Nine days into my first cycle with gonadatropins my lower belly is continuing to evolve in its visual interest. The amazing technicolor bruising from the laproscopy has long since faded, but the scars remain. They make a diamond of short slashes. Now I'm adding a bunch of little tiny dots from the injections.

The instructional video on the pharmacy web site tells me that I should rotate my injection sites daily. Other than the lower belly, the available options are the upper outer thighs and the backs of the upper arms. The arms I didn't bother trying. I only have two hands, while I admit that its probably possible for me to inject myself there it isn't something I'm confident about doing well. I did try the thighs, and after two goes at that I decided that there would be no more of that. These injections are really best given in flabby tissue, and if you're looking for flab on me the lower belly is the place to go. All my fat seems to congregate on my abdomen, and the lower belly is the prime spot. I'll stick to sticking myself in the belly from now on, even though it means I'm getting a whole constellation of dots there.

I think if this cycle doesn't work, next time I'm going to try to go for some interesting pattern. Maybe I'll make a smiley face under the belly button scar. I even have two different sized dots to work with. Originally I was just doing follistim, which uses very fine needles. With these you can barely feel the prick and they just leave a tiny dot behind where they went in. The past couple of days I've been using the antagon as well. These come in pre-filled syringes with a thicker needle. Not only is the needle thicker, but the stuff inside is as well. These leave a bigger dot, and the first time I did it a big fat drop of blood appeared when I took the needle out. Those feel a bit like being stung by a bee, especially afterwards. I'm thinking that if I go for the smiley face I should use the antagon to make the eyes and the follistim for the mouth.

The ironic thing about the injections is that while so many people dread giving themselves shots, that's the easy part as far as I'm concerned. The daily migraines that the hormones seem to be inducing are the unfun bit, and even with those there is no way I'd trade roles with psychohist even if it were possible. Its just that the content of my sharps container seems more concrete and easier to explain to people.

Tags: ttc