Stim day 12 - oh so blasé

I just completed injection #23 and #24 - the last of the stims before the Ovi.drel trigger tomorrow. The whole injection thing is totally overrated by now. It's become completely old hat. I even have my own little injection routine down to a tee.

Around 8:30 p.m. I take 2 minutes to remove the Gonal-F pen from the fridge and move it to the bathroom so it reaches room temperature by the time I do the injections 30 minutes later. (Cold injection = pain.) I then proceed to set up the crack house: alcohol swabs, Lupron vial, Lupron syringe and Gonal-F pen, and dial up the pen to the correct dosage. Then I'm off to go do something fun, like catch up with my IVF-friends via their blogs.

At 5 minutes to 9 p.m. I wash my hands thoroughly, swab my belly and let it dry while I swab the Lupron vial and Gonal-F pen. (The needle will burn if you stick it through wet alcohol on your belly.) I don't use any ice or Emla cream.

I insert the needle into the Gonal-F pen and set it aside. Then I draw up 5 units of Lupron, inject it, and discard the needle into my fancy little red home sharps container. Gonal-F is next: I pull out the tab to the dialed dosage and confirm, inject, wait 5 seconds, pull it out, and discard the needle. The whole process takes no more than 3 minutes. It's become so routine that I don't even think about it anymore. I'm like a Ni.ke commercial. Just do it.

What takes the longest, actually, is to find a suitably unpunctured, pristine spot on the belly. I've been working "around" my recent lap surgery and old appendectomy scars. I have only one bruise to show for the IVF injections - that ain't bad. After 24 IVF injections, and just one more to go - I am proudly wearing my battle scars.