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A few months ago, I wrote about my experience with initial Clomid to try to help me get pregnant. As a 32 year old mom of two boys, and two adopted stepchildren, being a mom is something I definitely have plenty of experience with, but dealing with secondary infertility is definitely something that hit me out of nowhere. And when Clomid fails, that’s even harder. Claim Your 20 Free Pregnancy Tests – Click Here
I never imagined that once it was time for me to get pregnant again, that I would have any trouble at all. But now, here we are, and I am currently on my last month of Clomid.
My doctor wanted to start me off with six months of Clomid, and go from there. This month is my last month’s supply, and I am getting ready to start my first pill of my last round of Clomid tomorrow. My experience with Clomid thus far has been far short of the miracle stories you hear all around.
Am I disappointed that I am even having to start on my last round of Clomid? Most definitely.
When I first visited my doctor, after more than two years of trying to get pregnant on my own, I was really hopeful when she suggested Clomid as our first line of defense. She assured me that getting pregnant at 32 wasn’t a lost cause, and that it was, in fact, possible. My doctor herself told me the story of her getting pregnant at age 43 with her own Clomid baby. I was really hopeful and I went into taking Clomid feeling very upbeat and positive.
However, now that I am entering my last round of Clomid, I am not feeling particularly positive anymore. I want to be completely honest and transparent with all of you, and I don’t want to ever give the false impression that Clomid is a miracle cure for infertility, or that there is a one size fits all cure for fertility troubles.
That is just, unfortunately, simply not the case. I am going to try to go over some of the details of my Clomid experience in this post, and hopefully I will be able to give some of you an inside look at what it’s like to take the world’s most commonly prescribed fertility pill.
Does Clomid Make You Ovulate?
First of all, I want to say that in my case, Clomid did exactly what it is supposed to do. Clomid is not a drug that gets you pregnant in anyway, it is simply a drug that stimulates ovulation for women who have problems or issues ovulating on their own.
In my own particular case, Clomid got me to start ovulating within the first month of taking it, which was great news. That is exactly what Clomid is used for, and it worked great!
However, since all Clomid can do is get you to start ovulating (in certain scenarios), it can’t actually get you pregnant. It is to be used as a tool for women who have trouble ovulating, and the truth is, it works in over 80% of cases. Almost all women who take Clomid will begin ovulating within three months of taking it.
In my own particular case, Clomid started working right away. In fact, the very first month that I took Clomid, I began ovulating. It was great news, and I was incredibly overjoyed and excited. In my case, Clomid worked like a charm!
Does Clomid Make You Pregnant?
Of course, that didn’t mean that I would, in fact, get pregnant, just that I started ovulating. I was definitely one of the luckiest ones, since my body responded to the Clomid right away! It was definitely good news for me, even if it didn’t mean that I ended up pregnant right away. So, what can I tell you about my Clomid experiment? And what happens if Clomid fails?
As I have already mentioned, it worked!! What’s better than that? Within a month, I had started ovulating right away, just as planned! My over the counter ovulation tests were positive within just a few short weeks of taking my first Clomid pill, and I was ecstatic!
However, in all honesty, there were some aspects of taking Clomid that simply didn’t mesh well with me, my personality, my body, and my lifestyle. In the interest of full disclosure, I am going to tell you guys all about all the things that I didn’t like about Clomid, what happens when Clomid fails, so that you can weigh the options in your own personal case and decide if Clomid is the right choice for you.
What is the Clomid headache?
Let’s talk about the headaches. When I researched Clomid online, I didn’t really hear much about headaches. At least, not much about headaches in things like the WebMD articles or the Mayo Clinic articles about Clomid.
However, once I started digging a little bit into “real life” experiences like message boards and Facebook groups, the dreaded “Clomid headache” was a real issue, and a very common issue as well! Women everywhere were talking about Clomid headaches and how horrible they were. It was nice, at least, to know that I wasn’t alone!
Every message board post or “real mom” account of Clomid headaches were all the same! They were just like mine! For me, my Clomid headache started just a few short hours after taking my first pill.
Of course, like a silly little goose, I didn’t even know what it was at first. I just thought I had a regular old headache. When it persisted a few hours later, I figured I had a sinus infection coming on, causing me some headache pain. When a few more hours had passed without any relief, I convinced myself that my headache was from not wearing my glasses as often as I should, and that must have been causing me some eye strain.
By the second day, when I still had not found any relief from my Clomid headache, I was convinced that I must have went on a drinking binge in my sleep and was somehow suffering a surprise hangover. I’m telling you guys, it was THAT bad.
For me, Clomid-induced headaches were on a whole other level compared to a regular old headache.
Heck, I even read that some women say that their Clomid headaches are worse than their migraines that they suffer from! How crazy is that!
I totally believe it! In my own case, my horrible headaches started right from the start, and would not let up, no matter what I did. Tylenol, Motrin, Excedrin Migraine – nothing would help, not even a combination of those.
Sleeping in the dark, hot showers, chugging coffee or bottles of water. Nothing at all would help with those horrible pains. It’s crazy how much a little headache can drive you nuts when it is relentless for days on end. It was enough to drive me bonkers, and I felt like it was never going to end. However, it did, in fact, end, as soon as I stopped taking my last pill, and it had a few hours to get out of my system.
Why is Clomid called Clo-moody?
While the headaches were super annoying and lasted a super long time, they were nothing compared to the emotional wreck that Clomid was pulling on me! I mean, within a few hours of taking Clomid, it was like I was on an emotional roller coaster!
I always suffer from some pretty heavy PMS, but once I started taking Clomid, it was on a whole other level! I am talking crying for no reason, horrible mood swings, uncontrollable anger without any type of a cause. It’s crazy to think about, but it was absolutely nuts.
I literally couldn’t get through an hour or two without crying, and I just was completely and totally miserable.
If you already have issues with PMS, or just are heavily emotional in general like I am, be very cautious and careful when taking Clomid. It can really put your emotions and feelings into overdrive and can wreak havoc on your brain! For me, the moniker ‘Clo-moody’ took on a whole new meaning!
Did Clomid make me miserable?
For me, the combination of the horrible headaches and the emotional roller coaster, Clomid simply made me absolutely miserable. I wish I could say that I loved it, that it was a miracle drug for me, and that it completely changed my life, but for me, that is just not the case with my experience with Clomid. So what happens when Clomid fails?
I am sure that there are plenty of those cases out there, but that just wasn’t my own experience. For me, Clomid did make me ovulate properly, but the tradeoff just was not enough for me.
In fact, if I am being completely honest, I am not even for sure if I want to take my last Clomid pill tomorrow. The headaches and the emotional roller coaster are just too much for me.
What’s the next step after Clomid fails?
I am actually just a little bit afraid of what is going to happen next in my fertility journey. I know that the next steps are going to be a little bit difficult for us. Even though we have determined that I don’t have to worry about ovulating anymore, there is much more going on that I do need to worry about.
For example, now it’s time to get my husband into the doctor for a checkup of his own. If any of you guys have husbands, you know how hard that is to do sometimes, since husbands often don’t like to visit the doctor.
Depending on how things go when my husband finally agrees to go to the doctor, we will decide how to proceed with our fertility journey. It doesn’t seem like right now there is any big major problems that are sticking out, so we might even be looking an unexplained infertility, which would really suck.
My husband has two children from a previous marriage, and I have two of my own, so I never really imagined that secondary infertility would be something I would have to be dealing with at this stage of my life. I am only 32 years old, so I always thought that I had a lot longer before I would have to worry about infertility or problems with having babies. I guess that’s just not the way it works sometimes.
I have so much to learn still when it comes to infertility. It’s a road I never thought I would go down, so it’s all new to me still.
My experience with Clomid?
Clomid, as it turns out, was not my miracle drug for getting pregnant. It did the trick for helping me ovulate, but I am still not pregnant yet. Sometimes Clomid fails. However, I am not going to give up. I am going to keep trying, no matter what it takes to achieve my dreams!
If you are a woman who is just starting on your fertility journey, keep your head up and don’t give up on your dreams either. Make sure to talk with your doctor to determine if Clomid is a good choice for your particular situation, and to get some advice on what the best course of action is for your own case.
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