Based on conversations with people who have gone through IVF and everything I've read about IVF, a meltdown was inevitable due to the massive amount of hormones I'm injecting into myself on a daily basis. I might be considering it a victory that my first meltdown didn't occur until Day 6 of the meds.
My husband's ears had been feeling clogged for about a week, and at-home remedies weren't helping. Yesterday one of his ears hurt so badly that I was able to convince him to go to the Urgent Care center in town. I'll spare you the waxy, gross details, but suffice to say that the folks at Urgent Care were able to clean out one ear, while the other ear was too swollen for the ear wash device to work.
Now, I was there at Urgent Care with him because he was in LOTS of pain and I hate seeing that, and I wanted the ear wash to work, but I was also watching the clock because I'm supposed to take my IVF meds at the same time every day. I have an hour leeway in either direction if necessary, but that's not ideal. My regular med time came and went, and finally the folks at Urgent Care decided that the best solution was to prescribe my husband some kind of steroidal ear drop to reduce the swelling to help with the pain and open up the canal enough that an ear wash will work in a few days. When we left, he wasn't happy that his ear was still blocked and I was quietly freaking out about what time I'd be able to take my medicine.
When we got home, I ran around trying to get my meds together so I would be within the hour of my usual injection time (and I had to feed our dog, who was not happy her dinner was delayed). After my injections, which hurt a lot more than usual, I went back out to the pharmacy to pick up my husband's ear drops, and called my mom because I was now having my first meltdown since I started IVF: What if the steroids in the ear drops do something bad to my husband's part in the IVF process? I can't ask him NOT to take the drops -- his ear is obviously killing him and I want him to feel better. Will his minor fever he has negatively impact his contribution? Is everything going to be delayed AGAIN? Am I injecting myself with all of this for nothing? If he's sick, who is going to take care of me because I also feel like crap!
But, I have a good mom who helped to mostly calm me down by the time I got back home, or as much as a mom can do via phone and text because we live 16+ hours away from our families. Now I say mostly because I was NOT calm and NOT happy, but she told me to call my fertility clinic to ask about my husband's prescription. I wasn't convinced it was an actual emergency (we were way past normal business hours), but I listened to my mom, called the clinic, spoke to the operator on call, and about 20 minutes later received a callback from the doctor on call who told me that my husband's ear drop prescription wouldn't negatively impact the IVF cycle. That gave me enough info to kinda pull myself together, heat up a bowl of soup for dinner, and go back to work. This morning my husband looked and felt much better than he did yesterday, which made me much happier, so I'm going to consider this meltdown as done.
Moral of the story: If your ears are feeling clogged for more than three days without any improvement, just go to the doctor.