Before I lose myself in the navel of introspection as I can be prone to do, let’s talk about drugs – the fertility kind.
I have a schedule on my fridge that tells me what I need to inject or swallow and in what dose each morning.
There is Femara, a pill used to stimulate ovulation, one a day for Days 3-7.
Gonal F provides the hormone (FSH) which helps increase egg production. It comes in an epipen and doses are 225 Days 3-6 and 150 Days 7 & 8.
Menopur also produces FSH, and LH activity, to assist with ovulation. Two double doses, then two single doses on alternate Days 2,4,6,8.
This is my favourite. You use a sizeable needle to extract a liquid from a teeny bottle to mix with a powder in another vial (and a second if necessary) before swapping to a (smaller) needle for injection. I feel very professional and my best part is when I hold it up to eye level and flick the syringe to clear any air bubbles.
I am quite pleased that I have put on a little weight these past few months so that is easy to grab some flesh and painlessly ease the needles into the ‘smile’ beneath my belly button as I exhale. It is such a non-event that I have lost a modicum of sympathy for people that have to inject medication every day of their lives in this way.
My cleaner arrives as I am about to inject my Menopur. Her eyes take in the medical waste and she carries on to change her clothes as if there is nothing unusual about needles and swabs. She has been with me long enough to have lived through the pillbox I used to keep next to my bed so that I could keep track of all my medication that sat in piles on the kitchen counter when I was still sick. She has seen me pale and fragile. She has seen me barely able to walk. She has seen more than anyone.
She doesn’t pry. She unintrusively looks after my home and silently worries about me. Next week she will ask me if I am ok now and I will say yes.
I wonder what this struggling, single mother of four, a couple of years younger than me would make of this clinical method of impregnation. I don’t have to wonder at how happy she will be for me if its successful.