IVF Injections Begin

March 21, 2015  And it has begun! Before going to bed last night I did a double check of my morning Follistim injections in my mini-fridge. I took the cartridge out of the box last night to have it easy to grab in the morning from the refrigerator. I was trying to think ahead! I had the instructions for review on my computer screen just in case. My alarm was set, and I was excited. Yeah, I forgot to let my phone have any volume and never heard it. Fortunately when I have something important to do my body just wakes me up anyway.

My pets thought it was breakfast time, but they were so very wrong. I had my empty "pen" out, alcohol swab, the Follistim, and the needle. It was then that I decided I better get out the instructions to be safe since it had been over a month between now and learning all of this. I was glad I did that, and was ready for the injection! I turned my dosage dial to 100, swabbed a lower, right section of my tummy and grabbed the pen. "Here I go, I'm jabbing a needle into myself," is pretty much what I thought. My left hand pinched about an inch of skin for me to put the needle into. I held the pen like a pencil, as per the instructions, and boom, in it went!

I had absolutely NO pain. Heck I didn't even feel it at all! As I pushed the end of the pen I could feel the Follistim going in a little, mostly due to the cooler temperature of it I imagine. Afterward I cleaned the injection area again and that did sting. That's it. All that mental work and just a little sting!

Around 12 hours later I was back at it, this time with the Menopur. For this medication I actually mix two powder vials with one liquid, then inject with a normal syringe. This one I was more nervous about. Not nervous about the needle, but about being sure to not mess up with my preparation of the meds. This is all a big deal. It's not like I'm experimenting with new eye shadow or something. So the pressure I was feeling was rather huge!

My alarm went off at 6:15pm and it was time to just suck it up. I took my laptop with me again to my designated injection area. This time I really stared and read over the instructions. Too much pressure!! In the end it wasn't as hard as I was thinking.  Considering I'll be doing this every day, I'm not worried at all about it anymore.

The evening injection is Menopur. Basically I take this big needle off of the syringe. I replace it with a small plastic cap that I then use to mix 1 vial of a liquid solution and 2 vials of the Menopur. That was the intimidating part. At OHSU it was fun to do since it was all make believe. Real life is much different!  I felt like it took me forever to do the mixing, but once that was done I was prepared for the last step. I removed the Q-cap and put on a much smaller needle than the one that came on the syringe. Phew!!

For some reason I felt more timid sticking the needle in than I did this morning. Perhaps that is due to being more awake than at 6:30 in the morning on a Saturday! I cleaned the lower, left side of my tummy that I was going to inject and went for it. At first I think I was being too gingerly, so then I had to just go for it and push to get all the meds out and into my body. The needle almost felt a little stuck when taking it out; gee that's not nerve-wracking at all! Only the tiniest droplet of blood came out on my skin, which disappeared as soon as I did the final swab.

So that is that! My first day is complete. I don't know how many more days to go, but I have 9 days worth of injections left.... so we'll see!

MARCH 2015
Sunday		Monday		Tuesday		Wednesday		Thursday		Friday		Saturday
1		2		3		4		5		6		7
Official day 1!!!		Phone call to OHSU		Grandpa :(		Prescriptions set!						Protocol arrived
		to get it started!										in the mail
Birth Control Pills				Got my protocol
8		9		10		11		12		13		14
				Prescriptions arrive
15		16		17		18		19		20		21
				Last birth control pill		Suppression check						Injections begin
22		23		24		25		26		27		28
				Status check #1
29		30		31