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The percolator
In addition to injecting my wife every evening with her cocktail shot, my other responsibility is to take Doxycycline twice a day for 10 days. While it can be annoying answering the same question twice a day, I’m glad she does ask. The one time she doesn’t ask if I took my meds would be the time I actually forgot too. And I know if I wasn’t there administering the shot, I would be asking her about that everyday.
Today we had our first followup visit. The ultrasound found 5 follicles on the left ovary, and 4 on the right. The nurse then marked the bullseye locations again for the shots. I’ll take all the help I can get. Last night I made sure the needle was all the way in and pushed slow and steady on the plunger. The wife didn’t feel the burning sensation and none leaked back out. While I would like to think the lack of pain was my master technique at work, it may have been my wife’s thoughts were preoccupied with her current customer. Sorry the lady thinks we are conspiring to tell the government about her getting her hair dyed, but if it keeps my wife from thinking about the needle I’m poking in her back, I’ll take it.
While my wife’s body percolates egg development, mine is busy killing bacteria. So far, so good.
The office called and they are raising her medication to 3 Bravelle/2 Menopur. Our next visit is on Friday.
Art of the injection
The nurse goes over the basic information on how to mix the drugs and where to inject the shot. What they do not realize is giving someone an injection is second nature for them. For the rest of us, that still leaves many unknowns. These injections are considered IM (intramuscular) injections. For the medication to be absorbed properly they need to be injected into a muscle. That means the needle is thicker and longer than the subcutaneous shots I was giving myself a few months ago.
Putting a needle into someone else, especially a love one, is not as easy as you think it should be. Not being a professional, how do you overcome that desire not to cause another person pain? As you push the needle in farther, you start to worry, “Is this hurting her?” When you should be thinking, “Am I deep enough for the medication to work?”
I’m also struggling with how fast to push the plunger once the needle is in. The first one I pushed in at a slow steady pace and she asked why it took so long. For the next two I was quicker and she noticed more of a burning sensation with those two injections. I don’t know if that was because I missed the muscle, or because the medication was inserted faster. I also noticed some of the medication coming out after I remove the needle. Is this normal? Am I doing something wrong?
Physically anyone can do it, but there is an art to being good at it.
Thundercats are GO
This morning we met with the nurse handling our case. They couldn’t understand why I wanted to take a picture of the folding chair. Laughing they permitted me to do so. While the wife had blood taken to check her hormone levels I went back and took a picture of my first mistress.
The nurse then took a quick look at her uterus lining using the ultrasound saying everything looked good. After stupidly arguing with a nurse where a hipbone was, I was glad she marked the location to give the shot, because I would have been way off. Which also allowed me to avoid taking a test shot on myself. I already shot myself 38 times, this is her turn.
In the afternoon the clinic called saying the blood work came back and we are to begin the shots tonight.
tick
tick
tick
I start mixing the shot cocktail at 6:40 and it takes forever trying to get all the medication out of each vial is very frustrating. I finally get it all ready and just as I’m about to stick the needle in my wife…I freeze up. It was a whole lot easier giving myself a shot than it was giving her a shot. I think it was more painful for me as she claims the shot wasn’t too bad.
1 down…9 to go
The final countdown
We are now 2 days away from beginning the shots to tell her body to start producing eggs for harvesting. When the doctor said I get to stick her in the butt every night for 10 days, this was not what I had in mind.
But we are both excited, nervous and trying to maintain a cautioned hopeful attitude with moderate success. Our doctors are using a combination of Bravelle and Menopur. I get to be the mad scientist mixing the cocktail shot. I do hope it isn’t too painful for her, or this is going to be a long 10 days. I may ask the nurse on Friday for a practice shot on myself, that way I know what she is dealing with.
Not helping my wife’s nerves is the fact the air conditioner at her work is out and the company is being very slow about fixing it. It’s been a rough journey so far, I guess it was silly of me to think it would get easier now.
IVF male 