Doin' the Infertility Shuffle

I remember one episode of "Good Times" where Wilona was talking about how they were all doing the 'Harlem Shuffle': whenever you take a step forward, The Man knocks you two steps back. I laid in bed giggling maniacally last night (because I don't sleep anymore) about how that reminds me of infertility. And no, I have no idea why Wilona popped into my head. I've been suffering from some extreme insomnia for the last two weeks, and I just don't sleep much anymore, which leads to all kinds of weird thinking.

Anyway, infertility: it seems like every time you figure out a problem, it only leads to another problem. There never seems to be an end in sight, at least not a happy end where you get to take home a live, healthy baby. You add another drug, another test, another treatment, but each one discloses some new condition that has to be conquered.

Can't get pregnant? Let's check your hormone levels to see if you're ovulating. Nope, not ovulating, so take this clomid/femara. Okay, you're ovulating, but your progesterone is low & you're still not getting pregnant. Let's add progesterone shots/suppositories and check to see if your tubes are open. Yep, you have open tubes, so let's try some more clomid/femara, but this time we'll do an IUI (repeat 3-6 times). Not pregnant yet? We'll try some injectable drugs next... It goes on and on and on. And I didn't even get into the problems like endo, adhesions, premature ovarian failure, failure to respond, etc.

And of course, let's not forget the other end of the infertility spectrum: able to get pregnant, but unable to carry to term. Let's try: progesterone, aspirin, check for antibodies, etc. After going through miscarriage once, I truly cannot fathom how some women are able to go through this over and over, and not completely, permanently, lose their minds. The weaker sex? I think not.

::

So I mentioned I'm not sleeping lately. I think that's how my grief/depression is expressing itself, through insomnia. Between lying there in bed, feeling the mushiness in my belly where it had been firm to worrying about finances, sleep just doesn't have a chance.

There's only been one time in my life that emotional issues interfered with sleep, and that was when my mom nearly died after surgery due to a mistake made by the anesthesiologist. I was in bad enough shape that my doctor actually suggested, and prescribed, drugs to help me sleep. Drugs which I took once, discovered that I could barely wake up from them, and didn't take again.

I really want to sleep more than 3 hours a night. Thankfully, my cardiologist is amending my meds, and putting me back on BP drugs that bring me down a bit. They always made me sleepy/helped me sleep before, so I think that within a week or so, I'll actually know what sleep is again.