I started my Saturday morning lying face up on my bed asking my husband to shank me in the gut. Quick and dirty please.
I've known this injection bit was coming for a while, and I've actually been pretty excited to open that big ol' box of needles and get crackin'. It means that transfer day is coming! I wasn't nervous all week, and in fact I was pretty anxious to get going Saturday morning.
I opened the box with the needles and took out one prepackaged little bitty teeny tiny syringe.
I'm a freak about drugs, so I was pouring over the pamphlets and asking Dr. Google what the risks and side effects of all these drugs are, and to my suprise the list is actually pretty short! The BCPs and Lupron actually have some health benefits believe it or not. The biggest thing is that Lupron basically sends me into menopause. I can expect mood swings, hot flashes...the works. Since some of the other wonderful women in my life are going through "the change" I figure now is as good a time as any. Solidarity sister!
So far I feel normal, but this is one of the reasons I'm keeping this blog. I'd like to have a record of when exactly I went crazy. Because I know it's coming. I'm thinking maybe by next week I'll be a raving lunatic, but Hubs already knows this is coming. He actually had to go to counseling with me before this whole thing got off the ground to sign something saying he knew the crazy train would pull into the station. He bought his ticket, so he'll just go along for the ride. Although I have a feeling he'll be working a lot in the next few weeks...
I think the biggest tool we have is awareness. Awareness that no matter what sort of Exorcist garbage spews from my mouth in the next few weeks it's not me. It's the meds. And it's not him. It's the meds.
But so far so good! I think Baby Mama and I will have some girl time next week, so that's exciting. Our counselor warned me that not all Intended Mothers are looking for a new BFF. And I've seen a lot of surrogates talk about the very business-like relationship they have with their IPs. So I'm trying to keep that in perspective. But I genuinely like both of them as people, so I'm good with whatever kind of relationship they'd like to have. I think there has to be some human interest level for people to entrust you to care for their child for 9 months!
Well so far so good with the jabbing. My first baseline ultrasound is next week to check and see how fluffy my womb is. I'll order the feather down duvet this week and maybe get a nice plant or something. Just make it nice and inviting for that little embie to snuggle up.
T Minus 4 weeks and counting to T Day!
I've known this injection bit was coming for a while, and I've actually been pretty excited to open that big ol' box of needles and get crackin'. It means that transfer day is coming! I wasn't nervous all week, and in fact I was pretty anxious to get going Saturday morning.
I opened the box with the needles and took out one prepackaged little bitty teeny tiny syringe.
I popped the cap on the little glass vial of Lupron as I read and reread the instructions. Seemed simple enough. Just pop the top on the vial, rub it with an alcohol wipe, pull the syringe back past 20 units, jab it in the bottle, inject the air then draw up just a little more than 20 units in the syringe. I thought I'd do the whole flick the syringe and squirt a bit out of the top like they do in the cartoons, but apparently you just squirt a bit back in the bottle until you get to exactly 20 units and no air bubbles. I guess that makes more sense than spraying hormone juice all over the kitchen.
Once my syringe was locked and loaded I swabbed my gut with the alcohol wipe and prepared to inject. Whew. Ok. Here goes...ok ok ok ok wait...I decided I should probably lie down on the bed so I could see better. My gut protrudes, but not quite past the boobs, and I needed a clear shot.
My target ----> (0
My instructions were to inject on the parenthesis if the 0 was my belly button. No big. The needle was such a teeny tiny little thing. Not intimidating at all....well it wasn't until I was poking my belly with it. I grabbed some gut skin like I was told to help get it on in there, but my belly is so squishy that the needle just kind of bounced a little. It was plenty sharp, but just watching that pokey part touch my skin made me lose my nerve a bit.
I'm not a needle-phobe by any means, but I'm no heroin junkie either. I just wasn't sure what to expect quite honestly, so I enlisted help for the first injection.
Hubs was laughing in his Lazy Boy as I trudged into the room still holding the full syringe.
"I told you you couldn't do it yourself! It's creepy."
I told him thanks for the vote of confidence and to get his keester in the bedroom. He looked a little gray as I lay down. He moved in for the kill and I sat up quickly "WAIT WAIT!!"
"Holy crap!! Don't do that!" he scolded. Apparently not a good idea to make sudden movements when someone is coming at you with a shank.
I just needed to remind him to go in at a 90 degree angle. That's all. The instructions clearly stated to do it at a 90 degree angle.
He looked at me and rolled his eyes. I think I spooked his nerves a bit.
He got his game face on and pinched some gut. A few seconds later he sat up.
I told him not to worry about hurting me. The needle was tiny. He showed me the empty syringe. I didn't even feel the damn thing. After a few seconds I felt the injection site stinging just a bit, so I knew he didn't just squirt it on the ground or something. I thanked him for his services and assured him that I could do it myself next time. He laughed and told me there was no way he could do it himself. It was kind of creepy.
But I made it through! I had him do my Sunday injection as well, but Monday morning he was at work so I was on my own. I started to psych up a little more, but then I remembered that Baby Mama had to do all her own injections since Baby Daddy was deployed at the time. If she could do it, I could do it.
Not to mention the fact that the end goal of all this is to have another unmedicated birth. The needle looked less scary.
I read a tip from my fellow surro sisters that ice-numbing the injection site helps, so I tried that. It was easy breezy. I'm now on day 4 of injections and it's going totally fine.
Every morning I take my crazy cocktail of birth control, prenatal vitamins, baby aspirin, folic acid and a cold shot of Lupron. Tomorrow is the last day of the birth control, so then I'll be down to a smaller cocktail.
Once my syringe was locked and loaded I swabbed my gut with the alcohol wipe and prepared to inject. Whew. Ok. Here goes...ok ok ok ok wait...I decided I should probably lie down on the bed so I could see better. My gut protrudes, but not quite past the boobs, and I needed a clear shot.
My target ----> (0
My instructions were to inject on the parenthesis if the 0 was my belly button. No big. The needle was such a teeny tiny little thing. Not intimidating at all....well it wasn't until I was poking my belly with it. I grabbed some gut skin like I was told to help get it on in there, but my belly is so squishy that the needle just kind of bounced a little. It was plenty sharp, but just watching that pokey part touch my skin made me lose my nerve a bit.
I'm not a needle-phobe by any means, but I'm no heroin junkie either. I just wasn't sure what to expect quite honestly, so I enlisted help for the first injection.
Hubs was laughing in his Lazy Boy as I trudged into the room still holding the full syringe.
"I told you you couldn't do it yourself! It's creepy."
I told him thanks for the vote of confidence and to get his keester in the bedroom. He looked a little gray as I lay down. He moved in for the kill and I sat up quickly "WAIT WAIT!!"
"Holy crap!! Don't do that!" he scolded. Apparently not a good idea to make sudden movements when someone is coming at you with a shank.
I just needed to remind him to go in at a 90 degree angle. That's all. The instructions clearly stated to do it at a 90 degree angle.
He looked at me and rolled his eyes. I think I spooked his nerves a bit.
He got his game face on and pinched some gut. A few seconds later he sat up.
I told him not to worry about hurting me. The needle was tiny. He showed me the empty syringe. I didn't even feel the damn thing. After a few seconds I felt the injection site stinging just a bit, so I knew he didn't just squirt it on the ground or something. I thanked him for his services and assured him that I could do it myself next time. He laughed and told me there was no way he could do it himself. It was kind of creepy.
But I made it through! I had him do my Sunday injection as well, but Monday morning he was at work so I was on my own. I started to psych up a little more, but then I remembered that Baby Mama had to do all her own injections since Baby Daddy was deployed at the time. If she could do it, I could do it.
Not to mention the fact that the end goal of all this is to have another unmedicated birth. The needle looked less scary.
I read a tip from my fellow surro sisters that ice-numbing the injection site helps, so I tried that. It was easy breezy. I'm now on day 4 of injections and it's going totally fine.
Every morning I take my crazy cocktail of birth control, prenatal vitamins, baby aspirin, folic acid and a cold shot of Lupron. Tomorrow is the last day of the birth control, so then I'll be down to a smaller cocktail.
I'm a freak about drugs, so I was pouring over the pamphlets and asking Dr. Google what the risks and side effects of all these drugs are, and to my suprise the list is actually pretty short! The BCPs and Lupron actually have some health benefits believe it or not. The biggest thing is that Lupron basically sends me into menopause. I can expect mood swings, hot flashes...the works. Since some of the other wonderful women in my life are going through "the change" I figure now is as good a time as any. Solidarity sister!
So far I feel normal, but this is one of the reasons I'm keeping this blog. I'd like to have a record of when exactly I went crazy. Because I know it's coming. I'm thinking maybe by next week I'll be a raving lunatic, but Hubs already knows this is coming. He actually had to go to counseling with me before this whole thing got off the ground to sign something saying he knew the crazy train would pull into the station. He bought his ticket, so he'll just go along for the ride. Although I have a feeling he'll be working a lot in the next few weeks...
I think the biggest tool we have is awareness. Awareness that no matter what sort of Exorcist garbage spews from my mouth in the next few weeks it's not me. It's the meds. And it's not him. It's the meds.
But so far so good! I think Baby Mama and I will have some girl time next week, so that's exciting. Our counselor warned me that not all Intended Mothers are looking for a new BFF. And I've seen a lot of surrogates talk about the very business-like relationship they have with their IPs. So I'm trying to keep that in perspective. But I genuinely like both of them as people, so I'm good with whatever kind of relationship they'd like to have. I think there has to be some human interest level for people to entrust you to care for their child for 9 months!
Well so far so good with the jabbing. My first baseline ultrasound is next week to check and see how fluffy my womb is. I'll order the feather down duvet this week and maybe get a nice plant or something. Just make it nice and inviting for that little embie to snuggle up.
T Minus 4 weeks and counting to T Day!
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