No more shots!

Yes, today was the day of my last progesterone shot! I do feel very glad to be done with them, particularly as I accidentally got the last 2 days' shots in the same hip, so am feeling rather sore!  I went to the ER to get it and am sincerely hoping that I never have to go back there :)

Thanks everyone for your lovely comments yesterday. However, it seems I spoke a little too soon about the lack of symptoms, as neglecting to have a nap in the afternoon meant I got really tired and headachy at about 5pm - the now usual consequence of trying to stay awake for a whole day like a normal person! I was asleep by 9.30pm after giving up the fight to stay awake and ignore my headache and slept for nearly 12 hours!  But that's fine with me :) It meant I missed a girl's evening out, but I don't have anything to wear that actually fits anyway!

Hormones from hell...

After re-reading my last post and reflecting on my behaviour overall yesterday, it's become clear that it was not a good day for me yesterday! After the ultrasound I spent the rest of the day (till mid-afternoon at least when we went to the cinema) either in tears or really angry and snapping at my Bloke. He didn't know what to say that wouldn't make me cry or get angry, so didn't say anything. This just got me more frustrated because, somehow, I wanted him to be able to make all my worries and concerns disappear and he just couldn't and can't.

Once we'd watched a fun movie (including a little nap for me), I did feel better and I'm feeling better again today. I'm still disappointed that we couldn't see more on our scan, particularly seeing some of the other blogger's pictures that are at around the same stage as us. But I am trying to be positive, take solace in how happy the Doctor seemed yesterday - to be honest, she looked more excited than either of us! - and try to 'believe' that everything is fine until someone says it isn't, which may never, and hopefully will never, happen.

I'm also glad that my post rung true for a few of you yesterday. As always, you reassure me that I am not alone and my feelings are not so very strange. I'm hoping that yesterday's outbursts were partly pregnancy hormones, but I know they were stress-linked as well. In some ways, I wish I had more symptoms to reassure me, but I recently realised that I am still going to acupuncture designed to relieve symptoms!  I guess that's about as logical as I get right now! I'm still feeling very hungry, pretty often. My Bloke described it as 'hungry to the point of distraction' meaning that I can't do anything or think about anything else until I've eaten. I also feel a bit nauseous if I get hungry. I'm hoping this is a good sign though I always wonder about it being 'imagined'...

This morning I went to the ER as usual for my Sunday morning shot. The nurse who speaks English was on duty and remembered me from previous visits. She asked if I was having all these shots to keep my pregnancy. Then she said 'You tolerate a lot of pain to have a baby'. And for a moment, I felt maybe a little proud or maybe just pleased to have someone acknowledge all that I'm going through (and that so many of us are going through) and I thought - Yes, I am and every shot and scan and poke and prod is worth it. :)

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 :)

Bring on the WaterWorks.. Part 2

This is a follow-up to Friday's post, brought on by a quote from a book I recently read (and loved)...

"These days grief seems like walking on a frozen river; most of the time he feels safe enough, but there is always the danger that he will plunge through. Now he hears the ice crack beneath him, and so intense and panicking is the sensation that he has to stand for a moment, press his hands to his face and catch his breath."

This character had lost a loved one 2 years before and, although nothing I've been through has come close to his loss, this is sometimes exactly how I feel and my breakdown on Friday seems to fit this description perfectly. I was feeling fine, but all it took was one crack, one look of concern from Dr F and one moment of weakness on my part and I fell headlong and couldn't stop.  I wasn't able to calm myself as this character did.. I let the momentum carry me along, instead of stopping it in it's tracks and then I was powerless.

So what does this mean for me and where am I in this journey? I guess it means that I am still grieving.. Grieving the loss of the natural conception that we will probably never experience. Grieving that we won't feel the joy of getting pregnant 'by surprise', without the help of doctors, needles, tests and invasive procedures. Grieving the fact that so much of our life together has been spent trying to start our family, instead of enjoying and relishing precious time with it.

That's not to say that I feel this grief every day. I don't and I almost feel guilty calling it grief when so many of you have been through so much more. But I think grief is what it is and certainly what I was experiencing on Friday in a moment when the ice well and truly cracked beneath my feet. But now the ice is solid again and feels strong enough to walk on, if not to jump up and down on just yet! And I know the day will come when I'll be skating on that ice and feeling no fear of cracks and I look forward to that.

Since when do fertility drugs make you feel 'perky'?!

SPOLIER ALERT!!

I need to make this clear up front... I'm a big Grey's Anatomy fan.. Huge! It makes me cry virtually every episode and I love it even more for that. And I'm not going to comment too much on how it has handled the Meredith/McDreamy baby-making storyline too much.. for one thing, it's been covered very well here.

But this week's episode.. seriously?!  Since when do fertility drugs make you feel 'perky'?! This was Meredith's observation at the beginning of the episode. I know that I've not been on too many different drugs yet (Gonal-F, estrogen, progesterone), but I don't recall any blog posts from girls saying how great they felt...

And then she gets all precious because Derek wants to give her a shot (I mean injection, not the natural kind of shot.. or was that just my dirty mind working overdrive?!) in the elevator, rather than a nice private on-call room.  She should try giving herself a shot in the stomach in a restroom at a big hotel, whilst wearing an evening gown and control pants that cover her entire torso, during a black tie event, whilst attempting to hold a conversation with 2 unknowing girlfriends standing outside the door.. THEN, she has permission to be moody. And I'm sure that's not the worst, most awkward injection-situation anyone's ever been in either.. All stories welcome!