When I was a young mother giving birth to my third child, I was in a difficult marriage with in-laws who did not always understand me. One day, my now ex husband’s aunt asked me to join her for a cup of tea. Though I refused the tea, I accepted a moment to visit with her, a great aunt who lived in Texas who seemed to be kind and thoughtful. She was anything but. For the next twenty minutes, Aunt “Penny” informed me that after the birth of my third child, I would be taken to an operating room where I would be “fixed” so I could not have any more children. If I refused, she assured that several thousand dollars and a lawyer on retainer would be utilized to take my children from me immediately and that the baby in my womb would never know me. Though we had never been on any kind of government assistance, the aunt felt that our having more than one child was a burden on society and should be outlawed.
Though protests were waged as best as I possibly could, my now ex wanted to obey his family’s wishes and insisted that I do whatever necessary to keep the peace. Part of their argument for him not going through the surgery was that the family knew my marriage to him was only temporary. I was sterilized against my will on October 24, 1998.
The marriage was unstable and fell apart soon after, but we remained legally wed for a few more years. In 2003 after parting ways, I was able to find true love, a man who had never had children of his own but loved my three. My ex husband got along well with him. The two of us were married in 2004. Right away, we started making plans to reverse the sterilization process that left me heartbroken. Unfortunately fate kept the process from being completed until five years later.
Due to my age (over 35), Clomid is typically prescribed to boost egg production after six months of infertility. Since our family prefers a more natural method to assist fertility, my routine has recently included soy isoflavones as a Clomid substitute. Usually recommended for menopause, soy isoflavones has recently been touted as a wonderful alternative to Clomid since it rarely results in multiple births. Many women have benefitted by soy isoflavones clomid-like results, even mentioning positive pregnancy tests within the first few times taking it.
Website The Two Week Wait offers this page about women taking soy isoflavones as a clomid substitute. Though few individuals participated in their survey, the results are interesting. My soy isoflavones as Clomid substitution experiment was also quite interesting and worth noting.
Soy isoflavones for fertility should be taken similar to the same process followed for taking Clomid, five days, 150-160mg, days 1-5, 2-6, 3-7, or as late as 5-9. I chose days 2-6. Ovulation felt very painful around cd 17. Usually I can barely feel ovulation if I feel it at all, so in my opinion it was a bit stronger than normal. Unfortunately, I was not blessed with a pregnancy from my soy cycle and feel wary about continuing with soy isoflavones due to the fact that it can make periods irregular and have a negative affect on fertility if incorrectly used, clomid substitute or not.
We plan on scheduling an appointment with a reproductive endocrinologist in spring.
