Needles, woods, and other things to leave behind

Up until this past Tuesday, I had 5 separate alarms set on my phone. One got me up in the morning (typical). But 3 of them reminded me to take my estrogen pills (morning, mid-day, bedtime) and the last reminded me to take my nightly shot in the butt (progesterone in oil, or PIO).

On Monday I hit 12 weeks, and I was off the hook for all the meds. Once the placenta is in full working order, the synthetic hormones aren’t needed, because the placenta takes care of all of it. That placenta is a pretty awesome organ, huh?

When I first started taking injectible meds last fall, I was constantly complaining about my sore butt. When we did the first round of IVF, the PIO shots hurt just as bad as the stimulating hormones. My booty was bruised and sore after just two weeks of PIO shots.

This time, I endured 10 weeks of PIO shots. A total of  70 needles in the booty (minus 10 days when we were in South America on vacation; we forked out over $140 so I could avoid needles for the week, and I took my progesterone up the hoo-ha. It was gross.). By the time I was done with 10 weeks of shots, my butt was still bruised, but it had become numb. I’m not sure my booty will ever feel the same.

It’s nice to be “out of the woods” — meaning that once you hit 12 weeks, miscarriage is pretty unlikely. But as anyone who’s done IVF can tell you, it’s impossible to breathe a full sigh of relief until the baby is born healthy.  We as IVF patients are so used to things going badly — getting bad news, disappointment, being told that the latest effort didn’t work — that we just expect it. Even when things go well, we can’t fully trust good news. It’s looked at with suspicion, like it’s trying to trick us into coming closer so it can drop us through a hidden trapdoor.

But even with miscarriage off the table, the next thing to get nervous about is the genetic testing (the results of which will be back next month). After that comes the measurements and crap that they do to detect problems before birth. Then waiting for her to walk and talk on schedule… Does the worry ever end? Maybe eventually, but I can already tell it won’t end anytime soon.

Hopefully at some point between now and then, I’ll trust that good things can actually happen to me — and to us.

It looks like she has little T-rex arms, but she doesn’t. They’re fully grown, as are her legs. But they’re not extended. Hence the T-rex arms. Rawr!