Thursday we had our training session for how to administer the drugs for the IVF. David came with me, which I thought would be a good idea, because I want him to know every detail and be a real part of the process. This turned out to be a mixed blessing.
There were two other women in the training session, and their husbands didn’t come. This is only bad because I felt bad. One woman said in a sincerely jovial manner, “My husband’s going to hear about this!” Then she followed up with: “He got in late last night, and he’s already at work, so I’ll give him a pass.” I instantly liked her and honestly felt like she was someone I would be friends with. If I were younger and had more free time, I would have befriended this woman.
The same woman also gave us some pointers about purchasing medication if you are doing self-pay: she compared the two retailers to the pricing Aetna gave her for buying the drugs. Buying directly from the people who had the deals with Shady Grove (rather than the Aetna pricing) saved almost $10,000! She also said that depending on who she had spoken to, she heard different pricing for the drugs each time she called, because some people knew to look up discounts. The other woman was really nice too, and she had different drugs than the rest of us. I was curious about her treatment, but I don’t know what the etiquette around asking is yet.
We got started with the instructions, and the nurse had laid out practice needles and medicines for us to mix. David was so focused, however, I couldn’t get my hands on any of the medicine. He kept raising his hand to ask questions too. I practically had to pull one of the insertion pens away from him, so I could try practicing with it. But I had to do it subtly so that the other people did not think we were having marital issues or that we weren’t a good team. I don’t know why that felt important to me. I took notes and David paid close attention, so between the two of us we should be able to mix the drugs and provide the correct dosage. They also sent follow-up videos, which was a tremendous relief because that previous sentence I _just_ wrote about us being able to provide the correct dosage based on our notes was a straight up lie. I don’t know why I wrote it. I did not believe it. We will probably play the videos the first few times.
So here’s something else that has been going on:
On Day 2 of birth control (28th), when I last wrote, I had a serious thought. “This is my last chance to get rock hard abs.”
I vowed to get a six pack while I did not have to worry that there was a person growing inside me. I got on the Peloton and cycled hard for 30 minutes, then I took a 10 minute arms class. And at night when we got drinks with friends, I stood the entire time, I asked for water and drank it while sucking in my gut, to strengthen my abdominal muscles. I played tennis extra hard. I rode the bicycle aggressively. I cut back on chocolate.
Then we went to New York and I ate four donuts in twenty minutes, so I remain sans six pack.
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