The Next Chapter

In our last attempt to procreate we’ve decided to empty our bank accounts and pay for a round of IVF – we’d be daft not to give it a go as it might be our only chance of becoming parents. So now our IVF journey begins – to say I’m a little bit excited is an understatement – I can’t stop grinning as it might just work! There’s a huge chance it won’t and the odds are stacked against us, but if we don’t give it a go, we’ll never know.

So we drove up to Dundee last week to pick up our own mini drugstore from the hospital. We met with the lovely nurse who saw us at our first appointment and took our blood samples – the one who told Colin he had lovely veins! She’s lovely and has a good sense of humour and a very reassuring manner. She handed over a small zipped case and then proceeded to explain the contents.

I get my own bright yellow sharpie box for all the used needles, lots of really big needles, lots of tiny needles and three vials of drugs as well as a few other bits and bobs. The nurse explained which needles to use for drawing the drug out of the vials and which to use for injecting – there’s quite a difference in size:

and I’m glad I use the mini needles to inject myself and not the huge ones! Thankfully I’m not squeamish and even though I’m nervous about doing this I’m sure after the first few injections I’ll be fine – I might even draw an interesting dot to dot pattern on my belly while I’m at it. I’m more concerned about the fact that my body will be going into a drug induced menopause and I might get bad side effects – but, hey, I’ll get a preview of what to expect when I’m older!

In certain aspects of my life I’m a totaly neat freak – the rest of the time I leave a trail of debris behind me where ever I go – so when we got in the car to drive home I had to tidy up the drug bag and categorise everything according to item and size as the nurse had just chucked everything in and the whole time we were in the hospital I was dying to tip everything out and sort it out, but decided to leave this for the journey home – after I’d done this I felt so much better…

I was a bit concerned when I read the leaflet that comes with the drugs – apparently this drug is ‘for men only’ and that I should inform my doctor if I’ve had an operation to remove my testicles.

Should I phone them and ask them about this and clarify they’ve given me the right stuff before I start??? Think I’ll ask my GP when I go for my Acupuncture this week.