into this woman’s office and she asked both of us a million, billion questions. The whole session felt very personal. She explained everything thoroughly and was careful and considerate of our feelings. Tim and I loved her. After a stretch of bad doctors and OBGYNs, this was a much-needed breath of fresh air.

Her diagnosis? I’m not eating enough fat.

Wait, what? You mean, it can really be as simple as that?

I had lost 20 lbs for my wedding last August and kept it off for a year (more on that in another post). She said that, even though I am a normal body weight for my height, I am being too careful about what I’m eating, and the lack of fat is causing my body to go into self-preservation mode. She ran some more blood work and instructed Tim to get a sperm analysis, but seemed confident the fat was the problem. We have another appointment with her in a couple of weeks to go over the results.

The day after the visit, I got my period. For the first time in four months. A few weeks ago, Tim and I went on vacation and I ate my face off. I came back from that vacation 6 lbs heavier. So I think it took that extra six pounds to get my body working again. Seems like pretty good evidence to support the doctor’s theory.

I’m going to continue to diligently add more fat to each and every meal. And hopefully this is the beginning of a new era, an era where my period comes every month on schedule. An era that will hopefully bring about what I want most in the world right now: a pregnancy.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go eat some celebratory almonds and avocados.