More Shots Than a College Party

When I received my initial box of medication from the pharmacy, I thought to myself that there’s no way I’ll be able to go through with this …

But once I unboxed everything, it didn’t seem so bad. My RE prescribed Estradiol, Menopur, Follistim, Cetrotide, Dexamethasone, DHEA, CoQ10 and Ovidrel plus a whole bag of needles, syringes, alcohol pads and a sharps box to dispose of everything safely.

My darling husband wanted to help me get through these shots, but I’m sort of a control freak when it comes to these things and decided that it would be better to administer the shots myself.

I order to keep everything organized, I put together a chart of appointment, medications and other reminders.  This chart also served as a visual reminder of my progress and accomplishments throughout the process.

Routines are always easier to adhere to when you keep to a schedule, so for about 11 days, I woke up around 6am, made myself a decaf coffee (reward) prepped my shots and made myself comfortable in the spare bedroom to begin my subcutaneous injection.

On top of the meds, my RE booked me in for a scan and bloodwork every three days, including weekends! By the end of it, my poor veins were aching. But my husband was there with me through every early morning shot, every RE appointment and each sleepy, sluggish afternoon doing whatever he could to make me comfortable and to reassure me that everything was going well and that I was doing great!  It really did feel like a marathon, so the encouragement was a wonderful help.

My treatment result where good, the retrieval process was far less painful than I had anticipated.  Out of the 12 eggs that my body was able to produce, three progressed into viable embryos.  After doing the genetic testing, we ended up with two chromosomally normal embryos and all the hope in the world for a successful transfer.  After all of this running, it was finally time to settle down, relax and let my body heal and for the next three weeks, that exactly what we did.