It’s been a long silence here in my blog. Partly because I’ve experienced mood changes that made me sad, and sometimes overwhelmed, that left me with no desire to write. Apparently not uncommon for someone like me who suffers of hormone imbalances. After the fail of the first Letrozole treatment, back in January, I got prescribed with more for a second try. That was in March.

During the second treatment of Letrozole I started to notice some nasty side-effects:

1. Hot flashes. I can now relate (and extend empathy) to those women who suffer of them. It is this nasty hot feeling under your first layer of skin that you wish to exhaust. It didn’t matter where I was, all of a sudden hot flash mode would turn on. For the first time I didn’t need a sweater while attending a meeting in the freezer room (that’s how the women used to call it, only men would be in their short-sleeved shirts).
2. Insomnia. When hot flashes kick in at night they wake someone up I tell ya. If hot flashes are disgusting during the day, at night they feel like hell. I couldn’t go back to sleep after such discomfort. I felt miserable. And my personal (and compact) fan pointing at me wasn’t enough to console them.
3. Tiredness. So, hot flashes kick in at night, then you wake up, throught the night, a lot.  No wonder someone feels tired the next day.

Some people might endure all of this agony in the name of balance, but not me. I was so ready to throw in the towel when the fertility clinic called me to confirm the second round of Letrozole didn’t work. I felt sick. I worked hard not to crumble right there at the office. All I was left with was a bunch of thoughts and feelings with probably the same amount of unknown answers.

As a next step, the fertility doctor recommended to try “FSH injections”. Apparently the treatment is about $800 and all I had to do is apply them myself on the belly. Did I say they are 12? No, thank you.

I left the clinic with another prescription, but this time for an alternative to Letrozole: Clomiphene. There’s no way I voluntarily pay to self-administer pain. At least not yet.

All and all living with infertility has been a sour experience, from waste of time to uncomfortable feelings, but nothing has been more unpleasant that being on the wait-and-see seat during this long process. Let’s see how the alternatives to those injections work out.