The First 2.

Last night, the nurse came over. Love her. I had never met her before because she no longer works in the clinic; she basically just does this teachings for them. You can also pay her to come over and do your injections for you.

She instantly put me at ease. She told me that everyone is nervous their first time but that I'd do great.

We went through every single injectable, and I get it now. There are 5 different types including the progesterone in oil for the frozen embryo transfer.

Yesterday, I took my Gonal F 150 IU and Menopur 75 IU. These are both egg growers. I should continue to take these for a while, until my eggs are ready.

Gonal F is refrigerated. It comes is lovely pen form. Aside from prepping the pen for it's first use, there's very little to do here.

Remove the cap. Screw on a needle. Set the dial to your dosage. Pull back the stopper. Prep your skin with alcohol. Grab a roll of fat and stick yourself 2 inches from the belly button. Push down the stopper. And voila! You've injected yourself with egg-making-goodness.

Menopur is not refrigerated. It is a little trickier to use because you do mix it.

You get out your supplies: a syringe, a needle, the vial of Menopur (powder form), the vial of water (sodium chloride? i don't know - I sucked at science), and a Q cap.

Can I just say I freaking LOVE the Q cap? So much easier than mixing injections with a traditional needle.

You unwrap the syringe. Unscrew the needle on it. Toss that in your sharps container. Screw on the Q cap. Use alcohol swab to clean the tops of the 2 vials. Use syringe to pull in water (hold vial upside down). Then with the Menopur vial right side up, insert Q cap and add water. Give a slight shake to mix. Draw back into syringe. Unscrew Q cap, and screw on the needle. Tap out air bubbles. Prep skin with alcohol. Push needle into skin and then push the stopper to inject. This one is more liquid entering your skin so it did burn a little. It also made just a dot of blood so good to have gauze ready.

I'm writing this how to blog entry for when I panic tonight about whether or not I remember how. That will happen.

Afterwards, I felt so proud of myself. I did close my eyes while inserting the needle. But I did something I never thought I could do. Truly, I'm more afraid of needles than childbirth. It was so empowering to conquer a fear and know I'm doing everything I can to have a baby.

I'm giving myself a huge pat on the back and feeling like I'm the Queen of Awesomeness :)