Hi everyone! I’m sorry it has been so long since I’ve written – life has been totally hectic. Not to mention, I honestly wasn’t too sure what I should write about. However, about a month ago, I finally started giving myself my intramuscular injections. I’ve been thinking about writing about my injections for a while, but now that I am brave enough to do them do myself, I figured I should write the post.

Oh, really quick before I start talking about it – another quick shout out to the amount of my family, friends, and coworkers that gave me my injections for LITERALLY months! You all are amazing!

Anyway, about a month ago I went to visit a coworker who had a baby at the end of January. I stayed at her house much longer than I intended to, because I was loving that sweet boy, and it was good to catch up with her. I have been doing my injections at about 5:30pm each evening. I didn’t bring my medicine with me to her house, and pretty soon it was almost 5:00! I knew that Bobby (my husband) had already left for his night shift at work, so if I wasn’t going to inject myself, I was going to have to run home, grab my medicine, and run back out to someone that could give me my injection.

I called my best friend and was basically whining to her that she wasn’t my neighbor because then I could just walk next door to get my injection! haha! Well, after I stopped complaining, she started telling me that she was sure that I could do it myself.

Some background information about me – I HATE needles. When I go to the hospital, the worst part to me is getting the IV. I seriously make them cover my IV with gauze so I can’t see it once its done. I close my eyes or turn away every time I get my blood drawn, which is a lot by the way! So, of course, when Lauren said I could probably do it to myself I thought no way in hell!

Another fun fact about me – I am super lazy! haha! So, it turns out when you are lazy, sometimes you overcome fears pretty quickly. I decided my fear of needles was not as bad as the idea of driving somewhere else to get an injection.

The way I really got over this fear, though, was by switching my phone call to Facetime when I got home. Then I could see Lauren, and her precious daughter, and they got me motivated enough to do it! She turned the phone so I could see her cute daughter (but don’t worry only Lauren could see me!), and her and her husband counted down for me, and then I did it!

First of all, it was shocking to me that I did it – and even more shocking was that I didn’t hate it! In fact, it wasn’t so bad. It definitely still hurts (those needles are super long) but I almost preferred doing it myself. When I do it, I can control the speed the needle goes in and comes out, plus I can brace myself a little better because I know when it is coming.

 

Now, if you’ve never done intramuscular injections, let’s talk about them for a bit. The needle is 1 1/2 inches long – and the WHOLE THING has to go in! That in itself is super scary when you see it and think about it. However, once the tip of it breaks the skin, the rest slides in and you seriously can’t tell it’s long. I promise.

Also, progesterone is in oil and it is very thick. This makes it difficult to push the medicine in, because it doesn’t go in very quickly. The best thing to do for this, is draw the medicine into the syringe early and warm it up. A lot of people say they put it in their bra to make it warm. That makes me nervous that I’ll bump into something and hit the plunger. I usually put it under my armpit, or just hold it in my hands (which are usually sweating with nerves anyway! haha!) It still goes in slow, but it definitely helps.

When you have to do these injections every day, it gets really old. Mostly because the oil can cause you to get big knots right on your love handles. At first, you can definitely try to rub the area after the injection. However, after several days (or weeks), no matter how much you rub the area, you might still get knots. The best thing I’ve found for this is to sit on a heating pad. It helps me be less sore, plus it helps the medicine spread a little better.

 

Anyway, I don’t know how much these things will really help if you have to do the injections. To be honest, they don’t get any more fun as you continue the process. They just get tolerable and you get used to them.

If anyone else has any fun tips or suggestions, feel free to let me know and comment!

Thanks everyone!

xoxo