Deactivated

This morning I did what I had been considering for a long time. Like ripping off a Band-Aid, I finally deactivated Facebook.

Yes, like virtually everyone else, I can say that Facebook is making me dumb. It's wasting my time, keeping me from doing things I could be doing that are way more productive, like exercising or getting my news from an actual newspaper rather than from my politically active friends' status updates. This is all true.

But the main reason I deactivated, which I will only share with those few of you who even know about the existence of this blog, is that I am tired of all the babies on Facebook. In keeping with my last post, I am tired of people's sonogram pictures as their profile pictures, updates about their babies' every moves in their status updates, complaints about being pregnant, and baby-belly photos of people who I frankly (in the worst part of myself) can't understand why they deserve to procreate and I do not.

So, if you used to be friends with me on Facebook and I no longer appear in your list of friends, never fear. I still like you, and my husband I are still married (though he is now simply listed as "married" instead of specifically married to me, a fact even he does not yet realize [that I will share with him after he wakes up from his nap]).

It's not that I'm not happy for my genuinely close friends and family who recently had babies or who are currently pregnant. I'm thrilled for them, and I want to share their happiness over email, over the phone and in person, and I do. I'm amazed by friends who had babies recently and then give up two straight hours to talk to me over the phone while their baby sleeps. But I really couldn't care less about the girl I vaguely know from work or from middle school who's about to pop one out. And such knowledge is simply not good for my psyche, nor is it good for my time management. Like one of my closest friends recently said to me over a tear-filled dinner, the problem with Facebook is that it's a place where your 300 "closest friends" post only the happy stuff about their lives -- their recent trips, new job offers or promotions, house purchases, pregnancies, births, dog adoptions, TV show and book recommendations, latest business ventures. No one posts about their most recent miscarriage, their impending divorce, their heart-breaking layoff. It gives us all a false sense that everyone else's lives are perfect and only our own contains stress and anxiety and disappointment.

So, goodbye Facebook. Maybe now I can, ironically, be surrounded by more positive energy than I ever was through everyone's overly positive status updates.

Self esteem

The thing I have the most of in my life is self esteem. I really like myself. I think I'm smart, and funny, and talented in many areas. I'm a good friend and wife. I also love my body. I love my figure and my hair and my eyes. According to one book I just read, with a BMI of 21 I have a "perfect" height-to-weight ratio which is also considered ideal for baby making.

Loving my body in particular puts me in the extreme minority of women. A 2003 survey by the Women's Channel of AOL found that only 4 percent of 45,000 women polled were happy with their looks.

In the last two weeks, though, since being diagnosed with PCOS, and in the months leading up to my diagnosis when I suspected a problem, I've started to dislike my body from an internal perspective. On the outside, I still look the same. I'm happy with everything I see in the mirror, including the little bit of jiggle I see on my thighs and butt (where I tend to carry my weight). On the inside, I feel like my body isn't doing what it's supposed to do.

These recent feelings seem very un-PC and very 1950s housewife of me. All my life I've been an exceptionally strong woman. I've scoffed at people who've told me I need to learn to cook for my husband. I've been (and continue to be) staunchly pro-choice, believing that no one should be able to tell me or any other women what to do with our bodies. Yet at this moment when what I am completely ready for in life is a baby, I feel like my body is failing me.

After reading my ever-going-pile of books, I know I am not alone in these feelings. Still, it is a blow to my ego, which up until this point has been stronger than probably any other woman's in history, besides maybe Cleopatra. Even when my parents virtually disowned me and refused to attend my wedding, I knew it didn't matter and I brushed it off and moved on. This latest problem, though, is not so easy to brush off.

One of my good friends just told me that when she thinks of me, she thinks of a strong woman who just attacks whatever problem is in front of her. She even envisioned me giving myself hormone injections, shouting at the top of my lungs, fists clenched, "BRING IT ON!" Yes, to some extent, that is true of me, but at this moment I'm not quite there.

At this moment, though, I am in the process of formulating my plan of attack, which is getting further solidified each day and which I will share with you shortly. For the time being, though, I am trying to remember these words contained in chapter 7 of the book PCOS and Your Fertility titled "Riding the PCOS Emotional Roller Coaster...":

An assertive woman knows what she wants, respects her own wishes, believes she can make things happen -- and does, isn't afraid to say no or take a chance, accepts responsibility for her actions, expresses her true feeling, and respects and values the feelings of others. Above all, she values herself.

This quotation describes me to a T. Just because I now have the PCOS label for my condition does not mean I need to suddenly change my personality. This is something I need to remember each day as I move forward.

Finding a friend

If up to one out of 10 women has PCOS, then I have to know some women who have it, right? Obviously I do, but how to find out? Well, I have officially found that friend because I recalled her trouble conceiving and that her symptoms were similar to mine. Turns out, I was right.

Although this is a time where I realize this isn't exactly something to celebrate as I wouldn't wish PCOS on anyone -- except maybe an enemy? Am I going to hell for that? -- it is comforting to know someone else who has been through this. Even if it's just one person.

As a seasoned veteran of the PCOS world, my friend has already shared a little bit of positive information with me. I already knew that she managed to get pregnant, but what I didn't really know is how. She also has a couple friends with PCOS, and each of them has two children. Each of these three women with PCOS got pregnant in different ways: Metformin, Fermara (a breast cancer drug that can actually help women with PCOS ovulate), herb supplements and acupuncture, and IVF. Not one of  the three ever got pregnant on Clomid. This is of particular interest seeing as this is the solution my doctor immediately offered.

My friend said her friends recommended she read The Fertility Diet. She said she never got around to it because she just happened to get pregnant, somewhat miraculously and unexpectedly. Oddly enough, by the time my friend told me about The Fertility Diet recommendation I was already partway through the book. It's one of the two books I picked up this weekend at the library.

I am hoping to learn a lot more details from my friend in the near future. In the meantime, I've finished reading A Patient's Guide to PCOS: Understanding and Reversing Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, I am blazing through The Fertility Diet and I am awaiting the arrival of my other book PCOS and Your Fertility. Once I'm done with this reading, I'll post some book reviews, and I hope I'll be one step closer to figuring out what I should do. Right now I don't feel much of a sense of urgency because I'm on CD 23 with no sign of ovulation in sight, and I know that if I decide to go on a medication I can't start it until I get my next period, which probably won't happen until early April.

At least while I wait I know one person who's been down this road and who I can seek out for support.

Moment of irony

A couple days ago I needed to order a new baby gate to keep our dogs contained inside our house while we're away. This is, of course, ironic that I need to make this purchase the same week I find out I've been diagnosed with a disorder that will make it much more difficult (if not impossible) to get pregnant.

This simple fact would be sadly hilarious enough on its own. It's even more ridiculous, though, that I went ahead and added to the Amazon order the PCOS fertility book I've been unsuccessful at finding in local bookstores and at our local library. (You know, take advantage of free shipping.)

So, my finished order looked like this:

Good thing I still have my sense of humor.