Insomnia & Irritability

So... I am trying to cast this as a "good sign" rather than just a collection of annoying side effects. In my past cycles I have had almost no reaction to any of the meds. No headaches, no hot flashes no foul mood, no weight gain, no irregular heartbeat... the list of possible adverse reactions is fairly all-encompassing, but I never had anything but a circle of bruises around my belly-button. I also never had a baby at the end of the process, so I'm willing to put up with a little problems in the interest of solving my big one.

This time I have a whole smorgasbord of side effects - I am insanely irritable, up until 3 or 4 every night, headaches round the clock, racing heart, bloated midsection. I just had a giant breakdown which ended in some very dramatic she-devil yelling on my part. Even as I shrieked I was appalled - but there was really nothing I could do about it. My husband just doesn't get that being supportive and understanding at some point mid-morning does not let him off the hook for the rest of the day. We are supposedly in this as a two-person team, but as long as he still thinks his part involves a cup and a magazine, we are not going to get along very well. (In his defense, he is theoretically very committed to being emotionally strong for me during this cycle, but I think he just keeps forgetting what that might actually entail.)

Tomorrow I start the stims - follistim 600 for a few days, then stepping down to 375 with monitoring. 600 means two shots a day, which doesn't really bother me in terms of the injections, but it is a lot of drug. I can only imagine what new side effects will crop up - but I'll take them all, and cross my fingers that it turns out to be just part of what it takes to make this cycle work.

********

Meanwhile, I have to work on my calm pleasant demeanor for the teacher conference tomorrow. It turns out there there is a whole blog-world that revolves around gifted children - I have honestly never googled anything about this before, but it has been a wealth of interesting information and I feel like an idiot for not doing this research years ago. But, my kid isn't some overwhelming genius, so... I don't know.

Parenting is a separate struggle. I have found so many amazing women in this IF sphere - I think I really need that for the gifted-child struggles, too. And I remember that when I was first reading blogs I could tell that everybody loved Tertia, but I literally couldn't read her posts because they were all about her toddlers - I couldn't take it, and I already had a child! The emotional aspect is just too intense. So, I'll have to figure it out as I go - maybe I need a separate blog, but things are about to get really dramatic because we finally got her test scores from the first "practice" standardized test last year. I always knew she was a smartish kid - but I guess not wanting to focus on it exclusively may have backfired in a way that makes me feel like I have really failed her, and being sad and irritable and exhausted is not helping me figure out what to do next. Grrr....