Jun
01

Money Shot.

I hope this works
When I finish typing this I will take my first two Letrozole pills. They are the tiny orange tablets in the picture above—the most diminutive looking drug in my protocol, and yet the one expected to do the brunt of the work. I am skeptical, but then I have never gotten used to the idea that nickels are worth less than dimes.

This morning I was at the clinic for my day three ultrasound and blood draw. I didn’t see Dr. Doctor, but rather the nurse practitioner who will be handling my monitoring. She was perfectly nice, but seemed mournfully unaware of how brilliant and delightful I am. She treated me, it must be said, like a patient.
Dr. Doctor had waved off the idea that I needed to complete the clinic’s injection training for the trigger shot.
“You’re a bright girl,” she’d said, “You don’t need formal training. We’ll have someone walk you through the process while you’re in for monitoring, and you’ll be fine.”
The nurse practitioner turned her nose up at this idea.
“Oh no, no, no,” she clucked, “Everyone gets injection training. You’ll have to schedule yours within the next week.” Then she made me take a sheaf of information on Letrozole, information citing studies I have already read, studies Dr. Doctor and I once reminisced about fondly as the sun set in the motivational poster on the exam room wall.
I miss Dr. Doctor.

But despite my kvetching about having to take time off work for Needle U, a little instruction might not be such a bad thing. When I picked up my meds this afternoon, I was slightly taken aback by the 22 gauge needles. I am not afraid of needles, as a rule, but these are awfully thick. And pointy. Probably that is best, what with the whole muscle-piercing part of the shot—I wouldn’t want a dull needle, I suppose. But neither do I fancy having a steel coffee stirrer plunged into my backside by my new husband. Truthfully, there is a part of me (the nerdy part) that is jealous of Scott for getting to do the actual injecting. I’ve never used a syringe, having eschewed heroin as a youth. I fully intend to mix the shot myself, at least. A girl deserves to have some fun. It will be like a science experiment, a science experiment involving expensive drugs and my ass! I feel like Mr. Wizard.

The pharmacist at Target was a boy of twelve or so who took over an hour to fill my many prescriptions, called my doctor twice to ask why I was being given a medication usually prescribed for breast cancer (the Letrozole), and then blushed when he handed me my bag.
“I don’t know anything about…all of that,” he said, gesturing at my Lady Medicines, one of which, to his probable horror, is to be inserted vaginally. “But if you have any questions, you could look them up online. Or ask Mary,” he finished, pointing to the female pharmacist.
Then he divested me of two hundred dollars and sent me on my way.

So here I am, on the precipice of my first IUI. A little nervous, actually. That it won’t work, of course, but also that it will. That is the most hateful thing about the cocktail of infertility and recurrent miscarriage—nothing terrifies me more than pregnancy, except the idea of never getting pregnant at all.

By Alexa | Posted in Ceci N'est Pas Une Ecrivaine |