Say Hello to Follistim's Evil Cousin--Progesterone

A couple of weeks ago, I *may* have mentioned that I was a wee bit hormonal while giving myself those nightly shots of Follistim, the wonder drug designed to light a proverbial fire under my ovaries and force them to spit out more than one egg at a time. You can imagine that jump-starting my little old lady ovaries required a hefty dose of the ovary-caffeine. So my brain was kind of on crazy-lady overdrive.

I claimed at the time that I wasn't so far gone as to cry over cheesy holiday jewelry commercials. I seem to recall that shortly after publishing that post (like within minutes), I saw some stupid commercial where the man and woman are ice skating and he falls down and she giggles at him. Then she falls down and he catches her and gives her some sort of diamond-y thing (I wonder if he reconsidered after she laughed at him for falling down?). Cried like a baby. Sooooo, yeah.

And it got worse. By the time I was metabolizing the trigger shot of Ovidrel, 36 hours before our IUI, Husband had learned a most valuable lesson---just shut it. No talking to Sarah for any reason. I have blocked the specifics out of my head, but I'm fairly certain he was expecting my head to start spinning in 360's at any moment. Now, that's NOT to say that whatever he said and/or did didn't deserve at least some grief from me---let's not let him off the hook 100% (for whatever he said or did that I can't remember anymore), but let's be fair and say that my reaction could *probably* be described as "over the top" or "a little bit much" or "batshit crazy".

I thought after the procedure last Wednesday I'd be feeling, emotionally at least, back to my old self. And I was for a couple of days. While my ovaries were cramping, and my entire middle region was bloating up to the point that I woke up on Thursday swearing I'd been stuffed into a fat suit (or in this case, a "fatter" suit) while I slept, my emotions seemed to even-keel themselves out and I was able to tone down the crazy to a reasonable-ish level.

But on Friday I had to start taking progesterone, as support for any wee eggs that might have managed to open up the gates for one of the swimmers. (just here I had typed out a whole thing about the swimmers and how impressive they are to RE and OB alike, and I thought it was pretty funny, but Husband might have been mightily mortified, so I deleted it. Because I'm not a really bad wife after all). I didn't have much concern about the progesterone because administering it doesn't involve a giant needle in my tummy. So it seemed pretty benign. Until about 48 hours in.

By Sunday afternoon, my crazy was ON. Again. And making the Follistim crazy look like a friendly little fender bender in which the involved parties don't even exchange information because the damage is so minor. They just exchange "are you okay?" pleasantries, awkwardly wish each other a good day and go on their way.

I recall a near panic attack revolving around what pizzas to get following a holiday parade. One person wanted thin crust, another person wanted a pizza that had mushrooms, onions, and other veggies but no peppers, no pepperoni, no black olives--and wasn't willing to pick the undesirable stuff off of a "supreme". And of course Ethan will only eat cheese.

There was drama over whether to order pizzas for take out or to buy frozen. This nearly required me to sit down and put my head between my knees to catch my breath. We ended up running late after the holiday parade because we'd parked about a mile from the parade route. I was panicking about not having food on the table for my guests. I made some executive decisions, picked up a few frozen pizzas that I thought fit the bill. When we got home, my choices were met with luke-warm approval and THAT sent me into a spiral of crazies. Seriously.

EVERY song I've heard since Monday has made me cry. Indigo girls? Tears. Bon Jovi? Tears. (seriously!!!!) The entire Away We Go soundtrack? Half a box of tissues. And for the record, just saw that damn jewelry commercial again----tears.

It's not just the emotional roller coaster that progesterone has had me on. Today I had to go to Old Navy and buy a new pair of jeans. In a bigger size. Oh. The. Horror. A month and a half ago I joined Weight Watchers. I had lost between six and eight pounds depending on the hour I was on the scale. Six to eight pounds isn't that big of a deal in general, but for a girl who'd been losing and gaining the same five pounds for three years, I was pretty psyched.

And don't get me wrong, it will be more than worth it (um, an aside--Jane Seymour Open Hearts commercial from Kay Jewelers? Just made me cry. WHAT.EVER!!!!!) when and if I get pregnant again. Truly--bring on the weepies and the weight-gain if it brings me a baby. But seriously---what does a hormonally crazed woman need MORE than a pair of jeans that pinch when they are buttoned? Especially when 3 weeks ago those exact jeans were falling off of her? Oh, yeah. That is fun stuff.

Now, I *know* I ate like your garden variety glutton on Thanksgiving. But seriously. TEN pounds? In three weeks? I didn't even gain like that when I WAS pregnant! WTF?!

I have to believe it's the hormones. Because my stomach looks about five months pregnant (my version of five months, not some perky little skinny-minnie's version of it).

So. To sum up. Follistim? Makes me batshit crazy. And fat. Progesterone? Makes me batshit crazy. And fat. Throw in a pair of painfully sore boobs and you have hit the JACKPOT, my friends!