I thought I’d post an update on having to inject myself as it is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do to myself.

I’ve always had an idea that I’d be able to do anything to look after and protect my baby, and I suppose I have proved myself right, if I was a bit more hesitant than I expected I would be. If I didn’t know that these injections have the potential to prevent another miscarriage I don’t think I’d be able to sit there every day at lunchtime with a needle hovered over my stomach.

I have an alarm that goes off at midday everyday so I don’t forget and as soon as it goes off I go and get a needle ready. I then sit on the bed, decide where on my stomach to inject, pinch a bit of the skin up and then technically I should just get on with it, in reality I sat for 15 minutes the first day with little voices in my head telling me I couldn’t do it, but I was also thinking about what I could be preventing and eventually with a quick movement of my hand the needle was in, it was not as easy as the midwife told me – it took a bit more pressure than I expected, and pushing the fluid into me took far more force than I would happily push against my skin, so having repositioned my hands I managed to push it in. I decided to do this slowly as I noticed the midwife did it fast and it really burnt. I have found a slower approach hurts much less (I will try anything to make this experience less traumatic!)

Today is now the fourth day of doing this and I managed to get it done in under 5 minutes. Don’t think for a second that I am getting used to it, I am definitely not, but I am speeding up the internal arguments about whether I can do it! I know I can! I found taking a deep breath and slowly blowing out whilst putting the needle in helped, not least to give myself a time limit before I had to get it in.

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to calmly do it as I have seen diabetics do with their insulin, but I know I am capable of doing it, I NEED to do it, therefore I would sit there all day until I plucked up courage!!

Today I also recieved my results from my downs syndrome screening which came back 1 in 1000000 chance. At least thats one less thing for me to worry about (and one less needle going near my stomach!)