Dang, that hurts

Did nothing but work, walk, and bathe the pupper yesterday (that's her looking sparkly and smelling clean at breakfast today). No trips to the clinic. I planned to work in the evening, but the late-afternoon headache I'd successfully ignored blossomed over dinner. It turned screaming on me and made me wish I hadn't eaten.

As a rule I don't get many headaches, but when I do they pretty clearly come from stress/eye-strain or hormonal shifts. This one was definitely hormonal. I've been getting the same one every few cycles during ovulation time for about a year. I may be wrong, but I've been assuming I get them during a big ol' estrogen surge as my tired ol' reproductive system struggles to spit out an egg. Obviously I'm not ovulating now, but we know the cyst is producing estrogen. This headache doesn't respond to Tylenol (I think aspirin performs slightly better, but I'm not supposed to take that right now), and it doesn't like noise or light or air. Sometimes a hit of cranberry juice will dull it. Probably any fruit juice would do, but we usually have just V8 or plain tomato juice open with cranberry on hand in case of emergency need for cosmos.

Anyway, the cranberry trick did nothing, nor did a why-not shot of pomegranate juice — also a good mixer. (Just btw, no, I'm not imbibing at all while we're cycling.) So I shut down my computer and took to the bed with my fertility meditation CD. That last part was DH's idea. I was so focused on how those few hours of not working might affect my ability to meet my next deadline that he predicted that lying down with nothing but my regular thoughts might not be the best medicine.

He was right, but I'm still not digging the exercises on this CD. I bought two CDs. One specifically for general fertility and one geared toward taking you through the steps of an IVF cycle, from injections to pregnancy test. I haven't done the second one yet because I haven't started the injects. So I'm just using the first one. While I do benefit from concentrating on better breathing, I don't like what I perceive to be a negative approach to getting me to feel better. The narrative basically tells you that you are infertile because your thoughts make you so. You are blocking the soul of the new life trying to enter your clenched-up womb each month. Your sadness/anger/frustration/stress is the only thing responsible for your infertility. That you are infertile is your fault.

Ouch.

Now, the second part of the exercise tells you to stop everything that you're doing to sabotage your fertility. Yet it's not all that soothing and reassuring. Not to me, anyway. If I were creating an exercise, I'd want the listener to dispense with the negative thoughts. And naturally she would have to acknowledge them. But I wouldn't spend the bulk of the time focusing so closely on them only to then vaguely mention switching over to the positive frame. I would spend most of the time guiding the listener to think happy, calming, positive thoughts. We'll see how the IVF exercises are structured. I may just revert to taking a bit of time each day to do some deep breathing while listening to soothing, uplifting music.

The headache is gone today, thank goodness. But now the cyst-area hurts. I'm feeling sharp, stabby pains when I bend or twist at the waist. And it is sore when I press on it. I hope, hope, hope it's not growing. Here's hoping that it hurts because it is shrinking or has ruptured/self-aspirated. I think that's a good thing to hope for, but I don't have time to research all things Ovarian Cyst today. If that's the wrong thing, God and/or Universe and/or Mother Earth and/or My Fertile Soul, please convert my wish to its correct form. Thank you.

I'll know what's up with it tomorrow.