Part 18

Ah the Booster Shot.  The HcG.  The shot that we talked about in serious tones during class.  The shot that caused the most chipper nurse on the planet to lower her voice, slow down, and make very clear that THIS shot is a BIG DEAL.

After the call with Sarah, I hung up the phone and walked down to Ben’s office.  I said, “The Booster shot is tonight. Retrieval is Wednesday.”

Ben’s face turns to smile and then quickly to panic.  He knows what this means.  It means he – HIM – has to stab ME in the butt with a 3 inch needle…TONIGHT.  His excitement that we are getting close to the end of this process is GREATLY overshadowed by his fear of needles.

Ben’s been dreading this precise part since the VERY beginning.

Now, the bottom shots are not like the belly shots.  The belly shots, you just stab the needle in and push down the plunger.  The bottom shot is different.  The needle is longer.  It has to go into muscle mass on a very precise quadrant of the butt.  You stab the needle in like a dart like normal, but before you push down on the plunger you have to pull back slightly on the plunger to make sure no blood enters the syringe – and you haven’t hit a blood vessel.  If no blood, then you can inject the medication.  All that is complicated – and requires you to look at the needle, stabbed into my body for longer than 3 seconds.  Not to mention that I have to stand pigeon-toed and bent at the waist slightly while holding the skin nice and taught (unless you have nice taught butt skin – and if you do – you suck).

Aside from the shot being complicated to administer, the added stress regarding the EXACT PRECISE TIME that the shot needs to be given makes this whole HcG shot completely overwhelming.

HcG, short for human chorionic gonadotropin, is a drug that causes the eggs in the ovarian follicles to mature and facilitates them being released from the follicle to make the trek down the fallopian tube.  With IVF, they want the eggs to finish maturing, but don’t want the eggs to release from the follicles.  Instead, during egg retrieval, the doctor, with the embryologist takes a large gauge needle and goes in and essentially sucks the egg out of the fluid in the follicle and places it in a specimen dish to be fertilized.  From the time HcG is administered, eggs release in 36 hours, so they schedule the booster shot for 35 hours before the egg retrieval…just enough time to get in there and suck those babies (and by babies I, ironically, mean unfertilized eggs) out.

For me and Ben it is a stressful evening with the shot looming over our head.  We don’t want to screw it up.  Ben has worked himself into a tizzy about giving the shot altogether – he hates needles.  As I am walking him through how to give the shot I could see the alarm on his face.

I ask, “Are you sure you are okay to do this babe?”

He says, “Yes.  I’ll just close my eyes when I put the needle in.”

OH HELL NO.

I look at him and say, “What!!!??!?!!  Close your eyes?  You’re not closing your eyes as you stab a 3 inch needle into my ass.  NO WAY.  I’ll give myself the shot.”

Ben looks at me with a sense of relief, but also a look of disbelief that I can contort my body enough to be able to administer the shot myself.  Either way he’s gonna have to watch it happen.  He wasn’t convinced quite yet that he wouldn’t have to be the one to stab the needle into my butt.

That night, I tucked into bed for a little bit, but only after setting 3 alarms for 12:30, 12:35, and 12:40.  I needed time to mix the medication, lay out all the supplies, ice my bottom, and wait for the exact stoke of 1 o’clock a.m.  Ben didn’t come to bed.  He had worked himself into such a frenzy that he was too stressed to sleep.

By the time I had walked downstairs to the kitchen by 12:40 a.m., he was still up watching TV and a complete ball of stress.

I said, “Why are you still up?”

Ben replied, “I can’t stop thinking about the shot.”

I replied, “Babe, I think I can do it.  I just need you to hold my skin taught for me.  You don’t even have to look.”

“Are you sure you can do it?” He asked.

“Yes, (as I twist my body to demonstrate that I can totally twist and reach around far enough to stab a syringe into the upper-outer part of my butt) I’m sure, see?”  I say.

Ben seems to immediately relax and I go straight to work getting everything prepared.  Mix the medication, draw the entire vial into the syringe, ice the area on the butt for 5 minutes.

At 12:56 a.m. I call Ben over to get ready.  I pull down one side of my favorite blue sweatpants, remove the ice pack, and wipe down the area with an alcohol swab.  I then instruct Ben in pull that area of my butt taut.  I grab the syringe and pull the needle cover off with my teeth and stand there with the three inch needle in my hand waiting for the stroke of 1 a.m.

The official iPhone time turns from 12:59 to 1:00 a.m., I take a deep breath and with no time to waste, make the swift dart-like motion to stab the needle in.  It doesn’t go all the way in, but without thinking about it, I finish pushing it in all the way.  I pull back on the plunger – no blood – good.  I push down to inject the HcG, pull the needle out, and put pressure on the injection site with a paper towel.  Then I say to Ben – who’s still holding my butt taut and looking away with his eyes pinched shut, “Okay, it’s over.”

Ben looks at me and says, “It’s done?”

“Yep.  It’s done.”