The final round of Clomid is complete and ‘the week’ is here. We have been excited to see what everything looks like that’s been growing. I headed to the doctor, hopeful there would be at least 1 viable follicle and a good thick uterine lining. I have been praying for my womb each night before I go to bed, for God to prepare it and do whatever was necessary to be healthy and fruitful.
Two follicles! Wahoo. Excited to see the Clomid had worked and my lining is 6mm (healthy).
The bummer is the follicles are too small (on day 13), so I made an appointment for day 15.
Within the 2 days, they grew a little more, yippee!! But still not big enough to trigger an ovulation.
Major bummer! What are you going to do? Unfortunately, we are in a circumstance where we are not able to come in to the doctor in the next 7 days, so do we risk foregoing an ovulation? I say this because I have needed help from an HCG trigger shot for all these previous rounds of Clomid so if I don’t get that boost of a hormone, I don’t know if my body will ovulate?
After a little bit of convincing, they send me home with an HCG trigger shot to administer on our own. Ah, what? I am not great at inflicting pain on myself and my Hubby is not too excited about sticking my backside with something that makes me bleed.
They walk through the instructions of how to suck up 1cc of the sanitary water into the syringe using the thicker gauged needle and then squirt it into the vial that has the powdered medication. Roll it in my hands and then change the needle to a smaller (22) gauge needle to suck it all up and then poke it into my bottom. They said ‘we don’t want to put you through a larger gauge needle’ when giving me the smaller.
Thank you, I thought.
We have now crossed over to the next level of medical.
Praying that I would ovulate on my own between now and day 19 (which was the last day they wanted me to go before triggering).
Day 16– no blinking smiley face
Day 17– Blinking smiley face! Oh come on Solid smiley face…
Day 18– Blinking smiley face…. bummer…
Day 19– Blinking smiley face…. (sigh).
It’s time.
We watched a few YouTube videos on administering shots to the bottom. Hubby washed his hands and we found the right spot that he would stick me.
I prepared the medicine as outlined by the nurses and handed the shot to Hubby who was sitting on the toilet seat in the bathroom.
(Plop)
Uh, what was that? I turned around.
The shot was not in his hand and his eyes were pointing toward the ground.
There… sticking straight out of the white shag bathroom mat, nose down, our HCG shot.
Are you serious?
I bend over, try to pick it out of the rug and it’s stuck. I wiggle the needle point out of the mat as it’s tip had bent making a tiny hook around the mat fibers. I narrowed to the point of the needle, it was no longer sharp.
Hubby quickly reminded me we cannot try to use it as it’s not sterile (even though I was contemplating just doing it anyway).
What are we supposed to do now? This was our last round of Clomid and now we cannot even ensure an Ovulation. We may have just forgone our chance this time around.
My heart sank.
Hubby felt horrible… It wasn’t his fault.
There is one more option.
The larger gauged needle.
The same needle the nurses laughed to me about not ‘putting me through that’.
It’s our only option if we want to force the Ovulation with the HCG.
With sweat beginning to surface on my hands in anticipation of this thicker needle entering my skin, I changed out the needles and gave it to Hubby.
What was it going to feel like? How sore would I be? Would that much larger of a needle really hurt?
He poked once… not going in.
He poked twice…. not going in.
In a serious tone, I said, “just force it in there, like a dart”.
He poked a third time and it went in!
Thicker than what I recall… absolutely!
The medicine was administered.
My bottom was sore.
But these are the lengths we go to, right?
The sacrifices for another human being are great and they begin well before they even enter our wombs and lives.
The supplements, the healthy eating, the exercising. All the recommendations of what we can be doing to help foster a healthy environment.
Re-researching the HCG to ensure we had it all correct… ovulation occurs between 24-36 hours after administration of the HCG and the egg lives in a woman’s body for 12-24 hours. So essentially, plan for timed intercourse 24, 36, 42 hours after the shot.
Hubby thought he was done but he still has work to do. At least we are still having fun with this whole process.
I’m grateful that we are a team and God is strengthening our marriage each step of the way. Our conversations about kids and having a family is raw and realistic as we don’t know what our future holds. What we do know though, is we have each other. For today. We can enjoy what is in our life and accept the story God is still to write.
Those darn smiley faces just don’t want to show up this week. I am beginning to question if my body has the ability to produce the right hormones to get pregnant. I’m beginning to question a lot about my body and the “ifs” of this process.
What I thought would be a simple visit to the OBGYN with an ultrasound to clear me to start another round of Clomid (just like all the others I’ve had) turned into a dose of painful reality.
We didn’t even have to debate how long we should wait until we take a pregnancy test. I woke up today with an achy back and knew that something was going to happen and sure enough it did! I got a period.
I am grateful to report that last 2 weeks have not been too terrible as there have been many other things to focus our time and energy on.
Hilary Maxwell 