****WARNING**** Super long and somewhat detailed post.
Hi There!
I am Charle. I will be honest, I have tried to start a blog multiple times and always forget to post often and usually just bag the idea after its been a couple of weeks since my last post. But this time, I decided that I was going to post when I can/want and not worry about posting frequently or not. I have struggled with my weight the past 10 years and I have decided the best thing for me to lose the weight and keep it off is to have somewhere to release my frustrations, brag about my milestones, share my goals/pictures and simply just be held accountable. If I get readers than great, if I don’t then oh well. This blog will give me an extra reason to work out and eat healthy….it will give me a reason to post. Anyways, if you haven’t guessed it, this blog is going to mainly be about my weight loss journey but I will be sharing lots of other things along the way.
Let’s start with fully introducing myself and letting you know about mwah!
Like I said before, I am Charle. We currently live in Northern Arizona. We are originally from Utah. Both my husband and I grew up in small town Utah. I met my husband when I was 18 years old. He swept me off my feet instantly….well not instantly but rather bore you with the sappy stuff we will just say that…lol. We married a year later and have been married for 10 years this April. We have 1 little girl, we call her Mak. I have struggled with my weight since right before we got married. Right before we got married, I visited my family doctor who prescribed me birth control. Within a couple of months I had gained quite a bit of weight and wasn’t feeling right so I decided to get off the birth control and chance getting pregnant. Within another two months from getting off birth control, I gained even more weight bringing the total weight gain to approximately 40 lbs. I seriously went from a size 36 barely B bra size to a whopping 38 DD in 4 months. It was ridiculous and I was super depressed. Needless to say I have struggled since then. I started to workout more than I had been and nothing seemed to be coming off. I have always been an athletic person and now that I was trying to get back into the swing of things, my athleticism was not helping me out. So I got more depressed about my weight and just gave up completely. Within two years of our marriage, I had reached my max weight of 216 lbs. That may not seem like a lot to some but for me, it was ginormous. When I met my husband I was 145 lbs of toned, athletic awesomeness. And when I stepped on the scale over two years later and it read 216 lbs, you could only imagine what emotions I went through. So again, I tried to eat better and workout but nothing seemed to be working. Another year went by….I was not only struggling with weight gain, but I was also struggling with missed periods, fatigue, etc. I had been avoiding the doctor because I knew what they would say…Lose Weight… but I decided after not having a period in almost 6 months, I should go get checked out and get things under control for when we did decide to start our family.
I met with a family doctor who had me get some blood work done and also completed and HSG (Hysteroalpingogram) test. A HSG test is when they shoot dye into your uterine cavity through the vagina and cervix. The dye goes through your cervix and up through your uterus and Fallopian tubes and drains out. This test is primarily done to see if there is a blockage in the Fallopian tubes or if you have a misshapen uterus. My scan came back perfectly clear. I had told the doctor all of my symptoms which included, missed periods, weight gain, difficulty losing the weight and terrible acne. When he received my blood work back, he noticed that my testosterone (yes I know I am a women and testosterone belongs in men, but women have a little of it too) was slightly elevated. He decided after his tests and my symptoms that he was going to diagnose me with PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome). PCOS is a hormonal disorder common in women of reproductive age. Women with PCOS frequently have prolonged or missed periods, weight gain, trouble losing weight, elevated levels of the male hormone and a slight collection of fluid follicles aka cysts in their ovaries. Although, they are not sure what causes PCOS, they know the signs to look for and what happens to most women with PCOS. Those who have PCOS may or may not have elevated insulin levels, low-grade inflammation and elevated male hormone. After his diagnosis, he prescribed me Metformin (This oral medication for type 2 diabetes improves insulin resistance and lowers insulin levels) and advised me to lose 10% of my weight. After a few months of taking Metformin and trying my hardest to lose a little bit of weight, I was unsuccessful. I was still bummed about everything and felt like nothing was working so I stopped taking the medication and just gave up…again. I just dealt with it and figured this was the way I am going to be forever and nothing is going to change it….Can we say PITTY PARTY.
Year 5 of marriage.
Let’s jump ahead a little over a year after this said pitty party. I was at work one day and was having hot flashes galore, cramping and just didn’t feel normal. I hadn’t had a period in about 6 months and I wasn’t pregnant. My friend decided she wanted to help me out and scheduled me an appointment with her uncle who was a family doctor. Even though I didn’t want to go because I knew the answers, I went to make her happy. He, like the other doctor a few years prior, had a blood panel drawn and he also reviewed the results from the HSG that I had done with the other doctor as well. Once we received the panel back he confirmed again that my testosterone was low and that it was a hormonal imbalance. He was completely honest with me and said that he had no knowledge of this in detail and referred me to a OBGYN Specialist. Although I was grateful he saw me and explained what he thought was best, I was super scared to go see the specialist. It meant that something was wrong and that something wasn’t going to be as easy as I hoped it would be to fix. So again, I put off scheduling an appointment with the specialist because I was scared.
Flash forward 2 months and I finally found the courage to make the appointment. I met with Dr. Stanton Bailey in Nephi, UT at Verde Valley Medical Center. We did another blood panel and he reviewed all my past records. He informed me he had faith that we would be able to conceive but did state that it might take some time. He listed out his course of action of what he could do to help me before he had to send me off to an endocrinologist. I didn’t want to have to go anywhere else so I promised him and myself that I would follow what I needed to as good as I could to make it work. He stated that he wasn’t totally convinced I had PCOS but he was still going to go along the lines of the same diagnosis. He also stated before he sent me off to see someone else, he would perform a Laporoscopy to see if there was anything on the outside of the uterus that could be causing issues with me getting pregnant. So he prescribed me Prometrium as well as 50mg Clomid. Prometrium is a medication that is similar to the progesterone that your body naturally makes and is given to replace the hormone when your body isn’t making enough of it. This medication is used to help restore menstrual periods. Clomid (Clomiphene Citrate) is used to treat infertility in women. It works by stimulating an increase in the amount of hormones that support the growth and release of a mature egg (ovulation). I started the next day. I took Prometrium for 10 days and on the 10th day or shortly after, I should have a period. It worked and I did in fact start my period. It was probably one of the worst ones that I had ever had. Everything that was stored in there for the past 6 months was getting flushed. Sorry that was too much information but ya. On day 5 of my cycle, I started taking clomid. I took clomid for 5 days and as the doctor prescribed, we tried every other day from day 10 to-day 20 of my cycle. First month of this regimen didn’t work but I kept my head high and my hopes even higher. Again, I repeated this regimen for the 2nd month and again got a cycle. Second month of this regimen didn’t work again. Head kept high and hopes not quite as high as before but still up there. I decided that I would try to make another effort to losing some weight in hopes that it would aid with the medication to work. I stopped drinking soda or any sugary drink cold turkey. I had headaches for a good two weeks before they finally let up. I also worked out 6 days a week for at least 30 minutes.
For the third month, my cycle came on its own so I didn’t have to use the prometrium but took clomid the same way. Again, 3rd month didn’t work. Total weight loss = 4 lbs. My hopes had dropped as well as my head. I remember at my doctor appointment, he had said that we could up the dosage of clomid to see if that would help make the chance of ovulating even more. So I called my doctor’s office, explained everything and got the confirmation that prescription would be changed. Month 4 at 100 MG led to another failure. I was currently on my fathers insurance at the time and his deductible resets every July instead of January like most insurances. Anyways, we had met the deductible and I remember the doctor saying something about a Laporoscopy being done to see if there was something on the outside of my uterus causing the problems. So I called my doctor and asked if we could do the Laperoscopy before my deductible reset and before we got further into this medication stuff. He agreed and we scheduled the surgery for the end of June. Total weightloss before surgery = 12 lbs.
It was a good thing we did the procedure because he ended up finding scar tissue that was attaching my ovaries to the outside of my uterine wall and basically upside down which obviously wasn’t helping me ovulate. He removed the scar tissue and informed me to continue with the Clomid. First month after surgery = no pregnancy. Total weight loss = 16 lbs.
I was fine with that because I figured my body was still trying to correct itself from the surgery. A week before my period was scheduled to arrive, I had extreme cramping. I had never cramped in my life before a cycle and this cramping was extreme. I could barely stand up straight without crumpling down in pain. I didn’t know what was going on but I didn’t want to complain so much that the hubs would want me to go into the doctor. Flash forward to the day my cycle was scheduled to arrive. Nothing, no signs of my cycle at all. But still cramping like crazy. Flash forward to what should have been Day 4 of my period, still cramping but sore boobs and bright NEON yellow urine. I decided I was going to take a pregnancy test because this had never happened to me before.
Total weight loss = 18 lbs in 22 weeks.
Day 6 5:30 a.m.:
We got a positive. In fact, we got three. I was so excited. After all the struggling with weight and medication, we were finally pregnant.
We had our baby girl on May 27th, 2015. She was everything we could have dreamed of and more.
Flash forward (I obviously like using this) two and a half years. I am still struggling with my weight and the infertility. But that is for another story. Sorry for the long novel of my life and my introduction but I thought I would share so you guys all knew were I was coming from and what I was struggling with. If I didn’t bore you with that novel, I hope you continue to follow my journey with weight loss and infertility.
XOXO
Charle
Advertisements Share this:- More
