Let’s do shots!

I’ll start this with just a bit of exposition.  Women normally release one mature egg/month.  It’s part of their monthly cycle.  “Normal” people get pregnant when one of the millions of sperm cells that are a part of every “normal” sexual experience meet that egg and they, well, get funky.  So the cramping and so forth that happens is the result of 1 (one) egg maturing.  In IVF, they supercharge the hormones – that’s what all the shots are for – in order to get a woman to produce several mature eggs at one time – at least 4-5 and hopefully double digits.  So imagine for a second the discomfort that comes along with a “normal” period that gets you one mature egg – multiply that by 10 eggs and you can imagine the discomfort that comes along with it.

Now.  Enough exposition.  Let’s do some narrative…  As I’ve said – I’m comfortable with needles.  I don’t love them per se, but they don’t bother me.  I’m also comfortable drawing up doses, double checking and delivering the drug.  For me the couple weeks of getting Jill primed and ready to produce a whole bunch of eggs at once was more about helping her – being a part of the routine, and trying to be supportive. 

I know it was a lot tougher for her.  Obviously.  She is not, and has never been, a scientist.  She has not dosed hundreds of subjects.  Spending as much time as I have in healthcare, treatment regimens like this are more familiar to me.  I imagine it was all incredibly invasive for her.  As an observer, it seemed like it was the anxiety before the shots that was the most difficult for her to deal with.  She was always wondering if she was “doing it right.”  Every once in a while she would bruise or there might be a bit of blood – things that were totally normal over the course of 2-3X/day needle sticks.  When it comes down to it though, none of this stuff was normal for her and I was definitely impressed with how she steadily plowed through it all.

Jill covers this subject (much better than I do) as well so I'll put her post up shortly.

As a note -- all of her posts will be in Blue font and mine will be in Black.  Unless, of course, we find a better system...