Conceiving Naturally - Against the Odds - The Role of Hormones

If you're new to this blog and trying to conceive, I would encourage you to read the sections you missed, in order.

Series Intro
1. Prayer and Submission
2. Finding the Right Doctor
3. The Role of Hormones (you're on it!)

Sections to come:
4. Diet - Hers
5. Diet - His
6. Herbs, Extracts, and Supplements
7. Exercise
8. Chiropractic
9. Acupuncture
10. Massage
11. Timing: Ovulation Calculators, Ovulation Predictor Test Kits, and the Rhythm Method
12. The Fun in Trying :)

If you are trying to conceive naturally, and you have not had your hormone levels checked, it is time. 

I would also like to remind you that this is my own personal experience.  I am not a Doctor or Naturopath or Dietician.  I am just a girl.  A girl who's gone through PCOS and infertility, only to prove that it is indeed possible to not only get pregnant naturally, but to be cured of PCOS.  Medical websites will say, "although there is no cure for PCOS, there are effective treatments..."  This was unacceptable to me.

So, after step 1, and 2, I was told I had Polycystic Ovary Syndrome.  If you click PCOS, you can educate yourself on the array of wonderful things that 1 out of 15 women experience.  My Doc could tell me without an ultrasound that I had it, but I got one anyway.  The images showed my ovaries were irregularly shaped with what looked like a pearl necklace of cysts all the way around them, being worse on my left.  Interestingly, most of my aches and pains are worse on my left side.

She scratched over the surface of the remaining steps that I cover and will cover, which hey, most doctors wouldn't even touch.  She had to inform me that after all that, chances were I still wouldn't be able to get pregnant, and if by some chance I did, miscarriage was probable.  Of course, there were drugs which would "help" as well.  Oddly, I felt relieved.  I finally had some answers and a gentle reminder from God that He is the great physician.

Now that I was armed with the knowledge of what was happening in my body - that my hormones are way out of balance and I have PCOS - I threw myself into the VAST research that is balancing hormones.

My dear friend Jaime asked my once, "What in the world did we do before we had our babies?"  "We tried to have them," I said. 

The next section will cover diet.

Conceiving Naturally - Against the Odds - Intro

All I ever wanted to be when I grew up was a Mommy.  I remember in 3rd grade filling out one of those beginning-of-the-school-year-get-to-know-you pages and putting down "homemaker" in the blank after the question "What is Your Dream Job?"

I come from a long line of fertile myrtles.  I mean my great-grandmother's name is Myrtle for goodness sakes!  I always assumed I'd be the same and whenever I wanted - I'd pop out a baby.  Twas not so.

I only have my personal experience. God's timing in regards to Motherhood is different for all of us, so I can only share how TTCN (trying to conceive naturally) happened for me and my husband, Tim.

Soon after we married I was diagnosed with PCOS - Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome.  These are tiny cysts that appear as though there is a pearl necklace around your ovaries.  This stacks some major odds against conceiving naturally, and if you are lucky enough to get pregnant, now the odds are against carrying your pregnancy full-term.  Doctors say PCOS is incurable. 

Good News:  We were able to conceive naturally without the use of any drugs and I carried our daughter full-term.  It took 4 years of trying, but we have a daughter.  Healthy.  Thank you, God. 
More Good News:  The first ultrasound I had once pregnant showed my ovaries to be normal size and there was not a single cyst. 

Four Years.  That amounts to a lot of trying and hoping and waiting...rinse...repeat.  There is a VERY long list of steps we took to get to the point of a positive pregnancy test.

I won't be covering everything in one entry or I would never be finished.  So here is a little Table of Contents in the works:


1. Prayer and Submission
2. Finding the Right Doctor
3. The Role of Hormones
4. Diet - Hers
5. Diet - His
6. Herbs, Extracts, and Supplements
7. Exercise
8. Chiropractic
9. Acupuncture
10. Massage
11. Timing: Ovulation Calculators, Ovulation Predictor Test Kits, and the Rhythm Method
12. The Fun in Trying :)


I may take a break from the Conceiving Naturally series,  but all these parts will be covered in time.