I've been meaning to do a post about the meds we've been using during our IVF cycle. We just completed Day 6 of our injectables and believe me, we have come quite a long way in such a short time. I really have to give Michael all the credit because he has been so wonderful as my twice daily injection-giver.
The first day of drugs (last Saturday), we managed the Follistim injection just fine--that's the one that takes a cartridge and only has a tiny needle. There's a dial that you use to dial up the correct dosage and then it's just a matter of pushing the plunger. It got a little trickier when it came to the Menopur in the evening as it is 2 vials of powder and 1 vial of saline that must get mixed and then injected as one shot.
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| The Follistim pen and way more tiny needles (the pink containers) than we will ever need. Note the handy carrying case! |
By the time we started the injections, it had been nearly a week since we'd had our training with the nurse at OHSU and I couldn't remember the procedure for mixing the powder with the saline. Michael wasn't sure at first, but once we got the supplies out he remembered pretty quickly. He injects 1 ml of saline into the first vial and the powder almost instantly dissolves. Then he draws the solution out of the vial and injects it into the second vial. There's a little connector piece called a "Q-Cap" that attaches to the vial so the saline can get in and the powder can dissolve. It's "needle-free reconstitution" as it says on the cap. The Q-Cap gets taken off when it's time for the shot. My job (besides being brave :) ) is to pick an area of my upper abdomen in the half-moon section above my belly button where I want to get poked and clean it with an alcohol pad. Then I grab a section of belly fat and pull it up so Michael can get the needle all the way in. He tries really hard to make it as pain-free as possible and there have been a couple of times when I really haven't felt much at all. Usually I do feel the needle go in and then a little pain as the medicine is injected, but it's over before I know it and then I'm good for another 12 hours.
The morning injection is the funniest one to me. We debated about what time to choose to do the injections and decided to go for a later time since we are often at work past 6:00PM. Our time is 8:15 or as close to it as possible. This means that I go to work earlier than I usually do (I used to roll in around 9:30 or 9:45AM), and I text Michael when I am a few minutes away. He walks out to the parking lot and meets me and we do the Follistim injection in the car. A couple of times someone has pulled up and parked in the spot next to us while I've had my shirt hiked up and am holding my belly while Michael injects it. The first time it happened, Michael joked that they would probably call Security thinking we were shooting up in the parking lot--which we were--but only one of us was actually getting any drugs and I promise they were entirely legal. :) After my shot is over, I get my stuff, including a brown New Season's grocery bag which holds my sharps container and the Follistim pen, and we walk into the building together. It's actually kind of sweet and I think that it's a good way for Michael to be involved in what is otherwise a process that revolves almost entirely around me. Plus he puts up with me being wimpy and whining about my shot. :) I really couldn't ask for a better nurse.
Tomorrow we are going to a wedding after work, and will take our Menopur injection with us. Sometime during the reception we will slip off to our car and go through our nightly routine, although it may prove slightly more challenging as Michael will have to do his mixing in an improvised setting. But I have every faith in him.
More on meds later as soon we will be adding a third shot--Ganirelix and then later, Progesterone.
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| I had to smile on Saturday when I came back from my appointments downtown and saw what Michael put on our white board. Guess he wanted to make sure we remembered our time! |
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