Continuing the Journey to Making Our Family Whole

Back in the early part of 2013,  we started the journey to baby #2. In mid-March, we found out we're expecting.

To those who have forgotten, pregnancy is a huge ordeal for us. We have been unable to conceive without medical intervention to this point. (Not that we've had a lot of time to try things out in the last couple of years, due to a toddler who prefers to sleep by mommy and daddy... but hey, it is what it is.) So, we consulted our staff, and were on the road again.
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The initial steps in IVF include loads of blood tests and screening. Drug testing, all that fun stuff. By the end of it, you feel like a human pin cushion... and can't help but thinking there is a fleet of lab bats somewhere that is pretty fat and happy on your blood after all that testing. Anyway, we got through that and went in to meet with the nurse about the beloved (not) shots. I hate shots... I really do, this is the one case where I will make an exception for my distaste of needles. The nurse that met with us mentioned that, due to my BMI (which was over their threshold by .5), all of our shots would need to be intra-muscular. All ten days...

Now, you can imagine my reaction... yep, I about jumped up and ran out of the room. I looked her square in the face and said "It's not happening. I would rather die than go through ten days of intra-muscular shots." So she number crunched, talked to the doctor, and came back asking if I thought I could lose 10-15 pounds by the start of the ten day shot period. My comment, "sign me up." I'd much rather lose the weight than try to do those damned shots.

So, the beginning of shot day comes. I weigh in and find that I've lost 12 pounds. Close enough. Sub-cutaneous it is! Whew!! I sure did dodge that bullet!!

Now, I don't usually mention much about my hubby sometimes, but guess who gets to administer these lovely shots... yep, that's right, he's the lucky volunteer! So, there are three shots that are taken up to the HCG trigger. Lupron, which is pretty mellow; Gonal-F, which comes in a huge pen that clicks as it is administered and smells absolutely repulsive; and Menopur, which allows the administrator of the shots to practice some chemistry as it is a tablet that has to be activated with distilled water in the proper amount.

The bad thing about Menopur is it stings like hell going in. (I'm not kidding, it's like injecting salt under your skin.) It drove my hubby crazy to see me cringe at the thought of getting these shots... so he did some internet searching and learned that letting the shot sit for 15-20 minutes after mixing helped the crystals settle, in turn allowing the sting to diminish if not go away completely. This plan worked, yay, little to no pain the entire duration of the shots. The last shot administered is an HCG trigger. You know, by the time assigned for this shot, what time your retrieval report time will be.
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Being a curious 20-month-old, our son had to be in the bedroom when daddy was administering the shots. He'd often hold my hand gently and kiss it, too cute. On the second night of shots, he looked my hubby square in the face and said "Oh no, daddy shot mommy!" Out of the mouths of babes! The look on his face made us both double over in laughter.

We are so happy with our son, we couldn't help but dream of having a little girl to make our family complete. We hoped, we prayed, and we thought of the possibility of a little girl as smart as her big brother. But we both agreed, we'd be overjoyed with either a boy or a girl, as long as the baby is healthy and strong.