Friday, April 13, 2007

Rant about "When are you going to have children?" question

Many people over the past year have asked me when we are going to have children. It is getting to the point that it really irritates me. I am going to explain why having children will not be that easy for Andy and me. I have two health conditions that will make conceiving a child and staying pregnant very complicated. The health conditions or rather diseases that I have are Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) and Compound Heterozygous Mthfr A1298 mutations and Factor VIII clotting factors (blood clotting issues).

I was diagnosed with PCOS in 2003. It is an endocrinal disorder that is linked to Insulin Resistance (pre-diabetic). The Insulin Resistance causes my ovaries to produce testosterone instead of estrogen which leads to lack of ovulation, excessive hair growth, acne, depression, excessive weight gain, diabetes, and many other symptoms which vary from woman to woman, hence the syndrome definition part of the disease. I have a combination of the symptoms. If I can't ovulate on my own, I will have to use fertility drugs which then put my body at risk for ovarian cancer (which there is already an increased risk of due to having PCOS) and our health insurance will not cover so its very expensive.

My clotting factors will make it difficult to carry a pregnancy to full-term once I have conceived. In order to maintain a pregnancy, I will have to give myself injections of heparin in the stomach so that I reduce the risk of miscarriage. The heparin should be covered by insurance. However, even with the heparin there is no guarantee that I will be able to get pregnant. It it happens, it happens. I just wish people would stop asking me because the added pressure to reproduce does not help me. I want a family more than anything, but that may or may not happen due to the above factors.