Names have been changed for confidentiality

I saw Megan today for review in my fertility clinic. Megan and her partner John have been trying to conceive with PCOS for the past 3 years.

She has very infrequent menstrual cycles and only has a period about once a year… So to help her get pregnant with PCOS she required fertility treatment to induce ovulation.

Megan tried the simple first-line treatment of Clomiphene Citrate tablets (see Getting Pregnant With Clomiphene Citrate, Clomid ), but despite increasing its dosage over a 6-month period no ovulation occurred.

The next step-up fertility treatment for her, was ovulation induction with FSH hormone injections (see FSH ovulation treatment Getting Pregnant: Ovulation Induction in fertility treatment section).. This treatment requires close monitoring in a fertility unit to make sure no more than one or two eggs are ovulated to avoid multiple pregnancy. Unfortunately for Megan her ovaries grew 7 follicles leading to cancellation of this treatment.

This over-response by the polycystic ovaries can be one of the risks with PCOS fertility treatment, and cancellation can occur in 5% of cases.

Megan was of course disappointed and today on further discussion with her will have a 2 month break and then move on to Invitro-fertilization treatment IVF shortly.

The advantage of IVF is that one embryo can be placed in the uterus giving a single and safer pregnancy rather than becoming the “octuplet mum”.

There are many challenges to overcome, but don’t give up hope. There are solutions…