Oligomenorrhea: How I Got Here

Cycles since 2008

This post has a few TMI sections. You've been warned.

I say I have Oligomenorrhea but it is really just a symptom (like nausea), not an actual condition.  Under some definitions I'm even labeled under Amenorrhea.  I'm actually not labeled as any certain condition.  I've yet to have a doctor run enough tests to pinpoint my problem.   Sure I have mild PCOS but not enough for Metformin, and I have very few other symptoms.  Without BC, Provera or Clomid my cycles last 2 week to 7 months.  The days I bleed for can be 3 days to 3 weeks (but usually I'm around 4 days).

I wasn't always like this.  Hence why I am secondary, not primary.  I initially got my period when I was 11.  My mum was already gone by then.  At first I was embarrassed, I didn't wear any protection and thought I could "suck it up" back in me.

It sucks being a teenage without a mum.  My father didn't really know what to do with me so I was on my own most of the time.  I got teased one day in seventh grade for not shaving my legs yet.  So I came home and told my father that I wanted to shave them.  I heard I could do it with a regular razor blade (as in the ones that go in box cutters).  He allowed me to do it.   What a bloody mess!  Couple hours later I had only gotten the fronts and knees done (I wasn't sure if I was supposed to shave the backs).  There was blood running down my legs and I didn't wear shorts for a week after.  Lesson learned.

This wasn't the first time I tired I fixed something on my own.  My mum only left a few pads and I was too embarrassed to ask my father for more.  So I used rolled up toilet paper for years.  I guess I could say I didn't know any better.  Eventually I did get over my embarrassment.  I'm also really good at cutting my own hair, so good that now I'd rather cut it myself than go elsewhere.

Back to my story.  I used to have a regular period, much heavier and longer.  I was never able to pinpoint what day it was due, but I could at least know the week.  I was normal up until this point.  I had cramps (that I didn't know what they were at first.)  I had PMS the day before.  And I had hot flashes that would come on so quickly.  I'd end up on the tiled bathroom floor face down because I'd go from fine to burning up within seconds.  I was a normal teen.

After I turned 16 I missed a period.  No problem, I wasn't sexually active and I heard that sometimes happens when you're young.  I didn't think anything of it.  A couple months later I missed another, then a missed a couple in a row.  But I still didn't think anything of it and I kept being told I was young and it would fix itself.  That was a fucking lie.

The first time I saw an OBGYN was when I was 19.  I had no health insurance so it was just the local Planned Parenthood.  They did the basic Pap smear (this is when I learned I had dysplasia) and put me on birth control to fix my irregular periods and it's intended purpose.  Before they gave it to me I had to do a pregnancy test since I was already "late".  I told them over and over again this was normal.  I still had to drop my morning pee off in a yogurt container.  I freaked at the thought of this test, what if in some fucked up case I was actually PG?  But I wasn't and I got sent home with BCPs and that started my long history of side effects from them.

I spent years off and on BC trying to make my cycles regular.  But I could never stomach the side effects for too long and my period would go back to irregular soon after I stopped them.

This is how I got to where I am today.  Sometimes I even think if my mum was around she could have seen the problem sooner and it would have been fixed then.  Or maybe if I had health insurance I could have gone to a doctor.  I blame my mum the most though.  But you can't change the past, only the future.  I can't dwell on what could have been changed then.  No matter how much I want to change things I am not able to go back in time.  I can only change my future.  And my future is doctors appointments, fertility drugs and eventually adoption paperwork.  There is nothing I can do about it except suck it up and keep going.

If I even have a daughter she will never go through the things I have.  My children will be taken care of.

CD4, Clomid Day 3 (getting pissy, might want to ignore me this weekend)