Memory lane
Not from far-past memories but from the injectables cycle that I'm currently in the 2ww (two-week wait) for. We took a few photos of the process, so I'm posting them here for posterity. WARNING: There are photos of an actual injection!
This is what came in my box o' supplies. There were 20 syringes and 20 needles for the Menopur injections, two needles for mixing andinjecting the Novarel, alcohol pads for sterilizing the tops of the meds and my skin prior to injection, the Novarel, four boxes of Menopur(five ampules per box + Q-caps for mixing the meds), one biohazard disposal container, and one bottle of Prometrium (progesterone).
This is all the stuff laid out for the first injection. D would hold the ice on my belly near the injection site while I got everything ready. My typical routine was to use the restroom, wash my hands, get a paper towel (not the first time but every time after that), let D put the ice on me, then start setting up. I would pull out everything I needed (Menopur, syringe, needle, biohazard container, and alcohol pads) and set it on the paper towel. I would then open the syringe, needle, and Q-cap packages. After that, I would pop open the biohazard container, pop the tops off the sodium chloride and Menopur powder, and then sanitize the tops of the ampules with the alcohol pad. Then I would screw the Q-cap on the syringe, get the requisite amount of air, inject that into the sodium chloride, pull the SC back into the syringe, and inject that into the Menopur powder. Once the powder was dissolved, I'd pull it back into the syringe, change the Q-cap for the needle, tap out the air bubbles (I didn't get that perfected until near the end of the 12 days, unfortunately), wipe the injection site o' the day, and then inject.
This is the syringe with the Q-cap instead of the needle. I really liked this for reconstituting the medicine.
The injection photos are next!
I ended up depressing the plunger with my index finger after this first shot. I just couldn't comfortably twist my hand around to use my thumb and still have control over the speed of the injection.
After my first u/s, I had to double my dose to 150IU of Menopur and 1cc of SC. This is the setup for the double dose.
This is a photo of the lovely bruise I sustained at my first blood draw. It even extends, quite sexily IMO, above the elbow. Niiiiice. As of today, nearly two weeks after the blood draw, the bruise is still visible. On the other hand, the site of my second blood draw never got a bruise.
The band-aid marks the location of my hCG injection. I mixed up the medicine (no Q-cap! Waaaah!), which was 3cc of sterile water into the Novarel powder and got stuff ready while D held ice back there for me. After I got the med reconstituted, I switched the needles on the two syringes and gave D the empty syringe with the now slightly dull needle. He used that to practice on a gigantic orange I picked up at the market for him. And then we put Rambaldi in his crate so he wouldn't bark like a mad dog (during my Menopur injections, D held him to keep him from barking) and startle D and wiped the site with an alcohol pad. Then I turned away from D, put all my weight on my left leg, turned my right foot inward, and let D inject me near my right hip. It did bleed a little, but what else can you expect from a 1.5" needle?!
And now we wait for a couple of weeks. For your continued entertainment, here are two photos of me. The first is from the day the meds arrived.
The second is from the last day of my Menopur injections.
