We had a really short visit to the hospital in Glasgow to pick up the non-hCG hormone injection that I was to use as a trigger. We didn't stay in Glasgow very long. Mr Click was suffering from a cold and I was feeling pretty uncomfortable with my grapefruit-sized ovaries.
When we arrived back on the island, we took Tara straight to the Kennels and got her checked in for two nights. This gave us one less thing to worry about the following morning and we knew she would be well cared for while we were off to Glasgow (again).
My trigger injection was a drug called Suprecur (I think this is the brand name for Buserelin, or vice versa). I'm more experienced with this drug as a nasal spray which I've used during my previous frozen transfers. Normally I take it when my Prostap injection is starting to run thin and it keeps my cycle switched off so the meds the hospital prescribe can take over.
You can see from the picture below, this came in a massive vial, containing 5.5ml of the solution. I needed to take 0.5ml of it at 9:30pm on the dot.
I was really grateful that this didn't require mixing. The most nerve-wracking bit was making sure I had the right measurement in the syringe. This syringe was slightly different to the ones I've been using for the Menopur (the plunger inside was slightly curved so I was worried about making sure I was reading it correctly).
The needle was a little bigger than the others I've been using. I think it was wider. I certainly felt it going in and it was harder to get in at first. The needles did have these nifty built in needle covers (the brown and green plastic things in the picture above); that was handy.
This drug begins the process of ovulation so that the follicles are ready to release the eggs they've been growing and maturing over the previous however many days of 'stims'. Normally a trigger is used with the hCG hormone (that's the pregnancy hormone, the one which pregnancy tests look for to determine a positive pregnancy test).
The hCG hormone is the one which can help trigger OHSS or Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome. That would be the thing which put me in hospital during our cancelled cycle way back in 2013. I will admit that I was slightly disappointed at not getting to use the Ovitrelle trigger shot I'd originally been given, purely because I knew once I took it I'd get a positive pregnancy test and I thought that would be kind of cool to do. Of course, not having my ovaries trying to kill me again was far more preferable.
Once the trigger shot has been given, regardless of which sort it is, you've got 36-38 hours to get the eggs collected. So we were given a time of 7:45am to be at the hospital on the Monday and had no more injections to do or drugs to take after this one.
It was just a question of waiting.
And of making our way to Glasgow, which turned out to be a little trickier than we'd expected!
I gave my husband shots for a year and then the first two diabetes meds I was on were injections. That's just not fun so I feel for you. Hope all goes well in the future.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
DeleteI've gotten pretty confident about giving myself injections now. It's the mixing them I struggle with a little. And the prospect of Mr Click having to do them for me is a little unnerving too; he's not a fan of needles.