BALANCING ACT
FORMER COMPETITIVE RUNNER SUSAN* REFLECTS ON THE SHIFT THAT OCCURRED WHEN HER BODY LET HER DOWN WHILE SHE WAS AT HER STRONGEST, THREATENING TO DERAIL HER DREAMS OF STARTING A FAMILY
Infertility can strike anyone – even those at the peak of health and fitness.
you hear women say that they knew, deep down, something was wrong with their body. But that was never the case for me. During my teens and early twenties, I had no issues with my body. I had regular periods, pretty good body image and even my relationship with food was straightforward.
When I graduated from university and felt the effects of too many years focused on having a good time, I started running. At first it was recreational. Then as I became leaner, I also became faster. Soon, I was competing in half-marathons and starting to really enjoy how it felt to be strong and fast. I guess at that point a shift occurred, and I started to think more like an athlete. I was winning races and got a coach.
It was around this period that my longtime boyfriend, Toby*, proposed. I could not have felt better or been happier. I was 25 and on top of the world. People would occasionally ask me – in that way they do when you’re dedicated to exercise – if I was taking care of myself. Then there was the more probing question from family: “Are you getting regular periods?” The answer was always yes. Sure, I was on the pill and vaguely understood that it was creating a cycle for me, but the truth was my system was running like clockwork. In my mind, that was healthy.
It was when I started to try to get pregnant that the problems began. I went off the pill and waited for my period to start. A few months went by and I wrote it off as my body readjusting to its natural cycle. Nothing happened. Then I waited some more. Still nothing. And so we decided to investigate. That was when my GP blindsided me. I’d gone in to get some blood tests, but when he checked my heart rate and blood pressure, they were apparently too low. So he insisted I go straight to emergency, which seemed crazy. I felt perfectly fine, which I told him.
“I WONDERED A male ATHLETE WOULD BE THE SAME WAY”
I was an athlete and a low heart rate is normal. But it was as if my stats didn’t tick the box he had for a healthy woman. And since Toby felt we should listen to the doctor, off we went to hospital.
That’s when everything took a turn. The doctors began asking about our fertility struggles. And that segued into questions about what I ate. I could see they were putting my lean body and heart rate together and coming up with eating disorder. I kept repeating, “I’m an endurance athlete.” The doctor wouldn’t listen and insisted on keeping me in hospital for a few days to monitor my health. All of which left me feeling so disillusioned. Until then, I considered myself to be in peak physical fitness. Now I had doctors telling me that not only was my body weight too low, but that my fertility issues were basically a result of my lifestyle.
Once discharged, the doctors insisted I stop running and gain weight. All the while Toby was just shaking his head. He’d seen how dedicated I was to my running and also, it’s not like I was half my original size. My whole family is slight and sporty – something the doctors also didn’t take into account or seem to care about. I wondered if a male athlete would be scrutinised and judged in the same way.
All the assumptions I had about my body and what it was capable of were now in question. And it floored me because everything that I thought would come easily was no longer on the table. In part, this false sense of safety came from watching my sister – who had my same build and similar exercise habits – have a child quite easily. And then there were the stories I’d heard for years about how my mum went off the pill for one cycle and fell pregnant. The message was simple: we are fertile in this family.
I desperately wanted to start a family, but why did it have to mean giving up what I loved? I had also been on the pill for eight years, long before my athletic pursuits started. All of which I now came to realise could have been masking issues with my cycle all along. I felt torn and I really wasn’t convinced the new couch potato plan would work.
Toby and I both agreed this just wasn’t good enough. So we got a second opinion from a fertility specialist, who had a completely different take on my body and the path forward. He didn’t make me feel as if it was my fault. Rather, he explained that fertility is complicated and that I needed help kickstarting my reproductive system. He also told me that while there are female athletes whose bodies and reproductive systems are compromised by years of intense training and dietary restriction, this wasn’t likely to be what was happening with me.
In the end, I kept running and, with the help of hormonal therapy, I started to ovulate. When months passed and still no pregnancy, we tried IVF. Fortunately, I fell pregnant after one round of treatment and now have a healthy baby girl.
Looking back, I think my fertility struggles would have been almost impossible to handle with a level head had I followed that initial advice and given up a past-time that brought me so much joy. I feel the same way today as I did then… listen to doctors, but trust your instincts more.