My name is Amy and my husband is Troy. I am 27 years old and Troy is 29. We live in a small town in southwest Indiana with our only dependent, Phoebe, our cat. We were married May 25, 1996 -- we just celebrated our fourth anniversary. I am a fifth grade teacher and Troy works with mentally challenged adults in group home settings. We both have a true passion for our careers.

Our quest to begin our family began a little over a year ago. We had such big dreams about starting our family. We were going to wait until we were secure in our jobs, secure with our money, and owned a home. We figured that once all of that was in place, a baby was sure to follow. Well, here we are, one year later, and still no baby. (And not financially secure -- but, who is!?!?!) We thought that we could get pregnant during the fall of my school year so that the baby would be due in the summer. What we didn’t take into consideration was the fact that this situation was utterly, and totally out of our control!

I stopped taking the pill in April of 1999. My GYN told me that it would take about one month for those hormones to leave my body and we should be pregnant before long. I waited and waited for my first AF to start after I stopped the pill. (I must add that I have never really had a problem with irregular periods until I stopped the pill. I took it for about 3 years.) AF finally reared her ugly head after waiting about 8 weeks. Each cycle after that was about the same length – six to eight weeks!

During this time, another dilemma arose -- my GYN quit his practice and I had to find another. Every GYN I called said, "If you’re not pregnant, we cannot take you." Finally I noticed a new doctor listed in the paper that was taking new patients. I called her immediately and she was able to get me in. She saw that my periods were not even close to being regular and she referred us to our RE. Our first appointment with him was in February of 2000.

Our time with our RE has been a giant roller-coaster ride. (I failed to mention earlier that DH also has an issue. He has a moderate-to-low count.) He diagnosed me right away with PCOS. I felt like such a failure at first because I knew that PCOS only meant doom and gloom -- that we were never going to conceive. I also felt like I had let down everyone, especially Troy.

The RE explained that PCOS does not make it impossible to conceive, just a little more work with medical treatment. They started me on 50 mg of Clomid. This did not work. I then went to 100 mg of Clomid. With a follicle ultrasound during the second cycle, they confirmed that I had two lead follicles, and things looked good. With that, we prepared for our first IUI. Troy’s count on that day was the highest they’d ever been -- he scored in the "high" category. (And boy, did he feel good!)

After waiting two weeks after the IUI, AF showed up. (I just "knew" that I was PG this time because I was having all of the classic symptoms -- but those symptoms also lead to a period!) I then went on to two more cycles of 150 mg Clomid. I did not produce any really good lead follicles, so an IUI would have been a waste of money. They sent us home to try on our own.

I had an HSG that did show a pretty good size blockage. My GYN was able to blow that right out of the way! She "warned" me that a lot of women are extremely fertile after this procedure… I WISH!!!!!

After seeing the RE this week, I am going on to injectables. I am pretty nervous about it, but the RE assures me that about one-fourth of his patients suffer from PCOS and he is quite successful with most of them.

I have complete faith that whatever it is that God has in His big picture will happen for each of us. We just have to keep looking for that last string of hope and hanging on to it to reach the next step. I always remember that we are never given anything that we can’t handle -- and our situation means that God considers us extra special, because He gave this to us and we CAN and will make it through!