Messing with my Mind

My body is messing with my mind.

Or I guess I should say that the meds are making my body mess with my mind.

I have now been injecting the Progesterone shots for about 10 days and I guess it's fully entrenched in my system. I have every single side effect those meds are supposed to cause.

(Oh and if you are guy - and I think only about 2 guys read this - but you may want to avert your eyes or this post altogether. It's a woman thing, you wouldn't understand. No offense.)

Cramping? Check

Headache? Check

Dizziness? Check

Food cravings? Check.

Pain/swelling at the injection site (ie: lumps in my ass)? Check, check.

Sore boobs? Check, check, check, check check.

Awesome.

The terrible thing about it is that some of these (especially the boob thing) are also indicators of pregnancy. Fantastic. I just keep telling myself not to get excited about these symptoms for a couple of reasons. Number 1, it's a little early. Number 2, with everything I have injected/swallowed/patched into my system the last 3-4 weeks, it's no wonder that my body is having a breakdown.

But of course my insomniac brain can't help but surf the internet at night scouring for details about how you are supposed to feel post embroyo transfer (especially for those people who had positive pregnancy tests). The symptom that is irritating me the most mentally is this weird, dull ache I have to the left of my belly button, higher than where cramps usually are, and it feels like my stomach is stretching or something.

So I ran that little symptom by my best friend "Google" and found that some women experience that when implantation occurs and the uterus starts to stretch and grow to accompany the embroyo(s).

That didn't make me lose my mind at all.

I have never been so in tune with how my body feels as I am now. I guess it's exciting because it could possibly mean that my body is preparing for the M&M's. Or it could just be a massive overload of Progesterone, Estrogen, and Raw Emotions.

Of course, I am very familiar with how your body can play tricks on you. "Back in the day" when Matt & I were naively trying to get pregnant, every month I was convinced I had some sort of pregnancy symptom. Thus at the height of our conception trying, I probably took 3-4 pregnancy tests every month. Of course, at that point we had no idea that it would take a miracle for us to get pregnant on our own - but man, I wish I had that cash back. With that, and the money I spent on birth control. I probably could have paid for the invitro process by now.

And if I was worried that this process was going too smoothly, then we finally hit our first bump in the road on Monday. Turns out I am allergic to my estrogen tablets, Estrace. Call me slow, but it took me a full 4 doses to realize that my throat swelling and the feeling of an elephant sitting on my chest were probably not normal. Oh yeah, and I lost some feeling in my right hand and couldn't make lunch because I literally couldn't grip anything.

That's when I called the nurse - apparently my breaking point on allergic reactions is when I can no longer shovel food in my mouth.

4 Benadryls and a 2 hour comatose nap later, by Monday evening I was much better and I haven't had a problem since. And luckily, since I have been prescribed estrogen through 2 different sources (the pill & a patch that goes on my abdomen), then I can just slap an extra patch on to get the meds I "need". While I am convinced that it was indeed the pill that almost caused an afternoon trip to the ER, I almost want to make doubly sure. I am almost tempted to take another one at the end of the week to see if it happens again.

I know. Stupid, right? Well, it just so happens that those Estrace pills were incredibly expensive and it was the one med that my insurance didn't cover a large amount of for whatever reason. So before I toss it in the trash, I guess I want to be thoroughly convinced. I shouldn't be surprised though - I was expecting to have an allergic reaction to at least one of these bad boys considering my track record with meds. There is not even enough room on those Doctor information forms anymore for me to write down all my allergies. So add estrogen tablets to the list. I guess hormone replacement therapy is out of the question for me when I go through "The Change".

Anyway, all this useless babble to really let you know that we might possibly know something Friday. Maybe.

I kinda wish she hadn't told me that because now I am in countdown mode to Friday. She did make the clarification that if she didn't see anything on Friday then it certainly doesn't mean all is lost. Some babies are just more stubborn than others about showing up in momma's blood levels. And that will only be barely 8 days post transfer - so pretty early still. I'm just going to try my best not to lose my mind by then.

I am also going to do my darndest to stay away from the Women's Health aisle at Walgreens and throw 1 or 8 pregnancy tests in my basket. EPT has gotten enough of my money.