The Injectable Crazies

I've been pretty proud of myself over the last month. I was nervous when I started Lupron and what was to come with the stims. I remember four years ago when we did several cycles of IUI with injectables. I was a basket case through most of them. It didn't help that the first cycle we did we used Repronex and I had a horrible pyrogenic (the fever definition, not the rock definition) reaction. For over a week I had a fever of 104F (that's not 100.4, but 104.0, I tend to run hot). No other symptoms, as in no nasal or chest congestion, no rashes (other than the huge welts caused by the shots themselves), only the fever and the massive headache and frequent rigors (makes me sound oh so medical huh? just means I shook from the chills). The fertility clinic refused for a week to believe it was anything other than a virus and kept insisting I go see my primary physician. I figured it would run it's course in 2 or 3 days and I'd be fine. But it didn't, by day 7 I was insisting that it was from the Repronex. Finally, to shut me up, the doctor changed my medication, and low and behold, within 24 hours of stopping the Repronex I was fever free. By then I was able to concentrate at the computer and found some articles supporting the fact that some people do in fact react to Repronex, something to do with the urine it is derived from.

The even suckier part of this was that my ovaries, they did like themselves that Repronex, cause they filled up with follicles. (I often wonder if the fever in my body didn't help a little too, kind of like a little chick incubator.) So many that I had to sign a waver before they would do the IUI, and I know that they shot me early. At the time I didn't, but since I kept records of what was going on, I could see that in future cycles they let my follicles get much bigger. So here I had a drug that worked like crazy on me, with relatively small amounts, but unless I wanted to be on what felt like "death bed" sick, I couldn't take it.

So, that was my start to the injectable world. Of course that cycle didn't work, and neither did the subsequent five cycles. But man oh man did the hormones make me crazy during that time. I became a chat room whore, I cried on a dime, I wanted sex, I didn't want sex. I couldn't stand MYSELF, I don't know how my husband managed to live with me.

Well, this time, I'm proud of myself. Like I said I was nervous getting started. I had heard horror stories about Lupron. But honestly, other than a headache the first week I started stims (likely because of my low estrogen level) I did great. I felt great. No hormone swings, no tears, no super bitchiness.

So yes, I'm proud of myself. I think I'm more mature. I also think that over all I'm just in a better place in my life.

Not to say the crazies can't still hit...