A new beginning

I began injections on Tuesday.

The trick I’ve discovered, for a pain-free injection, is finding an area of flesh that doesn’t hurt too much when you gently push the needle against the skin. Before you even break the surface. And if, once you begin pressing the syringe plunger, the area starts to immediately sting, stop. Find a new area, and repeat. Because pain is often accompanied by bruising and, sometimes, a really stonking subdermal haematoma.

These injections are Buserelin, a drug to down-regulate my own hormones. I’m also taking 3 norethisterone pills a day, morning, noon, and night for a week, to exhaust me, give me headaches, and build up a thick womb lining. Then, when I stop taking them, I’ll have a period and call the clinic. Shortly afterwards I’ll begin the oestrogen tablets, all the while taking the daily injections and 2 x metformin pills a day to help control insulin levels and, by proxy, sex hormones.

It feels like a while now since we last did all this, although in reality it was only 3 months ago. There is a dissonance between the security that comes from my familiarity of its rhythms, and the unknown, uncertain, fearfulness I feel. I can’t help but think back to the other times I was in this place, and how those cycles ended…

I had wanted to be in a better position by now – by the time we began this cycle. I was aiming to be down to 12st, and really fit and healthy. I’ve been running lots, doing a couple of exercise classes a week, eating really well on low-carb noms. But at my last weighing I was 12st 11 (I had gotten to 12st 7, which while disappointing, was still better than what I ended on). I think in part the weight gain was muscle, and in part I was approaching a “due period” insomuch as I can predict such rarities. So those things could explain packing on the extra pounds. But to what extent I don’t know. And it’s incredibly demoralising. We went away for 5 days this last week and I let lose a bit on holiday, but I still didn’t go all-out by any carb-consumption scale. I’m not going to weigh myself again until after the next period. I’m just too stressed by it all to get back on the scales.

I don’t know how much my actual weight will effect the outcome of the cycle. Possibly not as much as the improved biochemistry a low-carb diet affords me, or the improved strength of my body the exercise affords me. Or the random quality of any given embryo. But it’s the one thing I feel will always be a factor in my infertility, and I just don’t know that I can improve it as much as I’d like to, in time to conceive while still young enough to make it all work.

And so my logic tells me it won’t be any different this time. I actually weigh more than at the beginning of the last cycle. And that didn’t work. So what chance do I stand this time?

I feel guilty I haven’t made my target weight. Guilty I missed a week of running because of a cold, guilty I missed two excecise classes because of our holiday. I feel angry at the injustice of being heavier, given all the hard work I’m putting in to it.

I’ve considered delaying the cycle, but if we do that now, we’ll have to wait until after Christmas before we can begin again. And it’s even more unlikely my weight will be less after Christmas.

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