I Am a PIO Survivor

I actually finished with the PIO injections a few days ago, and am amazed I made it to the end. There were so many times I wanted to quit.

I totally freaked out when I had an allergic reaction to the PIO formulation in sesame seed oil. My RE actually told me the day of the transfer that I could use Crinone twice a day instead. However, the success rates are lower with Crinone, and I wanted to give our embryos the highest chance of success, even if it meant driving to a pharmacy in the middle of nowhere for a special PIO formulation at exhorbitant prices.

I was tempted to quit and switch to Crinone in mid-July when I ended up with an infected injection site. If it weren't for the fact that the nurse claimed dh was injecting a bit too high, I don't know if I could have gone on. However, I needed that entirely fresh injection zone. Note: Dh was injecting exactly where the nurse told him to during our injection class. The nurse also suggested the infection was more likely to happen using the one inch needles, but I wasn't about to have dh try the inch and a half needles on me.

The last couple of weeks on PIO were just miserable. I had huge areas of red skin around my injection sites and generalized inflammation so horrible that the lumps could be seen under my clothes. These lumps resulted in a lovely body shape in conjunction with the premature pooch in my belly. I am sure the general public assumed I was walking around sway-backed. Additionally, it was also always fun to predict how much I was going to bleed after each shot the last couple of weeks. Sometimes I would have a spot of blood the size of a nickle on my cotton ball following a shot.

Somehow, I managed to persevere. I made it to the end. Mostly because I had been so disgusted by the use of Crinone once a day for two weeks after my injectables cycles, so I could not possibly picture using it for a month or more twice a day. I was too afraid all of that gook would glue my anatomy shut.

A pleasant surprise has been how quickly the general inflammation has dissipated. The lumps on my hands used to completely fill my cupped hands. However, within only a few days the lumps have grown so small that they just barely fill the indentions naturally occurring in my palms without cupping my hands at all. The best part just might be that my hips no longer itch.

I can't believe I made it through nine weeks of those shots. I stopped to think about how many shots and blood draws I have had since IVF began, and I have a rough estimate of 130 needle sticks. Maybe I was stuck a few more times since on multiple occassions I had to be stuck more than once to get the blood out of my miniscule veins. However, dh managed to get all of the needles into a single Sharps container, which could be a new IVF record.

Dh packed up the Sharps container and all of our left over needles this weekend in order to take them by the drs office one day this week. It's amazing how much neater our bathroom looks without that ugly red plastic box sitting on the counter top. We've had a Sharps container in our bathroom for almost two years. It's rather liberating to think that as of tomorrow there will be no more needles in our house. I even managed to clean the last bits of estrogen patch residue off of my body this weekend.

I just hope that our little one continues to hang on without the PIO and estrogen patches.