New Patient Story

I have struggled with my weight my whole life. Always overweight and struggled to keep it under control. As a child I was super involved with soccer almost all year and still remained heavier than my peers. I played the yoyo game with my weight trying to get healthier. All the fad diets and whatnot. As my husband and I began to try to have children I pushed to find out why I wasn't getting pregnant after almost 5 years of trying. After my PCP sent me out to see an OB and a bunch of ultrasounds, I was diagnosed with PCOS. Great I have a name for our problem, now what? Through this we also had my husband tested to see if there was a problem from his side as well. Behold, we had problems on both sides and were told that IVF was likely our only option. I looked into it briefly and was flabbergasted to see Washington averaged around 25K for a round of IVF. That was just NOT in our realm of possibility. I moved forward with my PCP about trying to manage my weight and get healthier, trying to get my hormones to level out. My husband tried fertility treatments and it didn't improve anything plus caused him to gain a large amount of weight. We decided to discontinue those treatments since they weren't helping and started working on getting us both in better shape. 6 months later I had lost around 45lbs and my husband about 50lbs. My cycles had gotten to be like clockwork and we were both feeling great. The beginning of November 2021 amongst the craziness of covid I woke up nauseous and puked. Thinking maybe I had finally gotten the plague I called out sick from work and putzed around the house. Later that day I realized that my period was 2 days late. This didn't use to be unusual but now was unheard of. I was on a medication that I couldn't take while pregnant so I grabbed the test I had while my husband slept (he worked nights). It was expired but I thought might as well try it. It came back blatantly positive, but could I trust it being expired? I ran to Target and bought 6 more tests... yes I know that seems excessive but when you've been trying to get pregnant for so long and you have taken hundreds of tests you need some reassurance. So came home and peed on my stick, it was still showing two bright lines. Sent a message to my PCP about stopping my medication and asked for confirmation blood draw. The next day I went shopping with my mom and told her. - STILL hadn't told my husband because I wanted to do something special. I bought a couple onesies and an outfit put it in a baby Yoda bag with a test. I recorded it, he was confused and cried. LOVED IT. Pregnancy came with its own complications of gestational diabetes complicated by the insulin resistance of PCOS. I ended up gaining around 60lbs with pregnancy and then at 37 weeks I went in for my check-up and my blood pressure was high. Sent to the hospital for a non-stress test and my blood pressures remained high. Late onset pre-eclampsia! Woo me. After I gave birth and peed off all the extra fluid, I was back down to about 10lbs over prebaby weight. With my insulin resistance I quickly gained weight while breastfeeding. Back up weighing more than I had ever been before pregnancy, and my kiddo almost 2 I decided to seek help from my PCP again in managing my weight. Choosing to ween my son earlier than I had planned to get myself in better health to be able to care for my son for the longest time possible was not easy. I had wanted to try the new medications approved for weight loss, but after weeks of waiting my insurance denied it. I am back on the medication that is short term but isn't a long term solution. The weight is slowly coming off with the medication and a major change in my diet yet again. This is where I am on my journey but hopefully isn't the end!