My injections

So I said I would write a post about the injection process.  Here it goes.  First, here's the pile of stuff that we start with:

The two pieces of paper are all the instructions I have for dosing and mixing my meds.  I haven't really looked at those since the second night.  Everything else there are the meds and syringes and such.

I start by preparing the Follistim pen.  Follistim has to be kept in the fridge.  When I went to get it out the first night, this is where I found it (Jonathan had put it in the fridge):

Can you tell what it's sitting on top of?  Let me give you a closer look:

Yup, that's beer.  I told Jonathan to put it somewhere safe.  He put it in the beer drawer (or as most normal people have, the produce drawer).  It kept it safe, so I can't be upset! :)

I have to put the pen together.  Here are a few pics of the whole set-up.

The cartridge is off to the left of the picture - the pen is in the case to the right.  I put the cartridge in the pen and attach one of the needles (in the pink containers).  One cartridge contains two doses.

The finished product.

Next, I take the Follistim pen and inject the contents into one of the vials of Menopur.  The Menopur consists of two vials of powder and one vial of sodium chloride to use to reconstitute it.  Follow along with the pictures:

The three vials

Injecting the Follistim into one of the Menopur powder vials.

Taking 1/2 mL of sodium chloride into the syringe to add to the Follistim/Menopur mixture.

Adding the sodium chloride to the mixture

Drawing the mixture out to add to the second Menopur vial

Mixing it all together in the second vial

When all is said and done I end up with this:

My syringe full of stimulation meds!

Jonathan and I pretty much take turns with giving me the injections.  I feel like he's getting better at it and I'm getting worse!  I always do all the mixing.  These injections go in my abdomen, about 2 inches from my belly button.  I will spare you the pictures of me getting the actual injection (didn't take any of those!!).  These are surprisingly no big deal at all at this point.  The needle is pretty small and I have to take them between 6 and 9 pm... so I'm off to go mix the meds up now so I can go to marching band practice as soon as I'm done!!  Hope you enjoyed the illustrated process of mixing up my meds! :)