\u201cWe have your bloods back from the lab, Mrs…er…Walsh,\u201d said the consultant at St Bart’s Hospital, London, looking up from his stack of papers and pushing his varifocals back up on the bridge of his nose. \u201cThe results are…extremely high.\u201d<\/p>\n

I beamed. \u201cOh great!\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019d always been a reasonably studious schoolkid (I was in the A-stream at grammar school, dontcha know), so I\u2019d come to expect no less than top marks from my body as well as my brain. Despite my loud Kentish accent, fair hair and six-foot stature, I’m no dumb blonde. So when the fertility doctor sat back in his swivel chair with a deep sigh and a furrowed brow, I was a little taken aback.<\/p>\n

\u201cActually, it\u2019s not great. Not great at all. A high FSH – that\u2019s follicle stimulating hormone\u00a0<\/strong><\/a><\/span>– test result is an indicator that your ovaries aren\u2019t working as we\u2019d expect for a woman of your age. We want a lower<\/em>\u00a0result. Imagine a car\u2019s engine: you want it to purr along effortlessly, low revs. With your engine you\u2019ve got your foot pressed hard on the accelerator, revving away…but you\u2019re not getting anywhere….\u201d<\/p>\n

Oh<\/em>.<\/p>\n

That was near the start of my IVF journey, back in 2009, and was the shape of things to come: one disappointment after another; tiny victories followed by crashing, crushing, blows. My previous track record of good scores and good health were eradicated within months. Instead of High Achiever I now had a new, less impressive label on my records: Poor Responder<\/a><\/span>.<\/strong> This less-than-desirable accolade is awarded to those who, like myself, have not responded as expected to the prescribed protocol.<\/p>\n

The drugs, put simply, didn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n

Oh they did do something<\/em>: mood swings, hot sweats, nosebleeds in the middle of the night. But my ovaries remained stubbornly, resolutely unresponsive. The doctors increased the drug dosages incrementally, reminiscent of an executioner turning up the voltage on an electric chair and standing back, waiting for the convict’s eyes to bulge and tongue to loll out. Higher and higher they went, until they reached the maximum legal dosage. Nothing. Scan after scan, pumped full of chemicals until I was bloated and uncomfortable like a duck being force-fed for the fois gras factory. But still my ovaries refused to play ball, producing only one or two substandard eggs instead of the fifteen or so<\/strong> <\/span><\/a>that was desired – if not required<\/em> – to increase the odds of a subsequent \u2018live birth<\/strong><\/a><\/span>.\u2019<\/p>\n

Time and again, the doctors shook their heads forlornly and advised cancelling the precious cycle that we\u2019d waiting months – no, years<\/em> – for…and at each appointment we pleaded with them to continue: \u201cBecause it only takes one, right?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Eventually, my husband and I conceded defeat and acknowledged reality: we\u2019d never have a child of our own. Not only was my body not going to produce a baby, I was about to receive another killer blow from the specialist:<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve experienced\u00a0Premature Ovarian Failure<\/strong><\/a><\/span>. Your bloods now indicate negligible reproductive hormones and your egg supply is extremely low. I’m afraid you\u2019re in the menopause<\/span><\/strong><\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Premature menopause<\/strong><\/a><\/span>\u00a0or Premature Ovarian Failure (during which periods can still occur, as was the case for me) is the name given to menopause occurring before the age of 40. The standard age for menopause is 51. By this point, at the end of 2011, I was 35; sixteen<\/em> whole years below the average age. However, it’s likely that I’d been in this sorry state for a lot longer, having had previous gynaecological surgery to remove precancerous cells following a smear test (you can read about that here<\/strong><\/a><\/span>) at the turn of the century in my mid-twenties, and two more operations at the start of 2008, aged 32. During the final operation I’d been advised to have my damaged fallopian tubes removed (ironically, to improve the chances of IVF success), and it was probably at this point that the blood supply to the ovaries was permanently disrupted. Surgical removal of the ovaries (oopherectomy) is the primary cause of POF, although other causes include cancer, sterilisation, trauma and stress. For some women the cause is never known.<\/p>\n

Looking back, I had a lot of the symptoms of menopause. Yet despite this diagnosis and long, meandering gynaecological history, my GP refused to acknowledge the need for HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy<\/strong><\/a><\/span>) due to the (hotly debated) health risks<\/strong><\/a><\/span> and instead prescribed…antidepressants. Apparently this is common, as the symptoms are similar: low mood, brain fog, fatigue, low libido. But whilst SSRIs<\/strong><\/a><\/span> might tackle the mood aspects of premature menopause, they do nothing to counteract the flatlining hormone levels that can have a lifelong impact on vital aspects of a woman\u2019s health: cardiovascular disease, cancer, bone loss leading to crippling osteoporosis, tooth loss, Alzheimer’s disease and ultimately, premature death. “Really?!” I thought to myself. “Is there no end of misery in store for me?” I was at my lowest ebb, and even contemplated suicide. I was well and truly broken, both mentally and physically, as I’ve written about here<\/strong><\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

Finally, aged 37 and having suffered years of debilitating symptoms<\/strong><\/a><\/span>, I saw a sympathetic private specialist who prescribed combined oral cyclical (also known as sequential) HRT: oestrogen and progesterone. It was life-changing. I threw away the antidepressants that I\u2019d been taking for almost two years and had an immediate new lease of life. The colour was finally switched back on after a long stint in a black-and-white world. It was too late for my fertility (and sadly my marriage) yet I felt the fog slowly lifting – and with it, a glimpse of the possibility of future happiness on the horizon that had hitherto felt impossible.<\/p>\n

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