Better Right than Rushed

Better right than rushed, that has been been my motto for the past couple of weeks. Since my lining check my IM went on meds to get ready for egg retrieval. Everything since then has been a estimate. This is the process and what we signed up for but can still be frustrating. They first told her retrieval would be sometime Monday thru Thursday. She had to drive everyday to keep checking to see how things were progressing. As time went on we were told more like Wed or Thu, then Thu to Saturday, then most likely Friday to finally it definitely happened on Saturday. Again, better right than rushed. She did great, they were able to retrieve 11 eggs. Once we found out for sure that retrieval was going to be on Saturday then I knew for sure when my meds would change. So meds changing was a big source of anxiousness for me. The day before she did retrieval I was to stop Lupron (those nice small needles that were just subdermal in my arm or stomach that you can barely feel) and I was to start Progesterone (the 1 1/2 inch needle that is intramuscular and you are supposed to "jab in a dart like motion all the way into the muscle). Yeah, when I got those needles in the mail it made me freak out a little. OK, a lot! So I do what I always do when I am encountering something new, I ask others for their experiences. I found from my surro community that the general consensus is not that bad. They even said they preferred the shot to the alternative option of the suppository. This all made me feel better but since I got the meds a couple of weeks before I actually started I had all that time to obsess over the needles and what it was going to be like. I was thinking about it every night before I went to bed and just working myself up. Since the shots are done in the morning, the night before I was supposed to start I could not sleep. I just kept thinking about the shot the next morning and how I was going to have to potentially do this everyday for the next 12 weeks. So I went on youtube. The video from the pharmacy was very clinical and didn't really give you a real life view of the experience. Plus the instructions that said "jab in a dart like motion" really freaked me out. Youtube is what really made everything better. I watched video after video that others have posted in my exact situation of getting their first progesterone shot. What all of the ladies I saw said was that it was not so bad. I got to see exactly how their husbands or significant others did to prepare, how they did the injection, and their true reaction to the shot. I got some good pointers too. So after seeing the videos I was able to sleep. The next morning I got up, put and ice pack on my upper butt muscle and put the progesterone vial in my bra. The ice numbs the area while the vial warms the medicine. Since it is in oil it can be thick and goes in slowly so warming it up thins the liquid. Once I had these complete I woke up my husband and showed him a couple of the videos that I thought were most helpful. I think it was good for him to see other husbands and their technique. I then got the shot ready and laid on the bed (another pointer I found, it takes the weight off the muscle so you aren't flexing). I took a video of my experience with the shot too, I just haven't found out how to transfer it from my phone to the computer. Pete asked if I was ready and then put the needle in. I barely felt it!!! It went so much better than I thought. I was expecting the needle to meet more resistance to the muscle or more pain since the needle goes in deeper but it was not bad at all! The worst part was the psychological part. Now, four shots later, I am not nervous at all. It is a pain doing all the prep work in the morning preparing for the shot but none of the 4 shots have hurt at all so far. My husband hates it, he hates needles and is not excited about giving shots whatsoever. I made him stop giving Lupron because it was easier for me to do it myself. The angle of these shots makes it hard for me to do myself so I am so glad that he is doing so well with it. Back to the transfer. With my IM doing retrieval on Saturday that put a 3 day transfer today, Tuesday, or a 5 day transfer on Thursday. Well, you can't really plan because you just won't know until day of if the embryos are ready. So my parents took my kids home to NC with them so that I would be free to travel either day. I got the call this morning at 8:15 that they are pushing it to Thursday. I was really ready for today to be the big day. I was very excited and ready for the transfer but that brings me back to the motto, better right than rushed. I truly hope that we get pregnant on the first try so I want the embryos to be at the healthiest best stage possible for the transfer. So even though I was ready for today if chances are better for the embryo to survive the transfer on Thursday then Thursday it is!! So now, Yay for Thursday!!!