Needles

I am glad that I have been keeping track of all of this. I was talking to someone the other day about it all and they asked if I had been keeping a journal about it all. I told them yes, and they said, "Good, you will probably forget a lot of what you went through, so keeping a journal now will help you to look back and see it all." I thought that was a very good point, there are certain points in my life where I really wished I had written in my journal about it, but either I was not able to, or I just didn't. Now that I am going through all of this to get pregnant I really do want to keep track of what happens. For those interested here is my current musing about the needles and the shots I am giving myself.


Today I started my next two shots. Follistim and Menopur. Follistim is injected with an injection pen. It is a neat little device. To use the pen you load a cartridge of Follistim into the pen and then screw on a micro needle (29 gauge) then to give yourself a shot you dial up (screw the end of the pen until it shows the number you need) your medication amount, then you take the caps off the needle and inject the needle and then press down on the end of the pen to inject the medication. Only thing I don’t like about it is that when you inject the Follistim the pen end twists as you press down, this makes injecting it difficult.

Menopur is mixed before injection, so you take 1 ml of saline and put it into the vial that holds the powdered Menopur medication, then you swirl the vial to mix. After mixing you draw out all of the mixture and screw the injection needle onto the syringe. The injection needle for the Menopur is 25 ½ gauge.

So total I am taking three shots, 5 units of Lupron with a 28 or 29 gauge needle, 150 units of Follistim with a 29 gauge needle, and 75 units of Menopur with a 25 ½ gauge needle. Now if you are unfamiliar with gauges, the higher the number the smaller the piece of metal, so a 1 gauge is actually rather huge and thick, while a 30 gauge is rather tiny and thin, so a 29 gauge is a very thin needle, and a 25 ½ gauge needle though still quite thin is a bit larger than the 29 gauge needle. However today as I put each needle in I found that the 25 ½ gauge needle didn’t hurt going in, but the medication hurt when I injected it, the 28 gauge needle hurt at first when I started to insert it the medication was fine as it was the 5 units, and the 29 gauge needle actually hurt the most when I inserted it, but the medication didn’t hurt at all because I had difficulty pressing down the end of the Follistim pen so the medication went in slowly.

Overall the process took me 15 minutes total, and that was with me having prepared the Follistim pen and a syringe of 5 units of Lupron last night, I think I will continue to do that as I don’t have a whole lot of time in the morning (I like my sleep), I have to prepare the Menopur right before I inject it so I can’t make up a needle of it the night before. The Follistim cartridges that I have been given are 300 units each, with a 150 unit prescription that means that one cartridge will give me 2 injections. The whole thing comes in a handy dandy carry case that holds the needles the pen and an instruction manual, the instruction manual has a record keeping part of it so that you can keep track of how much Follistim you have taken and how much is left in your cartridge. It is kind of like keeping a checkbook.

I am thinking of going and visiting my family this weekend. I need to talk to Kevin about whether we want to attend church with my family. If we do I will need to figure out what stuff I will need to take with me, shot wise.

Next Monday is my next doctor’s appointment; they will be monitoring me, taking an ultrasound and blood work. Before this is done I fear that my right arm will begin to look like a heroin addicts, so many needle marks to show all the blood taken.

IVF Update

On last Thursday the 22nd I had my baselines drawn as well as my tests for HIV, and a number of other sexual diseases. They also did an internal ultrasound. Based on what they saw they will be having me start my other two shots next Wednesday. I will be taking 150 units of Follistim and 75 units of Menopur and my Lupron dose will lower to 5 units per day. These shots will have to be done each morning. Something I will have to add to my morning routine. I asked the nurse when they thought that I would have the retrieval done, and she guessed sometime around May 7th or 8th, since May 8th is a Saturday I am guessing that it will be on the 7th most likely. I suppose we will have to see how I look around that time. 36 hours before the retrieval I will have to take an HCG shot. I was looking at the paperwork and it looks like they give you a specific time. I was beginning to freak out because I didn't know who would give it to me if Kevin wasn't around. Until today. I had called Walgreens last night to see if their clinic would be willing to give me the shot, but they don't. So today I went to a short story workshop/class at the local community college with one of the ladies from my writer's group. While there she mentioned that she was an RN, and I thought, "Woah, a good friend, an RN, I bet she has had experience with giving shots, I wonder if she would be willing to give me the HCG shot. So I asked her today and she said she would. Yay!!! God really does work in mysterious and wonderful ways. I am so happy that I don't have to worry about that now. Now, I just have to get through the stress of next week and I should be good, next week I have 7 meetings where I will be talking to the leaders of the different departments in our Region. A bit of a stressful situation to say the least. Deep breaths and repeating my stress mantra. "I must not stress. Stress is the mind killer. Stress is the little death that..."

A bit scary

Yesterday I had a bit of a scare, I went to work and within a short time found myself feeling wrong. I felt slightly feverish, achy all over with a severe headache and nausea that came and went and came again. I told my manager who suggested I called the doctor, which I did. I felt weepy, and wanted to find someone to cry on, I felt scared and wondered if something was dreadfully wrong with me. I went upstairs and fell asleep (for a short bit) in a secluded mother’s room on the 13th floor (I did this at my manager’s insistence) then I came down and told my manager that I was going home because I felt wrong.

Went home, slept for a good while, woke up around Noon and made tuna sandwiches for lunch, fed Kevin and myself and then laid down again and slept till almost 3 pm when Kevin woke me up again to come with him to an interview. Felt better most of the rest of the day. Still felt pain, did some slight yoga, eventually fell asleep again and stayed there till morning.

Discovered though when I called up the doctor that what I am taking is actually hormones, and because of this will not react strangely with other drugs. Makes me wonder what did happen to me.

4th Day

So today is my fourth day of shots, and so far it is not too bad. The needles are rather small, and don't hurt too much when I give myself each shot. This does not mean that I like it. I am especially not looking forward to the intramuscular shots. Things are going well though, and I am happy for it. I have not flipped out too badly except for Monday and that was provoked. So I am hoping that I stay that way. This weekend we will be visiting my parents and also seeing my brother and sister in law. We will also meet little Carli for the first time! Yay! Exciting stuff!!

Dreams of Shots

Considering today is the day I begin to take my shots is it any wonder that I would have a dream about it?

Last night I dreamed that I was getting everything ready for giving myself my first shot. I got all the stuff together and began to get the shot ready, and then I began to make a mess of things. The medicine that I was supposed to give myself turned into a strange looking contact that I was supposed to put on and I was supposed to absorb the medicine through my eye. (Weird) I had so much trouble getting everything ready that the contact began to turn red, which I was sure was not a good thing. Eventually I had to call up the doctor who told me that I could put the contact back into the case it came in and put it back in the liquid it had come in, the case would clean it in the liquid and it would be good as new when I took it out again. I discussed with the doctor how I had worn hard contacts for a good part of my life. Eventually though I was able to get everything to work out, even though I never did give myself a shot in the dream. I woke up knowing that the whole dream was really about me giving myself shots.

Today I have brought my packet of information about the shots to work with me, I plan to go over it so that I will be ready when I get home today.

In Vetro Schedule

Last Wednesday I had an appointment with the doctor where they went through the schedule of how they were going to be doing the IVF treatment and how the medication would be working. So here it is, mostly so that I write it down and get it more firmly implanted in my brain.

April 12th (Today) I begin to take Lupron, this medicine keeps me from ovulating, the Lupron dose is given as a subcutaneous injection (abdomen or upper thigh shot), I take 20 units of it once a day in the evening, every day.

April 17th I stop the birth control, I take my last pill.

April 22nd I go in to have my baselines drawn. They will be doing blood work and an internal ultrasound to see how I am looking, as long as everything is normal I will be starting my next set of medicine.

April 24th I will probably start this new set of medicine. My Lupron dose will drop to 5 units every morning, and I will begin to take Follistim and Menopur, which both help me produce eggs. I will be taking 150 units of Follistim and 75 units of Menopur. Both of these are subcutaneous injections (abdomen or upper thigh shots), this will mean I will be taking 3 shots per day. I will take these for five days and then return for an ultrasound, so ultrasound probably on April 28th. I will take these shots for about 8 to 10 days.

The fertility clinic will be having me come in regularly to check and see how I am doing. Once I look like I am close they will have me take one injection of HCG (an intramuscular injection, meaning a butt shot with a long needle that will reach the muscle), which will cause me to ovulate, 36 hours after the HCG shot I will go into the hospital to have the harvesting done. I am guessing that this may happen on either May 6th or May 7th.

The harvest will go like this. I will go to the hospital, they will put me under, while I am under they will use an internal ultrasound to see where they are going and then use needles to harvest the eggs. Kevin will have to drive me home because I will be drugged up afterward.

After the retrieval I will begin three medications. I will take Doxycycline (an antibiotic, and a pill), and Medrol (a steroid, and a pill) for four days. I will also begin Progesterone in oil (this is a hormone that will help prepare the uterus for implantation and will help the embryo develop), this will be a daily injection and is another intramuscular shot (butt shot with long needle)

Three days after the harvest will be the transfer. During the transfer they will implant two to three embryos into my uterus. The hope is that one of them will attach. After the implantation I will continue to take Progesterone in oil until my pregnancy test, 14 days later. Then they will check my levels and see if I still need to take Progesterone, if I do I can then either choose to continue with the shots or begin to take a vaginal suppository. I will be going with the suppository, I can handle that better over a shot.
This means that I will have my harvesting sometime between May 4th to May 11th and my transfer between May 7th to May 14th, with my pregnancy test happening between May 20th to May 27th.

It feels crazy to think of all the shots, and all the crazy planning just to get pregnant. But if we end up pregnant it will be all worth it. Today I begin the shots, and that will continue for about a month in a half.