IVF Prep

The hubster and I are embarking on our next journey to bring home a rainbow baby.  IVF.  We went to our final consultation where our heads exploded with new information.  Not really, but we did learn about the medication I will be injecting into myself and how to do it.  That's right, me.  As much as I love my husband, he is not giving me injections.  All of the shots are subcutaneous like the one I did for the IUI.  I was nervous more would be intramuscular because those stink, but those come later (dang-it).

I was given my protocol and did some research and here are some things I have learned:

• My entire process will take around 3 cycles.  The one I learned about was the follicle stimulation.
• I have high dosages of medication- 150 units of Menopur and 300 units of Gonal F- compared to the people I've seen on the videos.  I'm guessing because my AMH number is so low (0.5, when it should be 3.1).
• I get the honor of injecting myself twice a day.  The morning will be the 150 units of Menopur and in the evening the 300 units of Gonal F.
• At some point, I will be doing two shots in the morning the Menopur and then adding in Cetrotide so I don't actually ovulate the eggs I am growing.
• I will be giving myself 2-3 shots for around 10 days.
• I will bloat and look pregnant- how exciting 😐
• The egg retrieval process sounds terrible and I am glad I will be knocked out for it.
• I need to get organized.
• I have a lot of shopping to do! 😃
• I am so glad I have some pudge on my tummy so I have something to grab and stick the needle into and it should hurt less.  Score 1 for stomach flub! 

I've already had adventures with this whole thing.  I set up everything with the medication and told the pharmacy to ship it to my school to ensure I got the medication and it was not sitting outside the house.  However, I received a message during the school day saying it was not being shipped to the school, but instead my house by 10:30 p.m.  The hubster heads home to work from there in the case the medication came before I was able to get home. Then, I was called to tell me the medication missed its flight and will be dropped off at 1:00 a.m.  😐 Seriously? Hubby slept on the couch since he could sleep in and I couldn't and he didn't want me woken up.  Yeah, the UPS Critical Express guy called my phone twice, which is connected to my Fitbit so my wrist buzzed.  I wasn't sleeping through that.  The next morning, I was exhausted but survived teaching my third graders.  

On a lighter note, I also did a lot of shopping to help prepare!  Yay!  After reading several blogs, I ordered a variety of things from Amazon (who does not love Amazon?!) and went shopping at Ross.

First, I ordered a pink and purple tackle box to help organize my medicine, syringes, needles, gauze, alcohol pads, band-aids, etc. Otherwise, doing medicine each morning will be a hot mess.

Look how organized I am!  This isn't even all of the medication I have for the Stims cycle. I have also taken over one of the vegetable crispers to store my medication. 😆

Another suggestion I read from a blog was to get fun band-aids.  I agreed with that blogger, if I am going to poke my self multiple times a day, I might as well find fun band-aids to amuse myself.  I asked several colleagues if they had any fun character circle band-aids from the packages brought in at the beginning of the year since those aren't usually used.  With the stash my friends gave me, and the ones I ordered online, I am good to go with band-aids!

I am loving my childhood throwback band-aids.  Not only will I get a kick out of looking at them, they will tell me where NOT to inject myself again.  😊

I also read that it is helpful to get an IVF bag.  This would be the bag I bring to all of my appointments and there will be many.  I had a hard time choosing a bag and then one of my sweet coworkers gave me the Thirty-One bag she got from the Free Teacher Store.  It has so many compartments and is perfect!

How sweet is my coworker for giving me this bag for IVF?! 

I've already filled it with my IVF paperwork, a calendar, a pair of socks (in case a wear flip flop and I want to put them on before putting my feet in the stirrups), a copy of Alice in Wonderland (that was going to be Genevieve's nursery theme), and a pen.

You cant see what type of socks I have, but I can assure you they have cats on them! 😺

Now the hubster and I have to clean the nursery since that is where I want to do the injections.  It is a cat free zone.  Right now it looks like a dumpster fire.

I am hoping I'll stay excited to do the injections in this room in the hopes I will get to bring home a baby to actually live in it.

Before judging me too harshly on how the nursery looks, it used to look worse. I had a grand vision for this Alice in Wonderland room.  I didn't want it to be in your face Alice in Wonderland, but I wanted the room to be whimsical.  The hubby and I happened to have a painting of a garden tea party we bought on our honeymoon that we would hang on the wall.  I was going to create a couple of light fixtures out of teacups I found in a box at my grandmother's house after she died.  I was given a bunny (March Hare) that played music to put on the crib.  I had my Pink Baby and White Baby from my childhood who I was going to put on a shelf to represent the Tweedles.  I was going to make this cross stitch of a little girl with her cat (who looked my cat, Toby) since Alice had a cat in the movie.  It was going to be subtle and vintage and wonderful.

When Genevieve died, my mom and husband came to the house a moved all of the baby things all over the house into the nursery and closed the door.  After Rainne, we decided to do a neutral room.  My dad put up the wainscoting and we painted over the pink.  Not all of it, if you remove the boards you will see the pink.  It's like Genevieve, still there, you just can't see it.

Anyway, the nursery became this storage room for all of the things we didn't want the cats to touch.  If we didn't want to deal with something, it went into that room.  Before we painted the room, we put away all of the baby things, and those are currently stored in closet waiting to be used.  Now we are going through the rest of the stuff in there.  We are either finding new homes for it or throwing it away.

It makes sense to do the shots in there. I can be away from "helpful" kitties and hopefully be encourage to keep going so I can eventually bring home my rainbow baby to that room.

Now it is ready for me to set up my shot station!😍