Box of drugs – the female version

“Holy man!”  That’s what I thought when I saw the size of the box that the drugs were delivered in.  I thought we were only talking about three different vials of hormones with a few needles provided. But this box could’ve held about 6 pairs of shoes.

And when we actually opened the box, it contained more than I was aware of or had ever been told about. I think that’s where most of my anxiety came from in considering this box.  I was prepared for the shots, but I had no idea what this other stuff was for, and I really wanted to make sure that we did everything right so that we got good results.  What if I missed something that the nurses told me?  I mean this box had three different types of injectible hormones, hormone “patches”, three bottles of pills, and four (yes, four) different types of needles.  It even came with a hazardous waste container.  And, we were still waiting for another injected hormone to arrive from another pharmacy company.

I was definitely excited about the process.  We’ve known that IVF was in our future for well over a year, and knowing that (as the person who would be on the receiving end of everything IVF included) had caused a bit of anxiety ever since. Most of the time, it wasn’t something I thought about.  But, now, here we were, ready to start this whole journey. No turning back!

This has been two years in the waiting, and I felt mentally prepared for the fact that this was going to be challenging both physically and emotionally.  It was just that the box took me off guard and took a while to get used to.  The thing that really helped make everything more manageable was the fact that these shots were only really going to last about 3 weeks, and I could certainly live with that.  And, of course, the results at the end could be what we’ve wanted so desperately for so long now.