A number of times during our fertility journey I've taken a moment to stop and think about much I admire people who are chronically ill and undergoing treatment. It didn't take long into our first round of IUI to begin feeling like a pin cushion and my heart goes out to people who have to undergo far more invasive and unpleasant than what we're going through.
For those of you who have never heard of IUI or Interuterine Insemination - it is where you're given a helping hand to conceive by having the semen inseminated. Sometimes - in our case - you need extra help with hormone injections. We went into Genea to meet with our nurse who would be our main contact through the cycle. I wish I'd taken notes in that meeting! We were given some some info sheets you have to take so much in! We were reassured that we didn't need to remember everything as we'd be told again when the cycle started.
We had to decide when we wanted to go ahead, and when my period started I had to call Genea to let them know. They would then prepare my medication and on day 5 of my cycle I would start my daily injections. During the cycle I would then have to have some blood tests and an internal ultrasound (not again!). We were told that during the cycle we should make love every second day but at some point we would have to stop - even today I don't remember when that was and it was never mentioned to us again, oops! Jamie would have to come in one morning to give his 'donation' and then later that day I would come in for the insemination. There would be a couple of post insemination injections of a different medication and the 2 week wait. What a blur of information! The good news is I was going to be starting on a low dose of the hormone gonal f.
Eventually my period started so I made the phone call and we picked the medication up on a Saturday morning. The clinic is the only business open in the building on a Saturday morning so you enter through a side door. It's kind of funny when you turn up at opening time along with other couples or women on their own As we file through the building entrance one by one I feel like we're in some sort of weird sci-fi movie off to be experimented on. We wait with the others and it's kind of awkward - everyone knowing we're here for similar reasons but the waiting room is so quiet. When we get in to see our nurse she has a little green cooler bag with my medication inside. She shows me how it's applied with a pen, how you pull off the cap and screw on the needle, how you turn the dial to set your dosage and then inject it into yourself. I'm a bit worried because she demonstrates holding the needle out perpendicular to your belly and almost stabbing it in. Am I going to be able to do this?? There's a trigger medication to take the night before I go in for insemination and a whole heap of antiseptic wipes to clean the injection site. I'm due to start my injections the next morning and then will have to come back in during the week for a blood test to see how I'm tracking.
We leave the clinic with our little green package and do the 5 hour return trip to watch E play soccer and bring him home. The best thing about these drives is the uninterrupted time we have to talk and the fertility journey has been a regular topic of conversation on the road trips! When we arrive home the little green package goes into the fridge and the nerves continue to build. Out of town friends of ours are staying the night, and so J and I give up our bedroom to them and sleep on mattresses on the floor in one of the spare rooms.
In the morning I wake up before anyone else and I decide to do my injection. I sneak the gear into the bathroom and lock the door then read through the instructions booklet slowly. I'm so nervous as I uncap the pen and screw on the needle. You have to check that there's not a large air bubble and I'm so worried that I'll do it wrong. I turn the dosage to the right number and then rip open a medical wipe and pick a spot on my belly to wipe. I grab the bit of skin that I've just disinfected with my left hand and hold the syringe with my right. I feel sick - I don't know if I can do this. How am I going to do it day after day? What if I get it wrong? What if I need J to inject it for me?
I take a deep, slow breath and decide to try putting the needle in slowly and gently rather than a quick stabbing moment. I know I need to do it in one movement because if I chicken out once I might not be able to get the courage up again. All of a sudden the needle has slid into my skin painlessly - I barely even felt it! I awkwardly click the end of the pen and make sure the dosage has gone back to zero, then I hold it there and count to 10 before pulling the needle out and capping the pen. Wow! I've just injected myself for the first time ever and I'm filled with a rush of excitement and pride! I want to run into the room and wake J up to tell him but first I have to figure out how to open the sharps container to dispose of the needle. I'm terrible at reading instructions and I jump straight to pressing here and there until oops! I've locked the sharps container so I can't use it! I have to laugh at myself and then hunt for a tupperware container that I drop the used needle in and then place hidden away, out of reach. Eventually I do creep back onto the mattress to cuddle up to J and tell him about the injection.
It doesn't take long in this journey though, to start feeling like a pin cushion. Each day I pick a different spot to do the injection, sometimes they sting a little, other times they're painless. I worry that maybe I'll forget to do my injections but it's always on my mind so how can I forget? When the regular blood tests start that's when I really start to feel like a pin cushion - one day left arm, next day right, but then the next one has to go left again. I'm so lucky the clinic is down the road from work - it becomes a bit of a routine, pop into the clinic, grab a coffee from the cafe and then into work as if it's any regular morning.
In my heart I wear the bruises on my arms as proud badges - we hit a barrier on our journey to a family but we'll do what it takes to get over that barrier. We'll climb slowly, maybe scrape our knees and graze our hands but we will get over it, one way or another.
For those of you who have never heard of IUI or Interuterine Insemination - it is where you're given a helping hand to conceive by having the semen inseminated. Sometimes - in our case - you need extra help with hormone injections. We went into Genea to meet with our nurse who would be our main contact through the cycle. I wish I'd taken notes in that meeting! We were given some some info sheets you have to take so much in! We were reassured that we didn't need to remember everything as we'd be told again when the cycle started.
We had to decide when we wanted to go ahead, and when my period started I had to call Genea to let them know. They would then prepare my medication and on day 5 of my cycle I would start my daily injections. During the cycle I would then have to have some blood tests and an internal ultrasound (not again!). We were told that during the cycle we should make love every second day but at some point we would have to stop - even today I don't remember when that was and it was never mentioned to us again, oops! Jamie would have to come in one morning to give his 'donation' and then later that day I would come in for the insemination. There would be a couple of post insemination injections of a different medication and the 2 week wait. What a blur of information! The good news is I was going to be starting on a low dose of the hormone gonal f.
Eventually my period started so I made the phone call and we picked the medication up on a Saturday morning. The clinic is the only business open in the building on a Saturday morning so you enter through a side door. It's kind of funny when you turn up at opening time along with other couples or women on their own As we file through the building entrance one by one I feel like we're in some sort of weird sci-fi movie off to be experimented on. We wait with the others and it's kind of awkward - everyone knowing we're here for similar reasons but the waiting room is so quiet. When we get in to see our nurse she has a little green cooler bag with my medication inside. She shows me how it's applied with a pen, how you pull off the cap and screw on the needle, how you turn the dial to set your dosage and then inject it into yourself. I'm a bit worried because she demonstrates holding the needle out perpendicular to your belly and almost stabbing it in. Am I going to be able to do this?? There's a trigger medication to take the night before I go in for insemination and a whole heap of antiseptic wipes to clean the injection site. I'm due to start my injections the next morning and then will have to come back in during the week for a blood test to see how I'm tracking.
We leave the clinic with our little green package and do the 5 hour return trip to watch E play soccer and bring him home. The best thing about these drives is the uninterrupted time we have to talk and the fertility journey has been a regular topic of conversation on the road trips! When we arrive home the little green package goes into the fridge and the nerves continue to build. Out of town friends of ours are staying the night, and so J and I give up our bedroom to them and sleep on mattresses on the floor in one of the spare rooms.
In the morning I wake up before anyone else and I decide to do my injection. I sneak the gear into the bathroom and lock the door then read through the instructions booklet slowly. I'm so nervous as I uncap the pen and screw on the needle. You have to check that there's not a large air bubble and I'm so worried that I'll do it wrong. I turn the dosage to the right number and then rip open a medical wipe and pick a spot on my belly to wipe. I grab the bit of skin that I've just disinfected with my left hand and hold the syringe with my right. I feel sick - I don't know if I can do this. How am I going to do it day after day? What if I get it wrong? What if I need J to inject it for me?
I take a deep, slow breath and decide to try putting the needle in slowly and gently rather than a quick stabbing moment. I know I need to do it in one movement because if I chicken out once I might not be able to get the courage up again. All of a sudden the needle has slid into my skin painlessly - I barely even felt it! I awkwardly click the end of the pen and make sure the dosage has gone back to zero, then I hold it there and count to 10 before pulling the needle out and capping the pen. Wow! I've just injected myself for the first time ever and I'm filled with a rush of excitement and pride! I want to run into the room and wake J up to tell him but first I have to figure out how to open the sharps container to dispose of the needle. I'm terrible at reading instructions and I jump straight to pressing here and there until oops! I've locked the sharps container so I can't use it! I have to laugh at myself and then hunt for a tupperware container that I drop the used needle in and then place hidden away, out of reach. Eventually I do creep back onto the mattress to cuddle up to J and tell him about the injection.
It doesn't take long in this journey though, to start feeling like a pin cushion. Each day I pick a different spot to do the injection, sometimes they sting a little, other times they're painless. I worry that maybe I'll forget to do my injections but it's always on my mind so how can I forget? When the regular blood tests start that's when I really start to feel like a pin cushion - one day left arm, next day right, but then the next one has to go left again. I'm so lucky the clinic is down the road from work - it becomes a bit of a routine, pop into the clinic, grab a coffee from the cafe and then into work as if it's any regular morning.
In my heart I wear the bruises on my arms as proud badges - we hit a barrier on our journey to a family but we'll do what it takes to get over that barrier. We'll climb slowly, maybe scrape our knees and graze our hands but we will get over it, one way or another.