2. Early Days

Please let me emphasise that my situation is not the norm.  Most people (but certainly not all) who are trying for a baby, are having periods of some description.  I was having none.  This was because, even as someone who was making some progress out of anorexia, I still was severely under-nourished and when I did eat, man, did I exercise.

I digress, because this is not a blog about anorexia – although I could definitely write a tome on that.  The point is, I had no periods, and I didn’t really think that mattered and that somehow it would all come together.

Off I trotted to a Fertility Clinic, determined to make my way as an independent woman, without partner.  When I look back now, I let out a little laugh at the bubble of naivety I was living in (or perhaps delusion is more accurate).

However, naïve/deluded as I was, luck was on my side the day I first walked into that clinic.  The doctor was a straight-talking, no-nonsense sort of a human who pulled me back into reality without completely dashing my hopes.  He didn’t mess around.  He was here to help; but he wasn’t about to let me throw money at pointless procedures and I admired that.

He asked me when my last period was. I couldn’t answer.  (I’m thinking to myself, I have no clue … maybe 9 years ago!?!).  At that time, I couldn’t even imagine saying that out loud, I hadn’t really ever accepted it myself let alone spoke my truth aloud. I gave some vague, non-committal answer that I couldn’t really remember as they weren’t regular.   

He told me that a look at my hormone profile would give me a good sense of what was going on. 

Oh dear!!

Here it was, a hundred truths coming at me, the full force of what I had done to my body was about to be revealed through these blood tests. 

Although I should say, even as delusional as I was, I was vaguely aware that egg donation or embryo donation was likely to ultimately be my only chance. 

SPOILER ALERT - it wasn’t.

The hormone profile basically showed that my body had shut down, it was devoid of pretty much all of the necessary hormones to run a healthy reproductive system.  I never asked for a copy of the results (at the time I was too ashamed to know the truth).

Cutting a verrrry long story short – the doctor eventually sent me to a colleague of his, a specialist consultant who dealt with menopause and pituitary issues – she told me that she didn’t think I was in early menopause just yet.  She suggested medication that would generate a cycle; it would not be a “natural” cycle but it would recommence a monthly rhythm.

Well … wow…I went from nought to one hundred in an instant. At this stage, and presumably because my body have been deprived of anything resembling hormones in quite some time, the side effects were REAL. My face inflated like a little round balloon, and the sweats…oh the sweats.  However, all that aside…. I started having periods again. They were heavy bleeds but hey, it was blood.

These were not “real” periods insofar as they were generated by the tablets, however, I was in a monthly cycle again. It felt strangely wonderful and even though there were side effects, I somehow felt closer to achieving my goal. I would do a little period-dance every time I felt the blood running out of me.

However, after a few months of taking these magical period-inducing pills, the side effects were intense and ramping up.  Night sweating – sheets completely soaked to the point of having to change them in the middle of the night and nightclothes, drenched to the point I could wring them out.  I am a small human; this was a lot of water.   

Initially the anxiety wasn’t obvious to me, I seemed to just be irritated more easily. However, as time went on, I was lying in bed, replaying the day, tossing over thoughts in my mind, unable to sleep, re-living the day worrying about every little decision made.  This gradually got worse and before I knew it, I was a shaking mess, previously confident and outgoing reduced to paranoia and angst.  I felt 13 all over again.

Enough was enough. I had to come off the tablets.  Despite the benefits that I could feel and the sheer joy of bleeding monthly again, the side effects were too much for me.

The Consultant had told me that when the time came to stop them, that I would wean myself off them slowly.  Well, I couldn’t handle a single tablet more and so it was cold turkey for me and I stopped them.  I feel it is really important to say that this is not the universal effect of hormone replacement and I and many women I know have used these to their benefit without a single side-effect referenced above. It really is horses for courses and every body reacts in its own way. (Please, always consult your own medical practitioner and steer your own course based on what is right for you. The above is a description of my own unique experience and was no doubt exacerbated by my underlying conditions)

I felt so defeated.  I couldn’t even stick the preliminaries of treatment, how was I ever going to make this baby happen. I was still an emotional wreck and catastrophized myself into a shaking, tearful mess who was mourning the loss of a baby that I had not had.

I thought about it constantly, every night, every morning – I would lie in hours of insomnia googling every single question that came into my head: “adoption”, “pituitary issues”, “early menopause”, “adrenal failure”, “Hashimoto’s”, “diet for a healthy body”, “how to induce periods after anorexia”…honestly, that short list doesn’t even touch the sides of all the reading and the many, MANY wormholes I found myself in at 4am.

Given that I had stopped the magic hormone tablets, I expected the lovely periods that I had been having to stop.

They faded, sure. Getting lighter and shorter and shorter and lighter which made me descend deeper into sadness as I kept expecting the next small bleed to be my last and with it, any vague hope of conception was evaporating. I had forgotten my previous understanding that egg donation might work, or that embryo donation, adoption or fostering all remained options. I was in a spiral.

I was convinced that the periods would simply stop.  I was still pretty skinny, still exercising, although I was eating better, trying to improve myself. 

Reader, they didn’t stop. Every month I kept thinking, this will be the last one, okay next one, that will definitely be the last one… I was very morbid about the whole thing, waiting and waiting for the end… except it didn’t come.  The periods did go from perfect 28-day cycles, with 5 days of bleeding to 21-day cycles with about 2 days of bleeding/staining.  However, weaker and lighter as they were, they stayed.

I. Could. Not. Believe. It.

Simultaneously, one of the things that happened was that I was referred to a Consultant Endocrinologist for secondary hypothyroidism.  When I first met her, she explained that my body wasn’t making a certain thyroid hormone which left my body deficient. She told me the only answer was medication and that I would be on it for life.  She explained this medication wouldn’t educate my body to create it, but would replace it and therefore my body wouldn’t make any of it.

I was slightly torn.  I didn’t like the idea of permanent medication. It is not that I am anti-medication, but I like to think of it as a last resort.  I told her about the anorexia, that I was fighting to find my way out of it and whether it was possible that my body had shut down but could be revived.  She told me this was unlikely but was willing to have a go.  She was going to review me in 3 months and if there had been no change, I agreed to start the medication.

I went home and googled alternative medications for hypothyroidism.  Trust me when I tell you I am such a Googler.  Boy did I dedicate myself to this. I searched every combination of search terms; “Hypothyroidism” “natural remedies for hypothyroidism” “cure for hypothyroidism” “natural remedies” “pituitary issues” “cure for thyroid issues, natural” “solving hypothyroidism without medication” – you name it, I googled it.  I read every day, every night, every toilet trip, every waiting room, every train journey, every moment I had, I read more and more, googled more and more.  The thing that came up time and time again was “acupuncture”.  I’d heard of it, sure.  But what did it really involve, and more importantly did it work?? Was it not all a bit of ‘hocus pocus’?

One of my friends was Chinese.  He raved about traditional Chinese medicines, how they used the body’s own mechanisms to heal. I mean it sounded good, but did it work, would it work for me? What did I have to lose?

There was a TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) Practitioner about an hour's drive away.  She was also qualified as a medical doctor in the UK and in China, but she practiced acupuncture.  I told her everything; the motherhood dream, the hormones, the periods and the hypothyroidism. The premise of Chinese acupuncture is based on how energy flows around your body. If the energy flow or "qi" is unbalanced, it can cause the body (and/or mind) to become unwell. The aim was to rebalance the yin and yang. Dr F told me she thought she could help me.  I started to go once a week.  Each visit she would start by examining my eyes, my tongue, my pulse (and she explained to me when taking my pulse, she was feeling the flow of blood, not just the beat, it was remarkable). 

She began to work on my body as a whole and when my body was in better shape, she would help with the fertility aspect. She also told me straightforwardly that my body wasn’t ready for a baby, it was barely managing periods, for goodness sake. I had to laugh at that, as the sense of it was so obvious when said out loud.

Dr F explained to me the importance of fuelling your body and the importance of what I put in.  Protein was essential (and this should come from eggs, plants and white meat) and definitely no alcohol! She educated me on how resilient the body is and how it will deplete the reserve tank to the very last drop before it starts to fail repeatedly, how it shuts down various functions in order to continue operating on minimum fuel.  She was a formidable woman who probably saved my life.

My acu sessions were supposed to be one hour. I usually fell asleep within the first ten minutes and Dr F would let me sleep for anything up to two hours.  This was revolutionary for my body, it was drinking up these sessions, relishing the sleep and the magic these needles were working.  The process was easy. I stripped to my underwear and lay on a bed.  The Doctor would put very thin needles at various points all over my body; my forehead, chin, nose, my stomach, legs and feet. She would then place baskets around my body like little barriers to protect the needles over which she would then rest some blankets. This meant that the blankets were resting on the baskets and did not touch or disturb the needles (and that I was warm underneath).

The needles were strange, not sore, but sometimes you felt an odd sensation when one went in and at the beginning it felt like a little buzz of electricity.  Sometimes she would turn or twist the needles when she first put them in, this sounds like it would be horrendously sore but it really wasn't sore at all. It really is a unique experience, but I felt the benefits so instantly.  I was usually asleep within minutes of the last needle going in. From time to time, when Dr F deemed it necessary, she also put little suction jars on my back (which leave small superficial red marks when first removed). The cups were usually when I had a cold or throat infection; I have never had a cold leave me quicker.  These were amazing too.

As Baz Luhrmann recommends sunscreen, I recommend acupuncture.  It is incredible. 

Months in, Dr F told me that she thought I was in fact ovulating. At this time, I was blissfully unaware of how to test for ovulation.  She told me that my body was nowhere near ready to reproduce but she was focusing on healing the decade of damage I had done to myself.  I was totally engaged.  She knew exactly what to do.  Every week I went to her clinic (a little terrace house) and she put the needles in and then let me sleep.  I’m such a paranoid weirdo, I am not someone who could normally nap anywhere other than my own bed, but there I was sleeping like a baby in a stranger’s clinic. 

Three months later, I was reviewed again at the Endocrinologist (for hypothyroidism).  She was impressed. She told me that the levels were still low but had improved, she gave me another 3 months.  By that time, the levels had improved again.  She was surprised.  The levels were still low and there was plenty of work to be done, but slowly moving out of anorexia and the advice from Dr F in respect of looking after my body did seem to be helping. I should stress, this improvement was a combination of factors, my body was (very slowly) beginning to heal from the deprivation it had been subjected to; I was eating, I was sleeping, I was taking vitamins and I wasn’t. I was no longer starving myself to death.

I visited Dr F for acupuncture for over two years on and off. This was not cheap; I saved every penny and also reduced my visits to once a month after a while. I would also take breaks in treatment and then re-commence. Dr F eventually started to work on my fertility.  I also took Chinese herbs as a compliment to the treatment. Over time, my periods became more regular - 21-day cycles stretched to 28 days, 3-day cycles increased to 6 days and the flow changed from brown staining to more steady bleeding without clots. Dr F told me that I should use pads rather than tampons so that I could observe the bleeding and understand more about the flow of my period. I followed all her instructions. To this day, I credit her with the improvement my body made and the babies my body eventually carried (more on this later!).  She was an amazing woman.

Summary: I really recommend acupuncture for fertility (and any other issues).