{"id":2657,"date":"2019-01-23T23:13:32","date_gmt":"2019-01-23T23:13:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vickygooden.com\/?p=2657"},"modified":"2019-01-24T09:47:33","modified_gmt":"2019-01-24T09:47:33","slug":"finding-out-you-have-low-amh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.vickygooden.com\/index.php\/2019\/01\/23\/finding-out-you-have-low-amh\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding out you have low AMH"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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I remember it so clearly. My husband and I were both taking a day out from work back in 2015 and were hanging out in East London at a cafe. Which incidentally, makes us sound much, MUCH cooler than we are. I mean he did have a beard then and everything mind you. Anyway, this was when I took a call from the doctors clinic to confirm and discuss my first ever fertility blood results. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even writing that; \u2018fertility blood results\u2019 takes me back to then and how I felt hugely separate from the situation that was going on. I couldn’t believe \u2018investigations\u2019 were starting. How had it come to this? Why wasn\u2019t my (um, or our) stuff working? Was I \u2018infertile\u2019? Did that mean there would never be hope or was it a temporary thing to simply be fathomed out and fixed?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the crazy assumptions and worries going on in my head, I felt utterly distant from it like it wasn’t really something unfolding before us. That it would all just clear up soon and it would be dealt with. Sorted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had initially opened the results and stared blankly at the numbers and symbols on the paper in front of me in a supermarket car park a few days before our London jaunt. Having done a bit of homework I knew roughly what I wanted to see. And \u2018low\u2019 wasn’t on the list. I didn\u2019t know what to tell my husband, not least because I didn\u2019t 100% know what it all meant myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the line reading \u2018AMH\u2019 (Anti-Mullerian Hormone) it indicated the figure \u201915\u2019 which was hand in hand with the word \u2018LOW\u2019. Now back then I didn’t have much of an idea if that was really, hopelessly low or not. Or how low it had to be to declare infertility. So I immediately turned to Google and scared myself for a good 25 minutes before deciding that the frozen goods in the boot needed to get home. And I needed a hug.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I called the doctors surgery to ask them to please let me know what it all meant and they promised someone would call in a few days time. By which point I had completed Google and determined that we were most probably FUCKED. And it was all my fault.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I followed up the call with an email. Here it is. Can you sense the panic?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I really think there should be a protocol for doctors surgeries to follow if anything is showing as LOW in fertility blood results. It can absolutely floor you to read that word, on your own, in Budgens car park, your eyes darting round the paper for an explanation, an answer, some reassurance. Oh and FYI, HIGH could mean polycystic ovaries. So you probably don\u2019t want that either. You want boring old NORMAL please and thanks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

15.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And what in merry hell is AMH anyway? I\u2019m no medical expert but it\u2019s a test for a particular hormone that is secreted to show levels of ovarian reserve. It shows up when there\u2019s some activity in developing egg sacs, AKA follicles, where little eggs like to reside before being released during a fertile period each month of a woman’s cycle. We didn’t learn this in school right? Ovaries and wombs, I think that was the extent of it. I don’t even remember being told a woman is born with all the eggs she\u2019ll ever have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So back to East London. While we were sat waiting for our food to turn up, the doctor on the other end of the phone explained that my AMH was at the high end of the low bracket, which made me feel marginally better, with a dose of side eye. But I was 32 and healthy, why was the test that essentially indicates, albeit not precisely, your ovarian reserve of eggs coming out as low?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was roughly two years prior to my endometriosis diagnosis which could go some way to explain my low reading, possibly due to damaged ovaries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My mind started to spin. All I could see were two empty ovaries. Closed for business. I felt wretched and guilty that my body was possibly going to stop my husband and I from achieving biological parenthood. And in all my desperate searching for answers and help, it seemed that your AMH is sort of set in stone. There isn’t a supplement or therapy you can have to really move the dial on that blood result, that bodily function specifically. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before being diagnosed with endometriosis, the AMH thing consumed me. It was clear to me that this was our fertility issue. Each month that went by with no positive pregnancy test would mean even less eggs left inside me. Even less chance. I was desperate to know how many actual eggs I had inside me (impossible) and my mind worried so much about the number of cycles left before I was clearly going to go into early menopause. It took a while for me to get out of that fog and to start seeing what I could do to boost my fertility and calm my scatty brain. I needed some control back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018So ok, not a lot of eggs left, maybe, but there are some in there and they need looking after\u2019. <\/i>That\u2019s what I would tell myself. And then once the old endo was added to the mix I went all in on changing my diet and as much as I could, my lifestyle. Now was not the time to hate my body, it needed the exact opposite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n