Ok, kinda lame but I thought I'd try for cute.
Tomorrow I start my injections phase for the upcoming IVF. I get to take a microdose of lupron (20 units) in the morning and another in the evening. In evening I also get to take a shot that will contain 4 amps of Gonal-f and 1 amp of Menopur. That's three shots a day!
Imagine all the bruises my belly will get with this regime. It was bad enough with one shot a day.
Is it just me or do these bruises take a really, really long time to go away? It's been over a month since I had a shot and yet you can still kind of make out two bruises on either side of my belly button. Very attractive.
My current schedule is to do a retrieval sometime around June 13-16 and transfer 2-3 days later.
So many things to go wrong... but work has been crazy and the politics were outrageous today. I really dislike the stress and anger this causes me, but the bright side is that it really does distract me from the IF frustrations. But since stress is overall BAD for conceiving, sometimes the work BS just pisses me off even more. Oof.
Hooray for starting stims! My last IVF attempt I was doing 4-5 shots a day, so believe me I relate! Being a pincushion sucks.
ReplyDeleteYou might be doing the shots too close to your belly button? Try a different spot and see if you bruise less.
Yay for starting!
ReplyDeleteYeah, I find the bruising takes a long time to go away, but I also found that if I iced for about 1 minute before I did the shots, and then rubbed the area right after, that made the likelihood of hitting a capillary and hence the bruising less. (or maybe I just imagined it -- I have created so many little mini routines it's ridiculous.)
I think work stress sucks, but I agree that it's nice to have something else to obsess over.
Good luck!!
I haven't done the IVF route but the bruises from my laporoscopy took months to go away. You are going through some really thick muscles.
ReplyDeleteI found you via Leslie's blog and you mentioned she was in the same field. I'm a biologist although I bailed on the academics during grad school. You and Leslie are making me kind of glad I did that.
Good luck with this cycle, I'll be hoping for the best.
Just found your blog and I wanted to wish you luck. I have done the same kind of protocol. You can try switching it up between belly and thighs for injections, although I think thighs are slightly more painful. The bruising and puncture sites on me looked like a little road map of dots and bruises (especially b/c my skin is pale as a ghost).
ReplyDeleteWishing you tons of luck on this new cycle...