Clomid Made Me Do It

Sour Face Ann,

With your chin in your hand,

Haven’t you ever been pleased?

You used to complain

That you had no fur coat,

And now you complain of the fleas.

(Shel Silverstein, “A Light in the Attic”, page 91)

Call me ‘Sour Face Eve’, why don’t you?   Because I’ve spent the first 5 weeks of this blog whining about not being able to even TRY to get preggers, and now that I am on an ‘official’ cycle, I’m miserable.  That’s appreciation for you, isn’t it?  Yeah, I’m a real ice-cream-with-sprinkles-on-top kinda girl today.  And I also forgot how to properly notate, since it’s been about 10 years since I have written a paper.  So, I did the best I could with the mental resources I have left, which are not many.  I’m on Clomid for Pete’s sake!

Now, if you’re one of those women who took Clomid and had some easy-peasy, symptom-free, chocolate falling from the sky experience, well I guess bully for you.   That has not been the case for me.  And I suppose it’s mean spirited and ‘little’ of me to wish Clomid horribleness on everyone.  But here is the truth of the matter:  Clomid renders one incapable to be the ‘bigger’ person in any given situation.

Norethindrone (my cyst-buster drug, which was a crock) made me grouchy.  Clomid makes me certifiable.  I’m not sure if the mood swings are worse or the hot flashes.  Yesterday, for the first time in almost 7 weeks I actually felt in an ‘up’ mood, like life’s got a million promises for you, just wait and see kinda ‘up’.  I opened the window and blue bird actually landed on my finger and started to whistle.  Anyway, this is Clomid’s sneaky trick, making you feel all Mary Poppins  just to sweep the carpet out from beneath your feet and have you ticked that your husband’s empty coffee cup that you attempted to throw away, only to be rescued by your husband because he promised to clean the kitchen, is STILL on the kitchen counter 2 hours later.  Yup, I can say from personal experience that Clomid does not like this situation.  Clomid gets mad and throws a fit.

Clomid also doesn’t like when 2 year olds throw a perfectly put away set of flash cards all over the floor right before bedtime or when a dog persistently attempts to lick your face and you protest after seeing where the dog’s tongue was but a mere 10 seconds before.  Clomid gets angry.

Now, before you feel the need to call into question my Clomid-influenced parenting decisions, I’ll tell you that there’s no WAY I”m gonna go all ‘Mommy Dearest’ on my son, I promise I won’t.  Besides, he doesn’t even have wire hangers in his room.  I will not  take out my Clomid craziness on my son, which is good in theory.  However, in practice, this dark-side resistance leaves me little to no resources left for my husband.  Unfortunately, he gets  pure unadulterated Clomid insanity.

I’m gonna get a white tee-shirt and write this in large letters with a Sharpie: Sorry, Honey.  The Clomid made me do it.  And wear it for the next month.  I’ll probably have to get a bunch of them, though, because I sweat so much with Clomid hot-flashes last night, that I had to change shirts about half-way through.  Ugh.

I HATE Clomid hot-flashes.  If you’ve never had one, this is the best way to explain it:  picture yourself about 6 years old, and it’s really cold outside and you’re going to play in the snow, so your mom (being a good and wonderful mother) bundles every stinking exposed part of your body with multiple layers of scarves, mittens, snow pants, hats, hoods, etc.  And you’re standing there about to go outside to the white winter glory awaiting you, when your mom gets a phone call…from your needy grandma.  And you’re standing there, completely unable to move freely or even untangle yourself from the well-built shield of winter-wear, and you start to get hot.  “Mom!” you say, “Let’s go!”  But she doesn’t hear you because your voice is so incredibly muffled by the many layers of scarves coiled around your neck and mouth.  And she’s disappeared completely now into the kitchen, and all you can think about is how your insides are about to cook  and your mom is going to find you dead on the floor, a giant cooked winter sausage.  And so you throw yourself on the floor and bawl out of sheer desperation and will to live.

Yep, that’s a hot flash.

I had about 6 big ones last night.  That was some GOOD sleeping, I tell you.  It was sort of like having a horribly high fever without the sore throat/cough/runny nose stuff.  I would start out extremely cold and curl up to keep my toes and hands warm, then I would give in to the coldness, cover myself with an extra blanket, fall peacefully asleep only to wake up sweating like I’d been running a marathon (or jogging around the block, I’m totally out of shape) and so hot that I started yelling for my mommy to get off the phone and help me.

Oh, the joys of Clomid.

I guess that in theory Clomid craziness is worth it.  I mean, if I get a BFP I’ll definitely say it was.  But I don’t buy that a BFP is in the cards for me this month.  BetterBe (my friendly cyst) has been taunting me the past few days as well, so I’m preparing myself to have this cycle canceled when I go to the RE next Monday.  Honestly, I just feel sorry for whichever nurse chooses the short straw and has to TELL me that my cycle is canceled, because no matter what I’ve said about ‘preparing’ myself, the first rule of dealing with Clomid-induced-insanity is that what might be true at any given time for the inflicted may not be true at another time.  I guess one could argue that’s ALL women, but Clomidified women are like all those terrible, stereotypical PMS jokes… times 1,000!

Maybe I should wear my, “Sorry Honey.  The Clomid made me do it,” tee-shirt to my appointment.

Yep, now THAT sounds like a plan Sour Face Eve can live with.