Big Guy and I are really lucky.  Yes, I have PCOS and that isn’t so lucky.  That means that my body is challenged to produce a happy, healthy egg on a regular basis.  (Psyche! Did you think I was going to say baby? Ha. We aren’t there yet.) Without producing a happy, healthy egg, we can’t get pregnant.  However, my body does do a good job within its limitations.

Before the Met, I would ovulate every 35-40 days for 2-5 cycles, and then my body would take a 2-6 month breather.  Phew! Ovulation is hard work.  I’ve been tested for insulin resistance on a number of occasions and I always past the test.  However, my paternal grandmother had diabetes, and I believe that I have  inherited some form of insulin resistance.  I believe this is why Met works for me.  (With that said, I do not want to imply that this drug always and only works for PCOSers that are insulin resistant.  Metformin does not work for all women with PCOS, nor have I been unable to find medical research that explores the efficacy of the drug within the PCOS population.)

I also don’t want to paint Met out to be a miracle drug.  The Met is a nasty and pernicious drug, and most women I know react strongly to it.  I react strongly to it.  The Met exacerbates my pre-existing (self-diagnosed) IBS, and while on the Met I am guaranteed to have diarrhea 1-10 times a day, nearly every day. I react the same to both the regular Met and the extended release Met.

I like to to think of my IBS as preconditioning for Metformin.

Post-Met, I ovulate every 32-35 days on CD 18-22.  This makes it really easy to time intercourse.  I also have a great luteal phase, which allows the little guy lots of time to embed into my uterus.  I know lots of women with PCOS that aren’t this lucky, and I really, really feel for them.  I wish we all could take a magic pill and produce a happy egg on a regular basis.  Take that PCOS!

Because I ovulate, we are really lucky.

We are also really lucky because Big Guy has an Olympic caliber swim team.  I don’t have the lab results in front of me, so I can’t reference the actual numbers.  However, if you can recall a typical table with lab results, most reference the “normal range”.  I assume this is two standard deviations from the mean – or approximately 95% of the population.  All I can say is that his numbers were about 25% higher than the high end of the average range.  I’m not even kidding. Big Guy has an Olympic caliber swim team.

Just today I commented to  Big Guy that I wish I were a graphic design artist so I could come up with a fabulous digital image of super sperm.  My super sperm wear 70′s era workout clothing, they generally look exceedingly cheerful, they have skinny arms, they always have a great time, and they appear to love each other very much.  Without describing my idea of a swim team, Big guy promptly drew his champion swimmer.  Here he is:

Wow.

Apparently, my husband has pervie, 80′s rock star, meat head sperm. In case you can’t read the tattoo, it says “IMPLANT” and “ATION.”

We also happen to have the Jerzathon on MTV.  Don’t judge us.  We are grieving. The aforementioned Champion bears a striking resemblance to Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, don’t you think?