It took about a week for me to completely heal and feel back to normal after the laparoscopic surgery. Now it was time to start trying again. Our doctor told us that typically ‘healthy’ couples are able to get pregnant on their own within 6 months following the surgery. Month after month resulted in negative tests. We still kept trying and didn’t lose hope. Once the 6 month mark hit, it was time to call our doctor. We scheduled an appointment to go over options. She recommended that we start with Clomid. She listed some very common side effects including, mood swings, sweats, and nausea. She told my husband to be patient with me and we look at each other like “Uh-oh here we go.” We left that appointment with more hope than we had gone in with. When we got home I jumped on the computer googled Clomid to see what experiences other women had with it. Each article was a hit or miss. Of course it’s case by case and some women take to the medicine better than others. At this point, google was my best friend. I loved reading what other women were going through and seeing what worked for them and what didn’t. In most cases though, many women posted their issues and never came back to tell what their issues turned out to be!
Once I started my cycle I called the doctor to let her know everything was a go so she could call in the prescription. We had no idea what we were in for. I’ve never experiences menopause (obviously) but I’m pretty sure I have a better understanding of what happens after being on Clomid. I had every symptom you could think of. I was sweating like a pig, moody, and nauseous. I just wanted to sleep… all of the time! I kept telling myself that it was all worth it in the end. My husband was very supportive and such a trooper through my mood swings.
I think the first month was the hardest because the medicine was brand new to my body and everything was out of whack. The second month wasn’t as bad but my body was still out of whack from the month before, we just knew what to expect this time. Month three was when it got really bad for us. I began having really bad pelvic pain. I wasn’t sure if my ovaries were just working in overtime and I was just over reacting or if there was something really wrong. I knew it wasn’t pain from my endo though. Endo pain was a completely different type of pelvic pain from what I was experiencing. After about a week of trying to tough it out, I called my doctor. I explained to her the pain I was having and she scheduled a sonogram to double check everything.
The first appointment I could get was a few days after I made the call. As we were heading to the appointment, I couldn’t help but think that I was overreacting and there was probably nothing wrong.(ALWAYS follow your gut!) As the sono tech began her routine she focused in on my right ovary. There it was, a cyst. My husband and I didn’t really know what we were looking at, but we knew that the round circle she was measuring didn’t belong there. The tech got quiet, and me being myself asked her if that “round thing” was supposed to be there. All she said was “No, you definitely have something going on there.” I knew she couldn’t tell me much because it was the doctors job. Later that day, the doctor called me to schedule an appointment to go over results.
I had just began working at a new center within my company, the last thing I wanted to do was tell him that I had to take leave already. As we sat in the room waiting on the doctor, we just kept saying that it will all work out. After all, it was what it was at that point. When the doctor came in she confirmed that it was in fact a cyst. At the time, it was only 5cm (the size of a golf ball). She recommended that we wait two weeks and have another sono to see if the cyst had gone down any. Most of the time when your ovaries form a cyst from hyper-stimulation, it goes down in time. She told me that if I had any more pain within the two weeks to call and we would go ahead and remove it. Yes, that meant another laparoscopic surgery. I toughed it out for another week and could not take the pain anymore. We scheduled the surgery and prepared for surgery number 2.
The surgery went great besides the fact that the cyst had jumped from 5cm to 9cm in a week! The doctor was surprised and said it was a good thing I didn’t ignore my pain. She did find some more endo and removed it. Now it was time to heal from surgery number 2 and talk about next steps.
Spread The Glow 