Chiming in with my story & so I can follow this thread (hopefully for personal inspiration & to help support others). I don't have a conception success story yet, but I send you my best wishes that you will have one soon, @kaysday ! I'm ditto-ing on @mimismommy11 's suggestion of trying the Ovulation Prediction Kits (OPKs). My doc is having me start those this month, too. The Basal Body Temping (BBT) doesn't work that well for me because I'm like trying to wake the dead in the morning , and my doc said she thinks the OPKs are a bit better in her clinical experience. This doesn't HAVE to be super-expensive to do. My doc suggested that if you have a friend who has already bought a monitor & isn't currently using it, then borrow it & just buy new test strips. OR, I got this kit off of Amazon that has good reviews, which is a few months worth of OPK & pregnancy tests (although it's a bit gross to have to pee in a cup instead of on a stick...I'm all about saving $ in this process). http://amzn.com/B00DOJG6RA


My story: I started this weight-loss journey in mid-May 2015, and so far have lost almost 45#. We've actively been trying to conceive for the past 6 months, and I was diagnosed with PCOS in July 2015. (but we hadn't been preventing potential pregnancy since 2010, i.e. no BC measures...does that make sense? We were hoping for a natural "yay, we're pregnant!" moment that never happened in those 5 years...).

I'm currently on Metformin 1000mg ER b.i.d, and supplementing with a complex b-vitamin, multi-vitamin, and 2 g. of myo-inositol b.i.d. I'm also on a reduced carb diet (max 80-90 g carb a day, but currently stepping down to a max of 40g/day, because my rate of weight loss is better at those levels).

This regimen regulated my periods within the first month, like-clockwork...it's amazing considering I typically had to induce a bleed every 3-4 months with progesterone before, and my prior doctors did nothing about trying to figure out why, but I never pushed to find out why either. For the first time ever I'm showing the physical signs of ovulation, but this will be the first month testing for with OPK & labwork to verify that I'm ovulating. In another 3-6 months, my doc plans to add in Clomid as long as my weight loss proceeds at a similar rate.

No personal success yet...but fingers crossed for soon.

@mimismommy11 I send you best wishes for a LONG and healthy pregnancy with this little one! I can't imagine the stress & emotional pain of miscarriage, let alone multiple ones. You'll be in my thoughts!

Another of our ladies is pregnant now, following two recent miscarriages if I recall. She just made it out of her first trimester. Hopefully she'll pop in soon. Progesterone supplements early on seem to have been key to this pregnancy "sticking" as she called it.

I myself have miscarried, and I immediately got pregnant again and didn't know for months. I was high risk because of that. It took me some time to conceive, but no where near as long as some. I did not know, though, that I had PCOS at the time, so I don't know what I did to help with it...

My hubby and I tried for 5 years to have a child. Luckily our insurance paid for IVF so that is what we did to get both of our children. However, before the IVF we had done in office inseminations due to my irregluar periods. I would get pregnant and then miscarry. The docs didn't do anything special. Well, when I went to the fertility doctor, and finally was able to do the IVF after much workup, the procedure for that is 2 weeks after the procedure, they do an ultrasound so see if you are pregnant and when you are they start you on progestrone supplements suppositories. That worked in my case with both of the kids. However, I got pregnant 3 more times on my own without IVF but miscarried due to not having the progestrone suppositories. I ended up having the doc (I have moved to another State) remove both tubes and one ovary so I would stop getting pregnant. IT was too emotional. My kids are now 15 and 13. I would have liked to have had more but moved, changed jobs and no longer had the insurance and the doctors (when you are a new patient) do not always want to listen to you about your medical history even though you know it better than anyone else. When I first move, the doc didn't believe me until the 3 pregnancy and gave me oral progestrone and that didn't work. I believe the supposotories are the best! Good luck.

I posted this on another thread but here it is again:

Oh a place to tell my story!

I was dx with pcos at 12 or so, put on BCP for years. Came off them due to some family issues I wont go into and got pregnant at 16. Lost the baby around 6 weeks. Didnt get my hormones checked because I was not familiar with pcos and the side effects back then. At 17, I moved to my Dad's and went to an Iridologist (a guy who dx stuff based on the discoloring of your iris) and he dx me with milk and wheat sensitivities and pcos, along with a couple other things like a major ulcer. Put me on Vitex and told me to keep my milk and wheat to a bare minimum. At 19 I got pregnant with my daughter. She is now a beautiful 18 year old woman. I also never had my hormones checked back then, but loved being a single mom!

Fast forward a few years, we move to Indiana and I meet my now husband. As of today, we've been married 7 1/2 years, got married when I was 31. We stopped my BCP right after we got married because 1) we wanted kids badly and 2) I had a cancerous breast lump. One of the lovely side effects of the estrogen based bcp when you already have high estrogen from pcos is breast lumps. Had 14 removed over my life span starting at age 15. So with a cancerous one, they take you off any form of hormonal bcp. We ttc for a year and got no where. Saved our pennies to go to a fertility specialist and hubby's got 'Homer Simpson' sperm and I've got pcos. They told us we'd have a better chance of being hit by lightening than by conceiving naturally.

Started taking better mulit vitamins, Metformin and 6g of Inositol a day and went Keto because I heard it was better for pcos. Less than 6 months after starting Keto, in July of 2014, we get a BFP! So excited and in disbelief! Didnt have insurance that would test my hormones and was having very bad cramps so went to the ER twice. They refused to test my progesterone even tho I begged them, because by then I'd read up on pcos and knew low progesterone is a HUGE issue with getting the baby to stick to the uterine wall. By the time I got a doctor to see me and test my levels, it was too late. At 7 weeks pregnant my progesterone was only 2.5 when it was supposed to be over 20. The baby never attached well as my slow to rise HCG showed. I miscarried naturally at almost 11 weeks.

Heartbroken, in deep depression and feeling like I'd let everyone including my husband down, i kept up keto, some weightloss and kept taking my vitamins even tho I thought that was our 'one lightening strike'. What are the chances of getting struck by lightening twice?? Looked more into pcos for my own health, figured starting menopause with decent hormones was good. I started taking Vitex at 1200mg a day, and EPO for the first half of my cycle. For the first 6 months after I miscarried, I took a bio-identical progesterone cream the second half of my cycle. Then i stopped because it seemed my ovaries got the memo and started producing progesterone on their own after years of not. Stayed on the vitex and epo tho. Keto seems to have helped hubby's sperm. When we retested a few months later, all his markers were quite improved.

Well July of this year, I got another BFP! Very faint as it was 4 days before I was supposed to even start my period. Called my reg doc who i'd talked to before and had agreed to test me as soon as I got my bfp. Went to the lab that afternoon and got tested. My hcg was 73 and my progesterone was already 20.2! My reg doc scrambled to find an OB to take me without pregnancy insurance while I applied for pregnancy Medicad. They found a doc who would work with me, got in the next day and she put me on progesterone pills, 100mg 3x a day as a precaution. She didnt think i needed them because my progesterone was already at a very good level but too much progesterone cant hurt. She felt better safe than sorry. Ive been to the ER twice for bleeding but that is because I have a subchorionic hematoma. The baby is growing fine, measuring 2 days ahead each ultrasound, but it is sticking! I am 11w1d right now and on bedrest because of the SCH but baby is doing fine.

I know what I went thru and what I did wont work for everyone. I am 38 and will be 39 when babe is born. I am about 250 lbs, have Rheumatoid Arthritis along with another auto immune disorder. There is hope! Ive seen quite a few ttc boards where women got pregnant and it stuck using Vitex, EPO and Progesterone cream, so I know my success is not unique. Ive also seen a lot of women on those boards work with a RE and go the clomid/femera route and have success. They've also used progesterone after a BFP until 12 weeks to help the baby stick. If you are TTC, keep up hope and dont give up!

Update: I am now 14w5d pregnant. Off the progesterone. My sch has healed, my fibroid has disappeared. Baby measures on target and his/her early anatomy scan came back clean yesterday.

I don't have a very long story, but I do have 11 year old twins. I got married to my ex when I was 22, but had suspected since I was a young teenager that something wasn't quite right with me. I'm pretty sure at 19 I got pregnant and then miscarried soon after - but there was so much bleeding that the pregnancy test couldn't get a good read on the urine. So that was scary. Then after we got married I told him that I wanted to start trying for kids as soon as possible because I was afraid something was wrong and it was going to take forever. I was pretty right - when I went to the doc I was told I had PCOS. I was 22 or 23 I guess. My ex had what he called 'blockheads' for sperm - they were actually round instead of spear-shaped so they'd bounce off any egg I "might" produce. So, after that was determined they skipped me over all of the other trying methods (insemination at the office, drug therapy, etc.) and went right to IVF. The drugs you take when going through that produced plenty of healthy and viable eggs, so they let them grow in the lab longer than usual. After probably 5 days (I think) they were down to 3 viable embryos and it was time to implant. So I came in and they did an ultrasound to check everything - but I was terribly hyper-stimulated. My ovaries were blown up to the size of small oranges so they had to cancel the transfer and freeze the embryos. Otherwise they'd have to put me in the hospital. So, they froze the 3 and after the swelling went down, and I had another round of drugs to get me ready for implantation, they thawed 2. One didn't make it so they thawed the 3rd and put them in. And now I have my dynamic duo. One boy, one girl - I love science.

I lost 20 lbs before we started TTC. I was also charting in advance (TTA initially) so I knew I had only ovulated 4x in 13 months and I did have a good feel for my fertile signs. I went for a preconception visit and for various reasons the gyn decided to put me on Clomid right away. I conceived my second cycle (50mg, CD5-9) and gave birth to healthy twins 9 months later. I wasn't wild about the increased chance of multiples but I had a hard time imagining it actually happening to me ... and then of course it did. But thankfully I still had a healthy full-term pregnancy and once we got through the first 3 years, it wasn't so crazy and now there are more advantages to having two the same age.
Best of luck to you!

I thought you ladies would like to know -- I promoted this post to a sticky and added it to the "Start Here" sticky, because it's such an encouraging thread.

I'm adding my story here because I hope to BE a success...someday. Hubby and I have been trying since 2013. I quit BC and had already been on Metformin so stuck with that and prenatal vitamins. After 5 months of that, doc prescribed Clomid because my cycles hadn't regulated and I clearly was not ovulating. Clomid didn't work and it was an unmonitored cycle so after one round I went to an RE for a consult but they won't start treatment until I get my BMI down. So, I'm working on that now. Hopefully I can get there this year, because I'm impatient as hell and being benched is kind of heartbreaking. Fingers crossed for you!

I was able to conceive using metformin as well as clomid. I got pregnant the 2nd month of using the lowest dose of clomid so I consider myself very lucky. I just had my baby in September and she is just perfect. I did have gestational diabetes and I am now pre-diabetic. So I'm working on getting back to the healthier lifestyle that I had been working on before I conceived to be a healthy example for my daughter.

Hello ladies! I've just come back to MFP after having my baby boy in June! My husband and I started ttc in August of 2013. I got off of BCP in August and gave myself a couple months to see if I might have a period naturally. I did not, so I took Provera to induce a bleed and started taking 1500mg of Metformin in October of 2013. I had varying degrees of success with my periods on Metformin but I was never regular. In August of 2014, my obgyn did some tests and diagnosed me with hypothyroidism. I started taking 50mcg of Synthroid at the beginning of September 2014. In October of 2014, I got my positive pregnancy test! I had a wonderful pregnancy with no major issues.

Also, in addition to the Metformin and Synthroid, I started prenatal gummies when we first started ttc. I also used opk strips. I used the cheapo Wondfo brand from Amazon and they worked great. I also used hpt's from Wondfo so I could take as many tests as I wanted and not have to worry about cost.

aSearch4Me wrote: »

My story: I started this weight-loss journey in mid-May 2015, and so far have lost almost 45#. We've actively been trying to conceive for the past 6 months, and I was diagnosed with PCOS in July 2015. (but we hadn't been preventing potential pregnancy since 2010, i.e. no BC measures...does that make sense? We were hoping for a natural "yay, we're pregnant!" moment that never happened in those 5 years...).

I'm currently on Metformin 1000mg ER b.i.d, and supplementing with a complex b-vitamin, multi-vitamin, and 2 g. of myo-inositol b.i.d. I'm also on a reduced carb diet (max 80-90 g carb a day, but currently stepping down to a max of 40g/day, because my rate of weight loss is better at those levels).

This regimen regulated my periods within the first month, like-clockwork...it's amazing considering I typically had to induce a bleed every 3-4 months with progesterone before, and my prior doctors did nothing about trying to figure out why, but I never pushed to find out why either. For the first time ever I'm showing the physical signs of ovulation, but this will be the first month testing for with OPK & labwork to verify that I'm ovulating. In another 3-6 months, my doc plans to add in Clomid as long as my weight loss proceeds at a similar rate.

No personal success yet...but fingers crossed for soon.

I have an update to my story...Over the course of 6 months, I have lost 50 pounds from diet & metformin. My cycles became really regular as of last July, I showed signs of ovulation per labs & OPKs (which I don't think I was at all before), but still no pregnancies. I had an appointment with my doctor earlier this month, and we made the decision that starting in April, I would be started on Femara or Clomid. BUT, this week has maybe changed that plan . I went for my routine weekly allergy shot on Monday, and had this crazy all-over-body hive reaction about 2 hours after the shot, which I've never had before. The only thing I could logically think would change my immune system that much in a week was pregnancy. But my test the day before & that morning was negative (D10/D11). I tested again on Wednesday, and saw a very very very faint positive line, but I really thought it was just hopeful thinking. But my test yesterday morning (D13) left zero doubt.

So now I'm just in this anxious stage of hoping & praying this little bean is real, sticks, & grows like crazy. I know with PCOS the risk of miscarriage is high. Keeping myself calm & not thinking about all of the "what ifs" has been really hard for the past 24 hours, but I'm hoping my brain chills out soon.

On a humorous note, After nearly 6 years of peeing on sticks, I'm mildly shocked that they CAN display 2 lines . I took 3 tests before I was convinced the first one wasn't defective...

KnitOrMiss wrote: »

Congrats on the changes... And good luck. I think one of the biggest risks for miscarrying with PCOS is progesterone levels, which are supposed to climb/skyrocket when preggo, so definitely recommend getting those checked. Sending you lots and lots of good thoughts, positive energies, hopes and prayers! (HUGS)

Thank you! I actually feel a little silly in retrospect reporting this here, but with only my husband & my physicians knowing this info right now...I needed to tell SOMEONE...lol. And I figured the PCOS Cysters who have been there could understand my fears/risks. I also realized I mis-typed earlier, and my full/clearly positive test was on D14, not 13...

Thank you for the reminder re: the progesterone. I had actually asked my doctor's OB nurse when I called in to report the pregnancy & schedule appointments. She said they typically don't check the progesterone unless I were to start spotting, even in PCOS patients.

But since my post ovulation progesterone lab levels tended to be spot-on when checked, and I'm still temping & my basal temps are staying high...I'm hoping it stays up.

Thank you for the positive energy, good thoughts, hopes & prayers...they are MUCH appreciated.

I agree with the others Search, don't wait. My progesterone levels were fine too but they still made me take additional progesterone suppositories through the second trimester to sustain the pregnancy. Everyone's different but make sure they are listening to you when you all discuss the risks of a pregnancy with PCOS.

I have had PCOS since puberty and was told by multiple drs that I would need a lot of help getting pregnant. I had been on Metformin 1000 mg twice a day for years and had been put on Wellbutrin 150 twice a day (which btw caused me to lose 15 lbs) and got pregnant! I have a beautiful healthy 4 year old boy. It can happen. There is hope. And if you haven't already, investigate myo-inositol. It is a very safe supplement that lots of reproductive endocrinologists are recommending now. Read more about it here: https://examine.com/supplements/Inositol/

aSearch4Me wrote: »

It's been a few weeks, so I thought I would check back in... we had our first OB exam last Friday (with scan), and got the great news that our LittleBit is right on track as expected at 8weeks (now 8+3) with a stellar heart rate of 162bpm. I know we're not "out of the woods" by any means, but meeting that milestone was such a huge relief. [Knock on wood for a healthy road the remaining months]

I just wanted to throw this in here for anyone else who might be following this thread. In reference to the progesterone discussion above, I really do thank everyone for their input & suggestions. After the posts, I was a bit stressed & had a phone convo with my doctor about it, and she said that in an absence of spotting or a history of multiple miscarriage, there wasn't a need to check progesterone. That the lab value is a wide range for every woman, and that each pregnancy was different. She treats a LOT of PCOS patients, and has PCOS herself, and she is the first doctor who would work with me on finding a key to unlock my fertility after nearly 6 years (with the final 10 months of aggressively/actively trying)....so I trust her.

Looking forward, I'm of course nervous about the increased potential for gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, and all of the other lovely potential side effects that PCOS raises my risk levels for...but we're taking each day at a time, and considering every day that LittleBit hangs in there as a blessing. I'm anxious for the 1st trimester energy drain to decrease a bit, so I can back to lap swimming (right now I get in my 10,000 steps during my work day, and then go home & crash/sleep before making dinner. No gym energy whatsoever).

For any other low-carbers, I was given permission to step my carb level up through the first trimester (Goal: 80-120g, no more than 150g)...mainly because carbs are the only thing that are sitting in my stomach well at the current time. But starting with the 2nd & 3rd trimester, she wants me back down to no more than 80-100g total carbs. So if anyone has suggestions on low-carbing & beating cravings in pregnancy...I'd greatly appreciate them. lol Feel free to message me.

aSearch4Me wrote: »

Thank you for the positive energy, good thoughts, hopes & prayers...they are MUCH appreciated.

aSearch4Me wrote: »

aSearch4Me wrote: »

My backstory: I started this weight-loss journey in mid-May 2015, and so far have lost almost 45#. We've actively been trying to conceive for the past 6 months, and I was diagnosed with PCOS in July 2015. (but we hadn't been preventing potential pregnancy since 2010, i.e. no BC measures...does that make sense? We were hoping for a natural "yay, we're pregnant!" moment that never happened in those 5 years...).

I'm currently on Metformin 1000mg ER b.i.d, and supplementing with a complex b-vitamin, multi-vitamin, and 2 g. of myo-inositol b.i.d. I'm also on a reduced carb diet (max 80-90 g carb a day, but currently stepping down to a max of 40g/day, because my rate of weight loss is better at those levels).

This regimen regulated my periods within the first month, like-clockwork...it's amazing considering I typically had to induce a bleed every 3-4 months with progesterone before, and my prior doctors did nothing about trying to figure out why, but I never pushed to find out why either. My doctor was getting ready to start me on either Clomid or Femara in April after my next appointment, and we got this little happy surprise

Congratulations all around. Sending good thoughts up for the rest of the journey. @Alliwan and @TribalmamaEmily are the two I know who've done the low carb while pregnant thing. Oh, almost forgot @Baconslave. @Alliwan is the only one I know of those with PCOS, so I don't know if they others will see the message.

@Alliwan is currently pregnant in a moderate risk situation.

@TribalmamaEmily just had her latest baby in the last few months.

@Baconslave had GD with her last pregnancy (child is preschool-school age, if I remember right). Feel free to reach out if you want to any of these, @aSearch4Me, and you can tell them I suggested reaching out. There are a few others in the low carb group at varying levels of carbs while pregnant, so if you aren't already in that group, you might consider joining it. http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/394-low-carber-daily-forum-the-lcd-group

Best of luck!