Injections?!

We went in to the specialist to get trained and to watch a video about the injections I was going to be taking.  We sat there and listened to the video go on and on about all the different side effects the drugs would have. Talk about scary! Not to mention, I'd have to be administering the shots to myself and mainly in my stomach!   Think about that for a minute. It gets better, for two of the shots someone else needs to administer the shots in your upper butt muscle (there's some fancy word for it)! That mean E had to do it! I don't even know the verb for how I felt.  I was excited but very nervous.

We finished up the video and then were asked if we had any questions.  The only question I could utter out, at the time, was when do we start? Of course, I had a million thoughts and questions going through my head. What if I do these wrong? What if E does them wrong? How am I going to feel on these injections? Am I going to be just as mean as I was on Clomid? What's going to happen to my body?

The nurse gave me paperwork with information on it and instructed me to call as soon as my period started. She asked when it would be and I told her that I was only on day 6 of my cycle, so about a month. This meant we'd be starting the injections on month 25 of our journey.  They also explained that by taking the injections it would increase our chances of multiples. Our chances went from 1/10 for twins to 1/3.  For triplets or more our chances increased from 1/100 to 1/10. It shook E up quite a bit, but as for myself the only scary thing I had about that was how was my little body going to be able to carry more then one baby?

I read through the paperwork on the medication and came across that I needed to purchase their ovulation predictor test, and that I was not to take any pregnancy tests during the time of my injections.  They were placing me on Follistim AQ and Pregnyl.  When we got home I did more research on the medication.  There were tons of success stories for these drugs and left me with high hopes.

Follistim AQ, which was the drug I'd be injecting into my stomach for about 12 days, is a follicule stimulating hormone that is man made that regulates ovulation and grows and matures eggs.  Woah! Man made?! Yes, the drug is man made, however, it is a hormone that we naturally produce as well. Was that supposed to make me feel better about injecting a man made hormone into my body? For some reason it did.

Pregnyl, the other injection that I would be doing contained hCG (the hormone that pregnancy tests pick up when you are pregnant). Oh! That's why I can't take pregnancy tests, it will give me a false positive. The Pregnyl would trigger ovulation. Once I had positive sign on my ovulation test we would then have intercourse. Simple enough.

But then there were the injections. Needles. Oh needles. Shots, not by a nurse or some other trained professional, but by E and I?!

~Jess