My day-10 Lupron ultrasound went well yesterday. Having Dildi, the dildo cam nestled in my vag sure felt like home. (….)
I brought my shot schedule with me to show the nurse because I was still confused at my new Lupron instructions. My instructions were to reduce my Lupron down to .025 units. I use insulin needles for Lupron because it’s dosed in units, not milliliters.
Each of those lines is one unit. I was told to take not even a fourth of the first line down. How was I supposed to accurately measure that? And poking myself for that amount of medication just doesn’t seem worth it…
So I asked the nurse to show me on the syringe and she takes it and measures down to 2.5 units.
“See?” She shows me, probably thinking, What a stupid little nurse you are!
I take it back and study it. “So it’s supposed to be 2.5 units? Because the other nurse wrote .025.”
She looks at the book. “Well yeah, it’s written kind of goofy. It should say .25.”
Me, blankly staring. “Well if it’s .25 units then that still means it’s not even one line down,” I say, showing her the syringe.
“No,” she says, cheerfully, “It’s 2.5. See?” She moves the plunger down.
Awkward pause. “Oh ok, thanks.”
After she left the room, I turned to Chris. “What the hell,” I tell him, “2.5 units is drastically different than .25 or .025.”
Chris said, “I think she thought the instructions were in milliliters and not units.” Seriously? So if I didn’t ask, I would be giving myself not even one unit, when I should be doing 2.5. It’s ridiculous what they just expect you to know. This is why, more than any other disease, you must be your own advocate. Watch YouTube, read forums and websites, ask a million questions. Because if you don’t, no one will pay you any mind.
My ovaries are nice and quiet, my uterine lining looks “nice and thin” as my favorite ultrasound tech told me yesterday. It’s amazing the comments you grow to appreciate when you frequent the fertility clinic.
That meant it is time to start stimming! I woke up and started gathering my supplies to bring out to the kitchen table. Chris started his antibiotic this morning. I may have (un)intentionally threw his pill bottle a little too hard at him when I walked into the room with my armload of vials and syringes.
This injection is one that is supposed to be reconstituted. I take this little plastic cap thing (pictured on the left) and put it on the vial of saline. Then I take my syringe, twist the needle off, and screw it on to the plastic cap. I draw up .7-1 mL of saline. Then I take off the syringe, making sure the tip doesn’t touch anything, take off the cap, put it on the first Menopur vial, inject the saline in, mix it, draw it back up and repeat the process with the second vial of Menopur. It took a ridiculously long time. I know I will get a little faster with it, but seriously.
And that’s my morning Menopur injection, or as I like to call it, the Holy gawd, get it out, please god get it out! injection.
I was warned that it burns but was told (not by the nurse, of course) but by my lovely infertility ladies. It helps to go slower, but I think it’s just:
-inject-
“OW!”
-inject-
“Oh my gosh this burns!”
-inject-
“Shit!”
-inject-
And this was the aftermath, of both Lupron (who isn’t looking too gosh-darn bad now after its cousin, Menny the Menopur From Hell takes a whop at me.
See? While everyone has these great Father’s Day posts, I am taking pictures to show you my injections. You’re welcome.
No really, we had a nice Father’s Day. I put an ode to Daddy up on Facebook, and how my husband is a father at heart and had him read it, and he got teary-eyed, and I’m on Lupron, so of course I cried.
Hey, we may just be celebrating Father’s Day again in about a month…
In other news, we found some early peppers from the garden. We decided to cut them because we want the plants to grow more before they start producing too much fruit.
Also, we found some random asparagus out there, which we thought we mowed down and destroyed, but these hardy suckers decided they wanted to make an appearance.
We also have chicken eggs, which our new neighbors gave us. We now have a deal to barter peppers for chicken eggs.
And tonight, I get to do this:
Not to fear.
I have absolutely no idea how this works. The fun just never ends around here.
have I told you how much I love your posts? Well damnit, I do!
Soon you will be so comfortable with those shots it won't take any time at all!
I was just out in my garden and I have quite a few peppers too, I didn't know that if I picked them the plant would get bigger…. sheesh… and I am a farmers daughter…. Sorry dad!
P.S. I hate it when the nurses are not specific enough and expect us to know everything… Seriously… when it comes to meds and administering them… I will allow the nurses to talk to me as if I was a 10 year old child just so that I can 100% understand! 😉
Aww thanks 🙂
It's ok I didn't know that either. That was Chris' thinking. We had a plant with a huge pepper and another one of the same but the plant was bigger and didn't have as much fruit on it. If you pick them, the plant will start putting more energy into the plant itself. Nerdy talk 🙂
And no kidding right? That's been so stressful, trying to navigate everything ourselves. Then when you ask to clarify something it's like, what you don't already know this? Ugh.
Did you know that Menopur is made from nun pee? The burning totally made sense after I learned that. Gonal-F pen is SUPER easy. The only weird thing is "priming" it the first time you use it, but after that it's awesome, the needle is teensy and feels like nothing after the Lupron one. And it doesn't burn or sting or anything. No side effects except nice fat follicles!
Ha Aramis! That totally makes sense!
Yeah I watched a video for Follistim but then insurance changed it. So now I have to watch a gonal f video. But you have made me feel so much better about it. 🙂
Oh no… I'm DREADING menopur. I've never taken it and that's on my list of injections for this cycle. Ugh! Hoping it's the miracle injection, though!!
Oh yes, the oh so fun Menopur. It seemed to burn more the more powders that were mixed so hopefully they keep your dosage the same! Although, I think I had been on it for so long (started on it with my 1st IUI) that it didn't really phase me anymore…..now the Lovenox? Ugh…totally different story, LOL Good luck keep up the good work!!!
mixing them is so blah. i was so nervous!
i am having my fingers crossed for you! you are being so strong and so brave!
keep it up!
Yay for stims! Not yay for so many shots…
I hated the Menopur as well…try icing the area before the injection…that seemed to help me. Good luck!!
Stim time! SOOO exciting! I felt that once stims started the cycle moved much faster (hard to believe, I know with so many injections). ALSO…if you're going to do progesterone injections it is SO much easier to do it slowly. Af first I thought…get it done as fast as possible…until I could hardly sit on my butt.
Yikes that is quite the regimen! BEST of luck!!!
Congratulations on passing the suppression check!!!! That's huge!!
I also had to check and recheck regarding dosages (and appointments) with the nurse at my new clinic. It got to the point where I would bring the instruction sheet with me and play dumb the whole time. So I completely get the frustration as there is no way you could injection yourself with 0.025 or 0.25 units (cannot be done, people). Glad you checked.
One trick with Menopur: I've heard icing the area helps with reducing the sting from the injection. That and letting it warm up a little bit. Still, it sucks that it burns! Gonal-F is far more pleasant.
Fingers crossed for lots of growth. Grow eggies GROW!!!!
Wow. That nurse story is just awful! How confusing! And what a relief that you stuck with it rather than just accepting the first answer.
Gonal-F is a piece of cake- you won't have a problem with that one. 🙂
I have no experience with menopur, but I was on fragmin, which hurts like a SOB. I found injecting really, really slowly helped. Give that a shot.
Fingers crossed for you…
Stopping by from ICLW. Those shots become second nature. I've never taken Menopur but it sounds like it stings the way Lovenox does. Oh my word!!! Gotta love it! 😉
Hi from ICLW. Wait until you get to the PIO injections if they are part of your protocol. I gave myself all the injections last cycle and those were the worst, not because of pain but because I was afraid to inject myself with the 1.25 inch needle. But I did it each and every morning!
OMG I freaked out when the measurements on my Bravelle shots was different than on Lupron, which I had totally mastered. And no, no one explained it well. Here we are injecting ourselves with serious meds with minimal instruction, so we're meant to be both chemists, nurses and math whizzes. No, I am none of these things. Blah.
I know, I think it's ridiculous!
You are SO brave! But they aren't having me do PIO. I guess I am doing the vaginal inserts. Not complaining, because AHHH! My HCG injection is freaking me out enough, and that's the only IM shot I have.
Ow, yeah. I am a big baby. It hurts for sure.
Yeah… I do inject slowly. It helps, but it still isn't fun. I am getting through them though, one day at a time!
I know! At the expense of my looking like an idiot! Sheesh. Talk about confusing.
Icing the area has been a life-saver! For real! It still burns being injected, but the ice helps me get the needle in without wussing out 😉
Okay, the nurses were not very good in their instructions to you! And you should never ever feel stupid for asking questions like that! Not when it is so important!! I hear ya on the Menopur. It was NOT my friend. I would get really huge welts afterward that burned and itched. I had to lay with a cold wash cloth on my belly for a bit after those injections. I was using 3 vials! Ugh. I'm so glad those days are behind me, but I'd do it all over again if I could and it would do any good.