All this monitoring is killing me...

So far this week, I have been in to the downtown and suburban locations of the doctor's office four times, and I am due to go back tomorrow.  The protocol for this study is so much more intense than the clinical protocol that we experienced six times before. 

Each time I go in, I have to get an ultrasound and have a blood draw.  Every.  Damn.  Time.  For reasons that I can't quite explain, it has become really overwhelming, both physically and emotionally.  Twice during this cycle as I was being whisked from one procedure to another, I just stood still and felt like crying.  I don't know why - I just did.  It's just too much. 

There are two simultaneous phenomena in my life right now that I feel are trying to make me not myself.  My job and infertility.  There is a definite mood of paranoia at my job and my friends and colleagues are being suspended and disciplined left and right.  People are terrified and are getting cagey.  Normal old carefree me has become paranoid, too.  The real me is calm, happy, extroverted and carefree.  Lately, I have had trouble sleeping out of worry and the stress of missing so much work from the monitoring has me going crazy.  I am constantly second-guessing myself and worrying.  This just isn't me.

At the same time, the me that is stoic, strong and "tough as nails" is almost weeping alone in an exam room for no reason at all.  I feel overwhelmed by treatment and the effect it could have on my job.  My arms are bruised and sore from the constant blood draws and it is becoming harder and harder to find veins.  A little voice in my head keeps saying, I don't want to do this anymore. 

If this cycle doesn't work, there is no question that I am taking a break cycle.  I am exhausted and I am worried about work.  I have developed a cyst on the left ovary, and even though it isn't affecting my hormone levels, I want to give it some time to shrink down before cycling again. 

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It occurred to me this week that it has been almost exactly a year since we started this "part-time job" that is fertility treatment.  A year ago, I was going in for testing and just a few weeks later, I began my first round of Clomid.  So much has changed, and yet nothing has changed. 

My attitude has changed.  Even though I am still so happy with my life, my family and my marriage, there is a little piece of me that is a little bit darker, a little bit jaded and bitter.  The nurse's assistants and the receptionists at both offices recognize me and ask me how I am doing.  My dreams are less and less often about pregnancy and have drifted more in the direction of adopting.

But so much is the same.  The drugs are the same, and the methods are the same as the ones that have failed six times before.  The sameness sometimes feels like the world around me is moving while C and I are stuck standing still.  As so many infertiles have said before me, the definition of insanity is to repeat the same actions, but expect a different result.  I think this protocol has crossed the line into insanity - how many times does it have to fail before I just believe it and move on?  Things are different and things are the same...