The Frozen Egg Diaries #2: The Injections

On almost crying at the co-op, comparing egg counts, and how diet culture conflates bloat and weight gain

Welcome to #2 of the Frozen Egg Diaries, where I take you with me on my egg freezing journey. If you’re new here, please read The Frozen Egg Diaries #1 to get caught up. It’s my hope that these diaries help you or someone you know feel less alone as we battle the issues that face the modern woman today: in technology, the romantic landscape, gender, and family.

This is for paid subscribers only. Thanks for comin’ along.

Trigger warning: this post mentions eating disorder recovery and egg freezing

10/5/23 - Day 3 of injections

They say the physical discomfort and hormonal mood swings don’t start for another three days, but I already feel tired and hormonal. It’s probably just emotional exhaustion. The psychic toll of this process is not to be brushed over.

I’ve been doing the injections each night, alone, at my bathroom sink. As I mix the salines and hormones and tap on the syringes to get the air bubbles out, I seek my dog’s face from the bathroom door. Samson stares at me from his bed. He watches me, and he looks nervous, concerned; but maybe I’m just projecting. I want his comfort.

I do not agree with Chrissy Teigan who said she “doesn’t mind the shots” and they “make her feel like a chemist”. I do mind the shots, mostly because I’m terrified of doing it wrong. There are so many needles and syringes that came in the medication bag. My biggest fear is that I re-use an old needle and get a mysterious disease. But I am also afraid of making a mistake: using the wrong sized needle, taking the wrong dose, missing “my chance”, extending this process any longer than it needs to be. What if the shots aren’t even going in? In spite of, or probably because of, my stress and concern, I took the hormones too early on the first day. Panicked, I messaged my doctor through the text message portal. She said it was fine. Is this an indication of what kind of mother I’m going to be? Gosh.

Oh, and on the first night of injections I think I accidentally threw a used needle into the trash instead of into the sharps container. Woops. I gently sifted through my trash to no avail. I worried about poking myself or worse, poking a New York City sanitation worker.

There are so many steps and parts for medications like Menopur. Follistim is easier, it’s just a pen. No mixing required. Menopur has so much *stuff*. Ugh. I hope I get used to it.

My best friend is visiting me in a few days. I’m excited to have someone with me while I do the injections. Some support, some love.

I still can’t believe they trust me enough to be at home and do the injections by myself. It’s a trip. They told me some people pay $200 a day for a nurse to come to their house and do it for them. I won’t be doing that, but I can see why people do it.

Signed,

Apparently squirmish around needles

10/8/23 - Day 6 of injections

I feel emotional today; sensitive. Yesterday, I was anxious, but I couldn’t tell if it was situational or the influx of hormones. Today is more certain. I feel sad, weighty. It’s the first really cold day here in Brooklyn, and my building super turned on the heat. Darkness is coming, and I like it. The air teems with moodiness.

I knew I was feeling sensitive this afternoon when I was standing in line at the local co-op. There are two sets of lines: a line directly in front of the store, and then one further down the block as to not crowd the entrance/exit doors. I was next in line after waiting in both lines when I heard a terse voice behind me, startling me out of my daze.

“Excuse me, miss, the line’s back there”. I turned around to see a woman, maybe 40, with her 11-year-old son standing beside her. She pointed to the line I’d just come from.

“I know, I just waited in that line,” I said.

“Well, I don’t remember seeing you in front of me,” she said, shocked.

“I’m next in line,” I said, “I’ve been waiting behind the lady that just walked in,” I pointed to the woman who was in front of us, who’d just walked in.

“Well, I don’t remember you,” she said, avoiding eye contact. Her tone was frank, accusatory, loud, angry.

Her tone, her vibe, her telling me what to do, it was all so much. Usually, I let this kind of thing roll off my back, it’s New York after all. But today, I wasn’t in the mood to take the high road.

How dare she speak to me that way? I did stand in line like everybody else. I would NEVER knowingly cut. I was so upet, I felt my throat muscles tighten, signaling that tears were on the way. As I walked into the co-op, I thought of a million ways to scream at her, to embarrass her in front of her son. I wanted to tell her that I thought she was a terrible mother to speak to another woman that way, in front of her child. I also wanted to ask her who she thought she was. That we all own the co-op, nobody is in charge here. But instead, I decided not to. I had a speck of (rational? God?) in that moment and heard my voice inside tell me:

This woman is struggling. She is suffering, and it has nothing to do with you.

Once inside, my shopping experience felt sour. I texted a friend who knows I’m on 2 mL of hormones a day.

“I’m at the co-op and I’m going to cry,” I wrote to her.