Pull the Trigger

Tuesday, May 17th was trigger shot day.  The directions from the Doc said that Hubby needed to inject the contents of the entire bottle - which was not much, by the way - in my rear at exactly 10pm.  I had inspected the needle when it arrived several weeks earlier and that sucker was long and thick...and in this case, size DOES matter.  I have a friend that works at a tattoo and piercing shop.  She said the gauge of needle for my trigger shot is the same gauge with which they use to pierce people.  Oh great!  I'm getting my butt pierced.  Like this process hasn't been crazy enough!

Directions from the Doc also said to get the Novarel out of the fridge about 30 minutes early to bring it to room temp, which would help decrease the pain of the shot.  Hubby said that he was not nervous about giving me a shot - he just didn't like hurting me - but he got the directions and read them over several times and kept looking at the clock to make sure we were on time.  I think he was nervous and I also think that was cute.  He also got a piece of ice for me and we held it on my bum so it would become numb to this atrociously giant looking shot.

At exactly 10pm in our bathroom, I stood pigeon-toed on my left leg and Hubby gave me the trigger shot on the right side.  It hurt a bit - enough to take my breath away - but it was over soon enough. 

To be honest, I expected a lot more pain, but the ice had done its job.  I even questioned Hubby several times to make sure he'd hit the right spot and the needle had gone in all the way.  Little did I know that would hurt badly for 3 days afterwards.  I even had to ask hubby to look at it the next day to see if it had bruised.  While it had not, he said I was definitely swollen on the right side.  That's all I need - a shot to make my hind end to look even bigger than it is.  It literally felt like I'd been bee-lined with a softball in the toosh.  On retrieval day, the IVF nurse said this is a common problem people have due to the Novarel being so concentrated.  Apparently, they use the equivalent of 10 doses of medicine in that one little bottle.  The proof that it worked?

Now don't get excited.  I'm not pregnant.  At least not at the time I'm writing this.  Directions from the Doc state that I have to take a home pregnancy test at 8am the morning after the trigger shot.  Because a trigger shot contains the same hormones as pregnancy, a home pregnancy test should come out positive if the trigger shot was successful.  If the trigger shot "took," retrieval will be the next day.  Looks like we'd be collecting eggs on Thursday morning!