IVF cycle 1... here we go!

Well, my plan of getting some sun and Vitamin D on a beach in the week before starting our first IVF cycle was somewhat foiled by freak weather in Thailand! It rained... a lot... most of the time. There were a couple of hazy days with a little sun poking through, but most of the time it was miserable. I also managed to catch a cold towards the end of the week and spent a couple of days in bed ordering room service and watching TV... OK, in retrospect that doesn't sound too bad!  I guess a change is a good as a rest?!

CAUTION... if you have a fear of needles, you might want to avoid the rest of this post... and perhaps IUI/IVF, but that's another story ;)

So back to sunny China and IVF number 1. I went to the clinic on CD20 and got my downregging meds. I'm on Decapeptyl (0.1mg) which I need to inject into my upper arm once a day.  I had a choice of getting my jabs at the clinic or doing them myself. The Dr was like 'it's really easy.. you can do it yourself'. The nurse seemed to think (she speaks about as much English as I speak Chinese) that I should go there to have them.

I found out that if I do my own injections then I don't need to go back to the clinic until CD5, so I opted to do them. The nurse did the first one and showed me the procedure. The syringes come ready loaded with the correct dose (at least until CD1 when I need to halve the dose - not sure how to do that yet) so I don't need to do anything with vials which was a relief.

The only odd/confusing thing is that the nurse massaged my arm with one hand, whilst giving the injection with the other. How am I supposed to do that with only 1 hand?!

Yesterday - Option 1...do the injection without the massage.
I got the needle in on the second try (was too wimpy the first time) and it seemed to be going well except for my hand shaking a bit. It takes a long time to administer the full dose, so the hand shaking got a bit worse. I finished and noticed a big lump on my arm.. presumably where the dose had gathered around the injection site - maybe that was what the massage is for?!  Then I had a bit of a funny turn (beware TMI coming up!).. I felt really nauseous and went into a cold sweat. It was crazy! I was naked having just got out of bed and the sweat was literally dripping onto the floor. Then I had an urgent need to go to the toilet.  This all lasted just a few minutes and then I felt better, though I still went back to bed to read for a little while :)

So.. what was that about? Can't be a reaction to the drug because I was fine when the nurse did it. Maybe nerves? Maybe the sight of the lump where the drug gathered? (Which dissipated really quickly, by the way). So...

Today - Option 2... my bloke massages my arm whilst I inject.
I position his hand in the right place and demonstrate what the nurse seemed to do. I do the injection and he massages. Except, unlike when the nurse did it, the length of the needle (though not the tip) is now going in and out of my arm as the flesh moves up and down with the massage... that can't be right! This causes some discomfort which was definitely not there when the nurse did the injection. But there is no lump afterwards and I feel fine, despite my hand still shaking a bit during the jab.

So what do you think? I've looked online and it seems that most people inject in their stomach, not their arm so I haven't found any videos demonstrating how to do it 'one-handed'. All advice welcome!

On the upside.. no apparent side effects yet :)