Strangely familiar

I so thought it'd be easier this time around...

I started taking compounded progesterone a couple days ago. I took half a dose at night (50 mg) simply because I didn't know how to tell if it was peak-plus-one any earlier than bedtime (heck, I don't usually know what was peak or peak-plus-whatever until I look back at my chart days later!), and I thought I had to take the two pills at different times of the day (I've since learned I can take them together).

I woke up at 5 a.m. with terrible nausea, thought I had the stomach bug. I went back to sleep and woke back up around 8, still sick. By 9, it was gone.

I figured it was due to the progesterone - causing me to feel something akin to morning sickness - so I took just half the dose again that night. That was yesterday. This morning I woke up with no nausea, but terrible cramping. It lasted a little longer, going away around one this afternoon. But I had pain on my right side (my ovary?) that lasted all day.

I'm taking it orally and a nurse told me this afternoon to keep taking it (the FULL dose) until my doctor is back in the office next week.

The reason I'm on compounded progesterone in the first place is because I can't handle prometrium. I get bad headaches on it. But I'm also suspicious that it caused weight gain and mood swings.

I'm hoping that my body is just getting used to this progesterone, and that the nausea and cramping will go away soon. But the nurse said it could last more than a week. That freaks me out because I can't just sit around with nausea and cramping when I have two babies to take care of.

So I am left with the decision to keep taking something that makes me ill, in hopes that it will go away two weeks from now...or give up on a treatment that I likely will need if I ever hope to conceive again.

It's not a hard decision - I will choose feeling well and caring for my babies because I can't take care of them when I'm sick, even if it's just a week - but it doesn't come without sadness.

I'm not making any decisions just yet. I'll give it another day or two. But a week or more? I just can't. (And, on a side note, I have to travel alone, just me and the kids, eight hours in the car this weekend. Not possible with nausea.)

So I'm kind of sad tonight, and getting down about not having properly functioning reproductive organs. My body can't even handle progesterone. It can't get pregnant (except for one glorious time!) and it can't birth a baby.

And I'm sad thinking about how I might need another surgery. The pain on my right side could be another endometrioma. I'll wait until it gets worse, then ask for an ultrasound. That's what happened two years ago when I needed emergency surgery.

But now, surgery with two babies at home? That terrifies me. Terrifies me. How would it even be possible? I don't have any family nearby. The surgeon is two hours away. I'd likely have to have a laparotomy with a six-week recovery time because that's what I've had every other time I've had surgery. I can't even think about it because it's too much to wrap my mind around.

And in this scenario, surgery wouldn't be optional, like it wasn't optional last time. As far as I know, you can't take medication to shrink endometriomas like you sometimes can with regular cysts. You can't just wait it out if it's causing you pain.

I'm getting ahead of myself. I should stress that this is just me worrying about the possibility of needing surgery. No one has told me I need it. It's just worst-case-scenario. I'm still hoping the pain could be from something else. Can progesterone cause pain in the ovary you just ovulated from?

It's just that I had hoped I was healed. We talked about it as early as when I got my positive test. I was thinking about the future even then. I told myself how there aren't a ton of blogs about secondary infertility a year after conquering primary infertility...That it seemed like a lot of women with secondary infertility didn't have difficulty the first time...That it wouldn't happen to me. I'd get pregnant right away and not have to go through more surgeries and medications (especially since I wasn't taking anything when I conceived before, so there's nothing to try again).

But it's all strangely familiar now. The worries, the fear, the treatments, the medications, the side effects.

It's easier going through this with babies, for sure. But it's different, because I don't have the time and energy to devote to infertility anymore. As we all know, it's like a full-time job. Now it takes me weeks to call the doctor's office with a question.

I don't know if I have it in me this time around, and that scares me. I want it badly. I want to grow our family, but there just aren't enough hours in the day.

I'm going to take a deep breath and calm down. Hopefully I'll wake up tomorrow morning feeling fine. And if I don't, it's not the end of the world. I'll stop the progesterone if I have to. I had low progesterone when I got pregnant with Luke and wasn't taking anything then either.

I'm starting to think that our next baby (thinking positive here!) will have to truly be born out of prayer. If I get pregnant again, or if we adopt again, it will have to be with God moving mountains. And MAJOR mountains, because I just can't give the same effort I did before. And we can't afford to adopt again.

So I'm leaving it ALL up to Him.

With God all things are possible. I should know that as well as anyone, and it will be what I repeat to myself in my moments of doubt. With God all things are possible.