All about me!

Never in a million years did I think I would be a blogger... but lately I've been feeling the need to speak out about the last 3 years of my life, so here goes! Let me start by telling you a little back story. Ari and I met 9 years ago on January 14th 2003 on Jdate (an online Jewish dating website). The day I met him, I knew he was the one. I know people may say it's not possible to know that soon, but I just knew! We were inseparable from that day, got engaged 3 years and 1 day later on January 15th 2006, and married 1 1/2 years after that on June 24th 2007. It was absolutely the happiest day of my life and I know Ari would say the same! At the time, I was attending full time grad school and we were living in Philadelphia and loving it! Things couldn't be any better! Until the fall of 2008 that is... As Ari likes to say, it all started with a sore throat...

In the fall of 2008, a little over a year after Ari and I got married, I started having some vocal issues. I'm a singer and was in cantorial school at the time, so my voice is sacred to me! After going to a very well known ENT in Philadelphia, it was determined that I had a cyst on my left vocal chord which was causing the hoarseness. In the process of all the testing, I had a scan done of my throat to make sure everything looked ok. From that test, they found a small bump on my thyroid gland and sent me to an endocrinologist to have it looked at. It was at that point that I told him my entire endocrine past.

Long story short: I have an underdeveloped pituitary gland. At the age of 7, I hadn't grown much since I was 3. My parents kept hoping I'd just be late bloomer, but I just wasn't growing so they took me to an endocrinologist at Yale New Haven hospital. They ran tons of test of me including a few MRI's, which I was NOT happy about as a 7 year old, and determined that there was some kind of growth covering my pituitary gland which didn't allow it to fully develop. They decided the best thing for me would be to go on growth hormones, which at that time were still experimental. My parents fought and fought to get them covered by insurance and won! I stayed on the growth hormones from 7-13, it was my decision to go off because I had enough. It was a shot in the butt every single night and I felt at the age of 13 that 5'2" was tall enough, and I have never regretted that decision! After that I went on with my life and my parents hoped I would develop normally. Well I did physically develop, but didn't get my period. While all my friends were getting their periods at the age of 13, 14, 15, 16... still nothing for me. So at the age of 16 I went on the birth control pill just so I would get my period. At one point they took me off, but nothing happened so I went back on. Now fast forward 12 years to the fall of 2008.

So we're sitting in the endocrinologist's office telling him this story and he asks "are you ever planning on having children?" Of course we were, but hadn't thought about it yet. I still had a year and a half of grad school left and wanted to get a full time job before thinking about a baby. I knew that would make me 30 years old, but that seemed fine to me. He made it very clear that it could take us years to get pregnant or to just figure out how to get me to ovulate and I wasn't getting any younger, so starting earlier would be a wise decision. We left the office very overwhelmed... what we thought was a visit for a small bump on my thyroid (which he said was no concern) turned into me thinking I would never be able to have a baby! Suddenly my vocal issues took a back seat and our focus shifted. We went home and talked a lot... we made the decision that I should just go off the pill and see what would happen.It didn't mean we were going to start "trying," just that we would wait and see what happened. So in January of 2009, I went off the pill. I was hopeful and thought  I just might get my period, I was 28 after all so maybe my body would regulate. Well, no such luck. I was off for the pill for about 4 weeks when the migraines started. What was happening, which I didn't realize until I saw a few other Dr's, was that my body was going through hormone withdrawal. For 19 years of my 28 years alive, I was dependent on hormones and now I had none. The headaches got progressively worse and I eventually went to see a neurologist. I could barely function at work, they were so debilitating! I still didn't realize it was hormone related. It wasn't until I posted something on facebook about having bad headaches and a friend who is an OBGYN suggested that was why. He knew a very good reproductive endocrinologist in Philadelphia and got us an appt with her. We went and met with her in April of 2009 and told her my whole story. She said "well of course it's hormone related!" She suggested we just start with some hormones to bring on my period, then go from there. So that's what we did. The hormones made me get my period and my headaches magically disappeared! She suggested we try again to see if I regulate normally, but no such luck. It was at that point that we decided to officially start "trying" with fertility drugs, but we were going to wait until the summer so I wouldn't be in school or working. I just continued to take the hormones monthly just so I would be regular, even if it wasn't natural. In July of 2009, we started simple with our first round of clomid and thus the journey of fertility drugs began! To be continued...