These words are so true and so relevant to (my experience of) infertility. Every step of the way I have had thoughts like "I can't do this," "I can't cope," "It makes me too anxious" and I've felt like at any time I was going to get to the point where I couldn't keep going. But I've amazed myself time and again with how I've managed to keep going and find strength I didn't know I had.
At the moment it's a weird time for me. I have been all over the place emotionally and the past week I've felt awful. I know it's been mostly the Clomid affecting my mood but it's still so hard. Since yesterday I've felt noticeably better so I'm hoping I'm over the worst for this month. (Clomid affects everyone differently and for me depression and feeling agitated/moody is my biggest side effect)
I've also found lately that I've switched between feeling really upset and then feeling numb for a while- which I much prefer. I think the numbness is partly my mind trying to protect itself because last month I found it so upsetting. I'm too scared to get excited and I don't feel hopeful about it working this time. I've been trying to focus on other things like work and planning holidays and I've found that helpful.
Just over a year ago now I found out there was something wrong with my fertility. I'd been trying to conceive for a year without success and I had got more and more stressed as that year went on. Eventually I faced up to the situation and went to see the doctor. He sent me for scans to see if I had PCOS and I found out that I do. Before finding out the results I took the pictures below. And as I sat editing them on the computer I happened to listen to this song:
and it struck me how well the pictures matched the song and what I was feeling. The emotion in these pictures is real.
Sadly this is how I feel right now. I saw this on Pinterest earlier and I just had to share it here because I want this blog to be a genuine record of my journey.
Yesterday and today I've felt a bit low, I can tell it's the Clomid. I checked my diary and this is the exact time last month when I had a few days of feeling really low. Today is CD12. I don't feel terrible but I feel more low and more fragile than normal. This morning I felt daunted by this but keeping busy today has helped.
I've also been having headaches since yesterday, so I guess this is around the time the side effects show up.
Last month I found that too. While I was taking the tablets I had no side effects but they appeared later.
I thought I might as well write a bit about what Clomid has been like for me, in case it helps anyone. I've been told to take it on cycle days 2-6. (I know some other doctors choose different days) I'm consulting my diary for the following:
Clomid month 1: I started the tablets on March 1st. 50mg.
6th and 7th March- I felt a bit more tired than usual and a little emotional.
9th and 10th March- I had breast pain, a bit of a headache and woke up overnight once with what seemed to be a hot flush.
Between 11th-14th March I had mild breast pain at times and felt quite depressed on and off.
13th March- I noticed my gums bled a bit while brushing my teeth and in one place I felt a slight swelling of the gum. I panicked because I hate going to the dentist. But I used Corsodyl mouthwash and it went back to normal. I googled it and found Clomid can make your gums bleed more easily!
15th-19th March- I had noticeable cervical mucus (I think it was more than I'm used to) and I had a bit of very low level period pain.
Then on 20th March, which was day 21 of my cycle and the day I should ovulate since my cycle is about 35 days, I had ovulation/period pain. So I assumed I'd ovulated.
I went for a blood test on CD26 and it showed by progesterone level was too low for me to have ovulated.
Period didn't arrive. Which upset me and confused me. Since I started Metformin a few months ago, my periods had been regular so I wasn't expecting this... However, I googled it (thank goodness for google!) and found it's very common. Something to do with Clomid lengthening your Leutal phase?
I hoped the period would arrive on its own. I waited until it was 6 days late and phoned the hospital. They upset me because they asked if i'd done a pregnancy test. I said no, because you told me I couldn't have ovulated? They still insisted I did one and that's when I learnt how little they really know. They tell you you definitely haven't ovulated then admit you could have done. Confusing? Yes! So I had to take a pregnancy test the next morning then phone her back.
I was given a hospital appointment a few days later and was given Provera to bring on a period. I had to wait yet another 7 days, take yet another pregnancy test and then start taking these tablets. I was worried about side effects from what I've read online but I was fine on it thank goodness. In fact, the week I was taking it I felt great! (haha) and got more done around the house than I'd done in months. I even redesigned our garden a bit and painted the shed a different colour.
Clomid month 2- I started taking the tablets on 27th April. 100mg this time.
It's still quite early on in the cycle. But so far i've had:
Less breast tenderness than last month.
More headaches than last month.
Dry skin- in the form of dandruff! I had to wash my hair many times to get rid of it.
Tiredness
Feeling a bit low/emotional
That brings me up to now. I'll give a proper summary of this month once I'm through it. I've been trying to not think much about the process the past couple of weeks, because last month upset me so much. But the past couple of days I've felt more dragged down by everything. This month they've asked me to go in for a blood test on day 21 and day 25. They're deliberately testing me earlier to try and avoid missing it. So next week will be the first of those tests.
*post written with a clomid headache (lol) so bear that in mind if anything doesn't make sense.
I just discovered the blog Infertile Myrtle and this post led me to discover something amazing...
"The Truth about trying" infertility campaign by Redbook magaine. See it here.
I've found it really helpful hearing the different things these women have to say about infertility.
So far this month I've coped a lot better with being on Clomid. Last month I let myself have too much spare time. I was scared to arrange anything socially, I was worried about having zillions of side effects and spent a lot of time just waiting for them. It seems silly now but it's best not to judge ourselves when going through something like that. It's really frightening (personally I found it so) taking something like Clomid for the first time. But like most things have been in my life, I found that once the month was over I looked back and thought "was that it?" (There were side effects but nothing scary. The worst thing was just the waiting around and feeling emotional...)
This month I've felt much less emotional so far. However, I'm still quite early in the cycle (lol) and on Friday morning I suddenly felt really upset. It was triggered by being invited to a social gathering which I knew was too much for me right now, too many people, too much risk of babies being mentioned... and that was all it took for me to fall apart. I'm not ashamed to say that I listened to this song and cried my eyes out for a few minutes...
particularly the lyrics: "it's been so long without you here... like a bird without a song"
I've not related that song to infertility before but I heard it on the radio recently and it stopped me in my tracks and it was that kind of feeling when you go a bit cold because you're so moved.
I let myself cry with real gusto, I let out all the emotion I was feeling and honestly I felt so much better afterwards, like a weight had lifted. I knew i'd got a friend coming round soon but I still let myself grieve in that moment, because I had to. Sometimes the emotion is just too much and you have to let it out.
I've often reflected over the past year (I've been in this position for two and a half years but really the past year has been a different level of pain) how amazed I am that I've coped with this. BUT there is one very big reason why I've coped so well and that is because at every single stage I have allowed myself to grieve. I've let the emotion out and then I've carried on. I know it's hard finding the right level because you're scared of wallowing too much and making it worse for yourself, but the right amount of crying is essential in my experience.
What I've done is that whenever anything big has happened, I've let myself feel whatever I feel for that day, I've talked about it at length and cried without making any effort to constrain those tears. And in those moments I've often felt like I would need to cry for days and days and I couldn't face doing anything that day or that week, but every time I have found that actually, after really letting my feelings out, I've somehow suddenly felt a lot better (often within minutes) and managed to go out and do something or just sit and feel calmer and watch television.
I studied Psychology at college and I remember reading how depression and anxiety are caused by emotions being turned inwards. That really makes sense to me, especially after going through infertility. I've learnt that I have to let the feelings out when they first appear and I'm sure that has helped me enormously.
So my message is: crying is okay.
Don't ever feel bad for letting out these awful emotions that you've been forced to endure.
Crying isn't a sign of weakness, it's a sign of life.
Nothing has required more courage from me than infertility. I saw this picture on Pinterest this morning and had to post it here as a reminder to myself and because it's such an important part of going through infertility. It helps me personally to embrace concepts like that, to remember how brave i've been at certain points and let myself feel proud at the strength i've shown. You often hear people say they found a strength they didn't know they had. I can relate to that now. In my darkest moments I've felt like giving up but somehow I get back up again when I've been knocked back and I keep going.
Going through infertility is the hardest experience I've ever known. I keep thinking to myself that I can't remember ever feeling even half the emotion I do now. I feel like my heart is slowly breaking, one piece at a time. It's changed my life and it's changed me. I wish I could go back to being the carefree girl I used to be before my heart became so heavy. I carry this invisible weight around with me wherever I go, whatever I do. It's always there.
The past two and a half years have been so difficult socially because just at the point I was first struggling to conceive, typically that was the time everyone around me seemed to start talking about the subject. After many bad experiences, it's made me scared of seeing certain people because I'm worried about what they might say.
Today I tried to talk to some family about what I've been going through. It's always really difficult because I can see so clearly that they have no idea the depth of emotion I'm describing and that upsets me. I feel sometimes like I'm desperate to try and make everyone around me understand how this feels but I know I never can. No words are enough. Many times over the past year I've had one thought keep coming back to me: this experience has taught me the gap between sympathy and empathy. However hard people try, however kind and well meaning they are, they cannot know what infertility feels like unless they've known it for themselves.
This image by Kurt Halsey has given me so much comfort since I found it via Instagram last week. It is such an accurate reflection of my relationship with my husband since going through infertility. It made me contemplate just how grateful I am to him that he has truly made me feel like this. I know that he loves me for me and nothing else matters. I know how lucky and blessed I am to have that.
I wrote this poem after finding out Clomid didn't work last month. I thought I was prepared for it not working but I guess we're never really prepared, especially with such an emotional subject. I hate the phone calls I have with my fertility nurse, even though she is kind and has never said a cross word to me. I just hate the tension, the awkwardness, hearing myself say such personal information out loud and hoping my neighbours can't hear me (irrationally). The phone call for the CD21 protesterone test result was a particularly stressful one. Unfortunately what the nurse said made me feel really concerned about the result. She sounded mystified like she couldn't understand what had happened (it can't be unusual surely) and then told me my level was 4 and it needs to be 30. Wow, I was not expecting that. I just expected to be told whether or not I'd ovulated and which dose to take next month. It really upset me hearing how low my number was. So the nurse told me she would go and speak to the doctor about a new treatment plan and I had to wait an hour to hear back. In that time I sat and cried and I felt like writing so I sat with the typewriter and wrote this poem straight out. I haven't edited it at all, I want it to just express pure feeling. It expresses my exact emotion at that moment in time and after writing it out I felt a lot lighter.
I chose the name Belle Reve because I remember it from studying "A Streetcar Named Desire" by Tennessee Williams, at college. I was told that it meant "Beautiful dream" in french. And that's always stayed with me.
I've always wanted children. I remember picking out names when I was only 14. I never assumed there would be anything wrong with me. I had no symptoms, my mother had no problems and conceived three children easily and quickly. Infertility wasn't discussed much either, I can't remember hearing hardly anything about it when I was growing up (up until recently included in that). I just assumed I would be fine. I was wrong.
I met my other half at university and we've now been together getting on for ten years. He's the best support I could have hoped for and for that I'm grateful.
I started TTC in March 2011. After a year I went to see my GP and was referred for tests and was found to have PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome) I was gobsmacked and I cried like a child. I had a blood test first and that was fine so I thought I was ok but then got the ultrasound results and that confirmed I had it.
I quickly recovered my spirits again because of hearing lots of success stories from Clomid and I just bolstered myself up with that and determined to hold onto hope. I just tried to be as positive as I could. But unfortunately the ultrasound I had done to look for PCOS caused some mysterious dermatitis in the vulval area and that took months of seeing specialists to get rid of (I could write a whole seperate blog on that subject...) In the end I found out I have allergies, one of which is a blue dye which was present in the lubricant that was used in my internal ultrasound test! I had to deal with this from March 2012 until january 2013, frequent burning, not just after urination but all the time. I saw many doctors who "didn't know what was wrong" and I can't put into words how much that time BROKE me. I had nearly a year of waiting to start fertility treatment because of it. I was stuck, I was trapped and I was also scared because of doctors saying they didn't know what was wrong and suggesting it could be permanent. I managed to go in for my HSG test in August despite having the dermatitis because I was so desperate to move things along. My tubes were found to be fine and clear.
Anyway, in the end I "went private" (I'm in England) in January 2013 and all it took was a simple examination and steroid treatments and within a month my dermatitis was almost completely gone and I was ready to start Clomid AT LAST.
Just to be clear- for fertility i'm on the NHS.
So I began Clomid last month. I tried 50mg. It didn't work unfortunately. I'm now on my second cycle and this time I'm on 100mg. I'm also on 1500mg Metformin a day (one 500mg tablet after each of my main meals). That takes me up to now...
Since this is my first post I'll be honest and say I don't really know where to start. I've been going through infertility for quite some time now (more than 2 years) and I've thought a few times about starting a blog. Until now though it hasn't been the right time. It feels right now and I decided to just go for it. My hope is just that it might help me battle through what I'm going through and maybe I might connect with some lovely ladies going through the same awful experience..
I'm going to use this space to share my emotions, my hopes, my dreams and basically anything I feel. Please respect my right to do this, since it's such a sensitive subject any negative comments will be removed and the people blocked.
