A lighter shade of pale.

Ah, the halcyon days of your first IVF. Carefully, gently, patiently spreading your drugs on the counter atop a clean towel. Bottle of rubbing alcohol and cottonballs close by...the alcohol swabs provided by the pharmacy just seem so insignificant. Mixing your drugs with the care and delicacy of a chemist. Preparing the syringe, just so. Gentle wipes of the alcohol swabs to the needle, the vial and of course, the exact area where the shot will be administered, which will never occur one minute before or after the exact same time it was administered the day before. Wait too long to administer the shot--more than 5 seconds--must reswab the skin area. (those nasty germs will swarm to the precise postage size area of your belly within seconds, you know.) Discard used syringe in the Sharps container. Heh, heh, I'll never fill this thing up. Replace meds in their proper place. Mission. Accomplished.

Round two.

Meds still in the box. No clean hand towels. Lupron, 10 ml? Please. Challenge me, will you. Syringe out of the plastic, inserted into vial, filled to the correct amount or thereabouts and removed from vial...under five seconds. Alcohol swabs? Superfluous. It's all sterile anyway. Grab a scrunched inch of belly flab, insert needle. Done. Repeat sometime around sort of close to the same time tomorrow, give or take. Dispose of syringe in Sharps container...later. Leftover syringes have kind of an edgy, out there look. Bathroom Heroin chic.

The bloom's off the rose, people.

During my rose colored spectacles days, the shot giving process was almost sacred. I wanted to be home. I wanted to mix my menipur in my bathroom. With the towel. And the alcohol swabs. And then I would waltz down the stairs, Scarlett O'hara-esque, minus the green velvet curtain dress, "darling, I have it all under control." E and I left a party early honoring him, him, during IVF #1 because I had to give myself a shot. At home.

How the worm turns.

We got back from vacation last Saturday and found the car battery dead in the parking lot of the airport. It was time, ok past time, for my shot. Did she go back to the airport, find a bathroom, close herself off in a stall, mix the meds and administer the shot? Uh, no. She shot up in the front seat of said dead car, whilst on the phone speaking to AAA and in clear view of airport security. E's protestations were met with "It's your fault we don't have jumper cables. Besides, I've got a damn doctor's note."

So, yes, this is very different than November's attempt. The bloom is off the rose. I hope that it works, but I'm not picking out bumper pads from Pottery Barn Kids. Please don't get me wrong. I'm not pessimistic or fatalistic. I assure you, I wouldn't drop the equivalent of 1/2 dozen really, really nice pairs of shoes without a fervent belief that it could work out. I just can't walk through this with the same rose colored spectacles, beautiful that they were.

This time, I'm going for a lighter shade of pale.