#[and the insane exhaustion i mentioned last time was a symptom of that + tons of physical pain + personal issues and etc]

[coollyinterferes]

“What do y’mean it’s 2023 already!?”

[steviescrystals]

its 5am and i can’t sleep and i have to ramble about something (a few somethings actually) bc i cannot stop thinking about it!! this is really just for me to get my thoughts out bc they’re driving me crazy, but on the off chance anyone reads this, prepare yourself: it’s about to be a very long post.

i have so many chronic issues — both physical and mental — that i’m just used to dealing with at this point, and i’m only just recently realizing how not normal they are?? the main thing that’s driving me insane lately is just my overall physical well being, like it’s just so… not good lmao. i’m extremely anemic, so i’m basically exhausted and lightheaded and dizzy and nauseous pretty much all of the time which is just awesome for me, and it’s been even worse than normal the past few months bc i have a ton of food issues that just keep getting worse (caused by a super fun combination of depression, disordered eating, constantly being sick, and just general stomach issues). my diet is really just all over the place and definitely not as nutritious as it needs to be, which as you can imagine does not help all the health issues i already have! on top of all that, i was finally diagnosed with adhd earlier this year after spending forever 1) constantly learning that a lot of things i had always thought were just “me things” were actually symptoms 2) being told by so many people around me WITH ADHD that i seemed like i had it, and 3) outright asking various psychiatrists and doctors to test me for it. because of the shortage on adhd medication, i only recently was able to get a prescription, and (this is where the relation to food comes in) literally no one — not my doctor, not the psychiatrist who prescribed it, not the pharmacist — thought to tell me that the medication i’m on lowers your appetite?? i only found out bc my mom, who’s a nurse, mentioned it one day and was shocked that i didn’t already know that was a side effect. so that sucks because i need the medication, but i also need to be eating a lot more than i currently am (especially because i’m also taking iron supplements for my anemia, and if you don’t eat enough while taking them, they make you sick). so! that’s all great for me!

i’ve also had chronic headaches since i was 11 years old that have continually gotten more frequent and more painful over the years, to the point that i get them almost every day and have taken advil, tylenol, midol, etc. so often that i’ve pretty much built up a tolerance to them and they do essentially nothing for me anymore. they’re usually just really bad headaches, but sometimes i get full-on migraines, and when i ended up in the ER in the spring (long story), the nurses told me i’m likely developing a migraine disorder. this is kind of just an unfortunate fact of life for me now since it’s been going on for eight years, but i’ve just been thinking about it a lot lately bc of a psychiatrist appointment i had a couple months ago (lots of various appointments lately but not much has gotten better… lol). when i was telling the psychiatrist about my headaches, he told me that the average person gets a headache twice a year, which just… genuinely blew my mind. like, i cannot imagine not having this problem. what a nice life that must be for the average person. and i mean, i’ve always known that i get headaches way more often than most people, but i truly could not wrap my brain around the difference being that extreme. i literally started asking everyone i knew how often they got headaches bc i was so surprised and curious, and they all told me they just never get them?? like that is insane to me, i’m so jealous.

okay last thing for now: the reason i’m still awake rn! i started struggling with insomnia when i was maybe 11 or 12, and just like with the headaches, it’s gotten worse and worse over time and i’ve just kind of grown accustomed to it. it always takes me hours to fall asleep, and i have a very hard time staying asleep — i usually wake up in the middle of the night at least two or three times a night. it’s another thing i knew wasn’t super typical, but it’s not insanely uncommon either. but that same psychiatrist had a statistic for this too, and he said that the average person wakes up in the middle of the night ONCE A YEAR (under normal circumstances, so not counting things like being sick or having abnormally high stress levels). he also asked me how long it takes me to fall asleep again after waking up in the night, and i said “not that long, like half an hour usually” and he quite literally just stared at me and said “yeah so that is long actually.” like, i know not everyone has insomnia, but this whole time i thought that everyone who DOES have it would have generally the same experience as me, and apparently that’s just not true lmao. in fact, he said my insomnia is so bad that i have what’s called terminal insomnia, so i guess this is just my life forever! how fun is that!

so that’s pretty much all i wanted to say (she said as if she didn’t just spend 30 minutes typing all of this). whenever something like this is on my mind, it makes it even harder to sleep than it already is all the time, so i figured i’d just come on here and word vomit for a while. i don’t expect anyone to read all of this (or any of it tbh), but if you have, thank you for listening! i hope you have a great day and get a better night’s sleep than me tonight :)

[jmkieper13]

It's Just Not Fair!

Well, as you can probably guess, it’s been a rough day. The last time I updated, we were hopeful that this first Clomid cycle had worked for us, and that we were 9 agonizingly short months away from our rainbow…and then, I went for blood work. 7 days post peak (or ovulation), I had progesterone and estradiol (estrogen) levels pulled, as was the doctor’s request to go with the Clomid. By this point, I’d had a couple days of mild cramping, crazy dreams every single night, excess cervical mucus, excessive thirst, a couple of dizzy spells, a couple bouts of insomnia…pretty much every textbook pregnancy symptom. We were really excited to see what the bloodwork would show. The nurse called back the following day and said that my progesterone was extremely low (7.2), and my estrogen was extremely high (642…which is approximately three times the high end of normal). She mentioned that this could be a sign of hyperstimulation of my ovaries from the Clomid. I mentioned that I didn’t have any pain with ovulation but that I was having a lot of pregnancy symptoms. They told me to go ahead and wait until 12 days post peak and take a pregnancy test. That was yesterday. I took a couple of tests over the weekend and they were all negative. It’s early, I told myself (repeatedly), and kept waiting for the next day. Symptoms persisted, and new ones began. I was EXTREMELY exhausted (point of reference, I next to never take a nap, and even more rarely sleep in, and on Saturday not only did I wake up, startled and groggy from a deep sleep, with the ‘absolute latest we can sleep, just in case,’ alarm, but I took two naps, yawned through dinner, and went to bed only about a half hour later than normal. Sunday I had a pretty relaxing day, and in spite of this, I fell asleep on the couch at 6:30, woke up at 8:45, and went to bed at 9 for the night) and the thirst got insanely more intense. I would literally drink 100 ounces of water within the constraints of a normal 9-5 work day and by dinner time be so thirsty my throat was itchy and dry and I had cotton mouth. The same would happen if I didn’t bring water to bed…bed which was now interrupted with not making it through the night without having to use the bathroom…also very unusual for me. I was SO sure. This was IT. I was so sure that I calculated what our due date would be, and got really excited to see that it would be within a week of our anniversary in October. I was so sure that I didn’t turn a blind eye when I saw sales on baby items when I happened to be putzing around an online store. So sure that I didn’t stop myself from wandering around the baby department when I happened to be at Target. Sure, a lot of the symptoms that I was having could also have been hyperstimulation, but things like increased cervical mucus, crazy dreams, and extreme thirst I didn’t see mentioned anywhere, so I was still pretty darn confident. I was making sure I was being careful. Avoiding caffeine, wine, lunch meats, and all of the other things that pregnant people are supposed to avoid. I was allowing myself the rest that I so clearly needed, and making sure to not lay flat on my back or let the dogs jump on me. I wasn’t lifting anything heavy, and even found myself holding my stomach at times when I was walking. Then, it was THE day. 12 days post peak…test day. I was just ready and waiting for that second line to show up…except it didn’t. I took two different tests, and neither of them had anything positive to say. I called the doctor’s office and let them know that the test was negative, but that I was still having a ton of symptoms. They asked me to go for a blood pregnancy test just to be sure that the home tests weren’t giving me false negative results. Even THEY thought this could be the one. Last night I tested again…this morning, yet again…both still showed only one lonely line. Today, blood work results were in. “Less than 2.” Less than 2. For anyone that hasn’t spent several years engrossed in all things pregnancy…anything less than 5 is considered a negative result. So…this wasn’t it. What this was, was the hyperstimulation that the nurse warned me may have been a concern. With literally a 2 minute phone call, all of the symptoms that had me so excited for the changes that were about to take place now have me terrified for what happens next. Hyperstimulation is no joke, and I’m admittedly worried. I’m worried about the fact that my symptoms don’t seem to be getting better. I’m worried about the fact that I am supposed to do a second attempt at Clomid to see if this is how my body reacts or if it was an isolated reaction this one time. I’m worried about the fact that I’ve noticed pain near my ovaries all day, leading me to believe that I likely have a cyst or cysts to worry about. I’m worried about any potential delays that this may cause. I’m worried about if it will be worse the second time we try it, and if it is…then what? Do I end up in the ER? Do I end up sidelined for several months? What happens then. I’m just worried. What was a head and heart full of excitement and anticipation of what I was just so sure was going to be the best and most exciting phone call I ever received quickly turned to fear and concern and anxiety over the list of questions that the call, which was definitely not what I was hoping for, actually delivered. As for now, I have an ultrasound tomorrow to see what things now look like in there, as a result of the Clomid and crazy estrogen spike. After this, I expect we’ll get some idea as to what we will be doing next. That may be Clomid, that may be Letrozole. I trust our doctor, and I know he genuinely has our best interests at heart, so I trust his direction when he gives it…but I’m scared. I haven’t cried yet, as I’ve somehow managed to hold it together. This, however, is a ticking time bomb, and I expect it to be short lived. I’m waiting for the comforts of home to allow me the solace that I need to fall apart without fearing loss of any personal dignity. This whole thing sucks. It sucks, and it’s just not fair. How much should a person have to go through? How many times should I have to watch the pain in my husband’s face when I tell him that the test was negative…again? How many times should I have to order a new test or procedure to clean up the unexpected mess from the last thing we tried? How many times should I have to give a lengthy update to our family because our update is never a simple, “we’re pregnant!”? How many times should I have to listen to the nurse sigh before she gives me results, because it’s always something bad? How many times should I have to beg God through sobs for the miracle that we’ve wanted for so long? How many baby showers do I have to go to before I get to be the one it’s thrown for? How long do I have to stare at the door to the room that we thought would be a nursery by now knowing that it’s just a glorified junk drawer, holding all of the things behind a closed door that I don’t have the energy to deal with? How many cycles should I have to spend any extra money that I may have on pregnancy tests, only for them all to be negative and feel like a waste? How many times should I have to do everything I’m supposed to, only to have it still not work? It’s just. Not. Fair. In other news…I’ve also decided that I’m going to begin a vlog (video blog) through a YouTube channel, and I was going to begin that with this cycle, but now I’m not quite sure. If you’re interested in the details for that channel when I get started, leave a comment and I’m happy to share. As always, thank you for the continued prayers and support, and keep them coming. We need them now more than ever.