What do you hate the most?

We're always told to love our bodies, that we should not hate what we have. People have been parading that picture on facebook and pinterest lately, that when did stick thin become sexier than "old hollywood" glamour picture. Other, similar pictures show stretch marks and tell us to embrace them, we're tigers who earned our stripes. The message is that we, as women, are all beautiful and all sexy in our own way. All our imperfections are beautiful in their own way. We should not hate our bodies, we should not even hate a part of our bodies. For the most part I would agree with this.

However, I want to talk very candidly about one particular aspect of my body that I hate with every fiber of my being..

It's not my belly.

It's not my bingo wings.

It's not my bum.

It's not my boobs.

It's my beard.

It's getting out of control and it's downright depressing. It's dark and coarse and long. Well actually, I don't know how long it is exactly because in general I shave every other day to keep it under control.

I've been trying to keep off the shaving just to see how bad it gets. This week I've had a holiday from work, so it was the perfect opportunity to let it go wild. I put down the razor a week ago today and let nature take its course.

By Monday it was bad enough to move me to tears in my GP's office, but I'd seen it that bad before. I've let it grow on further and I physically cannot allow it to get worse. It is dark, and it is long. It looks like Ben with maybe two days post shave stubble, and he has a very thick, luxuriant, and quick growing beard.

In the summer when I started really knuckling down to loose the weight, I honestly thought certain aspects of my PCOS symptoms were getting better. I didn't seem to have to shave so often, and I even had (albeit only very tiny) a period. Alas, things aren't going so well now. I've lost all but two or three pounds of my Christmas gain, so really I'm around the lightest I've been for a few years, and yet the PCOS symptoms aren't showing any signs of loosening up.

Aside from more weight loss there's nothing the doctor can do, and she's giving me support in this. She was yet again a new doctor (le sigh) but at least for now she's listened to me and my concerns and we've come up with what I think will eventually be a successful course of treatment for me. It's going to take time and I'll probably shed a few more tears before the end, but it's the most hopeful I've felt about it for a long time.

For now I've got to go back to shaving. I used to believe that by shaving I was making it worse...you create a standard you want every day, and of course there's the old "it looks coarser" thing...but actually having let it "grow out" a bit I can see that this is really not the case. There are areas of my face that I shave that have very, very little hair growth (barely any noticeable at all) and then there is the fact that underneath my chin is way way worse than my upper lip and sideburns, but extends up to either side of the point of my chin.

Euch, it's gross and unnerving to describe it in such a way, but it is what it is.

And facing up to it is maybe what is going to make me stick to this treatment. Infertility sucks, but my mum told me when I got married that unless you are ridiculously rich you will spend a lifetime waiting for "the right time" to have a baby, financially at least. So whatever and whenever something like that happens is still almost an ethereal concept to us. Being fat is unhealthy and it sucks, but I've been fat all my life and I'm pretty comfortable looks wise in that sense. But the body and facial hair? It's just too much. I don't want to shave forever, I don't want a hairy chest and an ape like back (yes the start is there), and I don't want to be a bearded lady. I just want it to go away :(