Fun with Chemistry!

Yesterday was the first day of my IVF cycle. As such, I had to begin my stimulation drugs, Bravelle and Menopur. It's bad enough that you have to inject a pretty fair amount of this stuff into your belly. What's worse is that you have to mix it up first, like a chemist. At first, I was like, "oh, this will be fun!" Um, no.

First, the needle we were using to mix the drugs kept creating a vacuum effect so either nothing was coming out, or mostly air. Once we finally got everything all mixed up, we had trouble getting the 27.5 gauge needle on and ended up wasting a little bit of the VERY EXPENSIVE mixture.

To elaborate further, I had three vials of Bravelle and one of Menopur. They are all in powder form. First, you have to put the needle in a vial of sodium chloride, fill it, and then move the liquid to each vial until it is all mixed together. Sounds simple in theory, but not so much in reality.

My guess is that we will get the hang of it as soon as I don't have to take it anymore. But honestly, that would be just fine by me!