So THAT'S why

Warning: TMI alert. If female issues freak you out, don't read any further.

I've always had irregular periods. (Outside of the 15+ years I was on the pill, anyway.) Sometimes they'd be relatively normal, 4-5 weeks apart, and sometimes I'd go two or three months at a time without one. And I never had any warning they were coming--I don't have PMS, or cramps, or bloating. Not that I'm complaining about that, mind you, and it's not like I wanted more periods. But from mid-August of last year to mid-January this year, I didn't have one period.

So I figured I should probably have that looked at. I went off the pill last February, figuring it'd take my body awhile to cycle back to normal. My husband and I are trying to get pregnant, with a lower-case t. We'd like to get pregnant, but I'm not freaking out about it or anything. However, it's hard to get pregnant when you have NO IDEA when you might be ovulating, and even harder when you don't ovulate at all (as in, five months without a period).

My gynecologist informs me that I have polycystic ovarian syndrome, which means I don't really ovulate. It's a hormonal imbalance, nothing serious--the first step is to take a drug that will correct the hormonal imbalance, and see if that gets me regular periods/ovulation. If not, the next step is fertility drugs (which I'd really like to avoid, for a number of reasons. The primary one being that with this syndrome, my chance of having multiple babies would skyrocket to 15%, and twins already run in the family. And it's been my experience that if a doctor tells me there's a 5% chance of something happening, it will happen to me. Thus I'd be virtually guaranteed to have twins or triplets. Or more. No thank you.) None of this surprises me; I figured I was hormonally out of whack anyway, since I never got PMS.

But you know what? If it turns out I can't get pregnant, I won't be completely heartbroken. Don't get me wrong, I'd be a little heartbroken. I'd like to start my own family with my husband. But I don't feel the maternal call strongly enough to pour tens of thousands of dollars into fertility treatments or IVF or whatever, which we can't afford anyway, and I can think of excellent uses for all the income not having kids would free up (like travel, and plus we'd be able to travel), and I like my boobs the way they are, and my stepson will be a teenager soon and I don't relish the thought of parenting an infant and a teenager at the same time.

Still, I'd like to start my own family with my husband.

Obviously, I'll keep you posted. And hey, if nothing else works, I'll put on a cheerleading uniform and we'll do it in the backseat of an old Camaro after a football game. Then I'll be guaranteed to get knocked up.