Fun with the OW (Girl Talk behind the cut)

[marydell]

So, the pain of infertility pretty much goes away when the nice social worker hands you a baby, but, as I have mentioned, the pain of debilitating cramps does not.  My cycle seems to be resetting itself a bit, mercifully--the minipill, which I took for a year, shortened my cycle from three weeks to four.  When I stopped taking it because of side-effects, the 3-week cycle remained in place.  Thanks, minipill.  Since Charlie arrived, though, it's stretching out a bit...my theory is that my body is hormonally aware of the baby and so it's finally decided it doesn't need to pretend to be pregnant any more.  Or something.

The last 6 months have been full of ironies of timing, though.  All-day adoption class in Indiana?  Debilitating cramps; can't take anything stronger than advil because I need to stay alert.  Traveling home from Indiana with a week-old baby?  Cramps.   First day back at work, post-baby-leave?  Cramps; advil, pretend all day that I'm fine so that people don't think I'm slacking after my time off. 

Today, I finally get to say FUCK IT.  I have cramps, I'm staying the fuck home and taking an FMLA leave day. (My company has FMLA leave--so does yours if it has more than 50 employees--and one way you can use this benefit is to take an unpaid day off when you're sick with a documented  recurring, intermittent condition, instead of using all your sick time and then eating up your vacation time)  Charlie is at day care and I am sitting my ass in a chair, eating pretzels and advil and diet coke, and watching all the Law & Order CI I can find on the Tivo while I say "owww, owww, FUCK."   Ahhhh.

Comments

[geekosaur]

I think you forgot to actually mark this as filtered. :)

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Whoops, I meant to put it behind a cut. The "filter" is just there to warn people, it's not actual adult content or anything. Fixed & rephrased. :) Sorry!

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Ouch. Is there anything else that relieves the cramps?

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Vicodin helps a bit. Flexiril is good. Both of them are heavily sleep-inducing, which is not conducive to caring for a newborn at night. Estrogen birth control pills are very helpful, but have bad side effects, particularly if you're "fair, fat, and forty" like me.

If I lose 20 or 30 pounds I'm going to try an estrogen-containing IUD. Barring that, menopause or hysterectomy are the most likely outcomes. But as long as my job is secure I can deal...I've had the condition since I was 13, and it's only really sucked because it prevented me from becoming a mom. Now that I have Charlie, it's just a chronic pain condition, and lots of people have those. :)

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Hysterectomy sounds pretty radical, and menopause might be years away. Vicodin's a sledgehammer, and addictive (as well as sleep-inducing). I know nothing of flexiril. I was wondering if a TENS machine might help. I've just ordered one to deal with my back pain which has recently become chronic (every morning, though it goes away). It's manageable. But arthritis is no fun. A little pain is bearable. If it gets in the way of your enjoying Charlie, though, that's another matter.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Cramps can be hard to treat because the pain comes from intrauterine contractions, rather than from overactive nerve impulses or from inflammation (although inflammation is also a factor with endometriosis). In my case, muscle relaxers are the best option--Flexiril is one of those, but it's even more of a sledgehammer than Vicodin. It's sort of safe to take with Advil, though, so once I can go back on it (once it's ok for me to be dead asleep for 2 nights in every 28) I should be ok. For now I don't want to leave Mike to wrangle Charlie all on his own--I do night duty most nights, because I fall back to sleep easily.

I think a friend of ours has something similar to a TENS machine, but hers is a surgical implant.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

All I can offer is sympathy (not even tea, alas). It seemed to me that there ought to some means other than drugs to deal with the pain. Life ought to be bearable, after all. And Charlie needs his mother -- and vice versa.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm fine (pain-wise, at least) for 24 days out of every 26, currently, and as long as my liver holds out and lets me take 6 advil at a time I can still spend time with the kiddo. This is where having a very hands-on dad for a partner is good, though--he can take over for me when I'm down for the count, and Charlie's just as happy.

One way or another, in 10 or 15 more years I'll be done with this nonsense...most people with chronic pain can't say that.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

That's a positive way of looking at it.