Happy New Year to all my blogger friends out there. New Year’s Eve was possibly the worst one I’ve ever had but I’m not ready to talk about it just yet. If I ever talk about it, I don’t want my anger and bitterness to affect the words that I type.

At midnight, with tears in my eyes and hubby holding onto me, I took a page from S.I.F.’s play book and wrote my wishes for 2013 down on a piece of paper and at the stroke of midnight (after our kiss) we went onto our front step and I lit the folded piece of paper on fire and my husband held onto it until the fire reached his fingertips then let it go. My wishes weren’t for extravagance and money but instead a wish for our true dreams to come true. I’m not one to believe in this stuff but I’m willing to put a little faith in the unknown and see what may come. I’m grateful that my husband did not mock my need for this, but that may show just how out of sorts I really was last night and how much he just wanted to make it better. Here’s hoping our wishes are answered.

But now that we are into the new year, I have a confession to make. I’m TERRIFIED of needles. I have been since I was a child. I know, odd for a girl who has multiple tattoos with plans for more. I had traumatic childhood memories of getting my shots for school and my mom and two nurses having to hold me down so that they could give me my shots. Apparently even as an infant, I bit my doctor while he tried to give me a shot. I didn’t believe that until my doctor confirmed that. I once full on kicked my doc when I was 13 and then as I got older, I switched out the screaming for weakness and just passing out. So my fear of needles run very deep. The idea of blood work and possible shots for treatments simply terrifies me and leave me queasy at the thought of it.

Knowing that, I used the move and upcoming holidays as an excuse to get out of my first round of CD2 blood work. But last week while waiting for my period to start I knew I had to bite the bullet. We simply can’t move forward without it and I would regret it. Last time I went for blood work, I went by myself, passed out mid way through and spent a half hour trying to prove that I was fine before they would let me drive home and only under the agreement that next time I came for blood work I bring someone with me or else they won’t let me leave until someone comes to get me. Yeah, I know, that’s pretty bad.

So this morning was CD2. I woke up early and got Chris out of bed and dragged him to the hospital. It was now or wait until next cycle. I chanted over and over “this is for our future child” to keep myself on track. Our hospital staff is sometimes less than wonderful to deal with and I worried that they would give me problems because the blood work slip came from the IWK Children’s Hospital in Halifax (who my fertility clinic primarily deals with). While a friend and her husband visited us last night I mentioned my fear and friends husband flat out told me, “don’t worry, not only do they accept it, but the IWK sorta makes every other local hospital their bitch”. I laughed it off thinking, ah yeah you’re just saying that. So imagine my surprise today when we landed at the hospital and we clearly had an hour and a half minimum wait time for blood work. So I grab a number and wait to be registered. My number is called, I ask Chris to hold my purse and the girl registering me does all the normal stuff then double checks everything on the list, asks if I’m on thyroid meds then runs off my stickers for the vials of blood. Then instead of making me go back and wait, she tells me to bypass everyone and go right in for my blood draw. When you go in the actual blood collection room, a tech meets you and takes your slip. He looked at it, said he would be right back and while everyone else received just their stickers back, I get mine back paper clipped to a neon tag and I’m taken first. All I can think is, wow I guess every other hospital really is the IWK’s bitch. I’ve never been taken care of so fast before. I guess I was upgraded to VIP status.

So I go to see my tech and as she says hello and confirms my name and DOB, I tell her directly:

“I need to tell you a couple of things before we start.
1. I’m petrified of needles and prone to passing out.
2. Passing out is not as bad when I’m laying down from the beginning.
3. If I do pass out and you need my husband, his name is Chris and he’s in the waiting room.
4. If I do pass out, I’m generally fine after it and you can complete your blood draw after I’m back to my senses. Otherwise I’m doing my best to keep calm.”

I had my tech in stitches. She clearly knew that this was not my first time. So she laid me as flat out as she could in the chair, closed the curtains around me for privacy if I did pass out, talked me through everything and 5 vials of blood and a constant exercise of deep breathing later, I was done and I hadn’t passed out! After laughing, being congratulated by my awesome tech for not passing out and having a cold glass of water just to be safe, I was on my way home and Chris was wondering why I needed him in the first place especially since he thought i was still registering. When I got home, I took my first multivitamin and folic acid that my RE wanted me to start (*note to self, take with food or lose liquid breakfast…again*) and considered today a complete success.

So I was a trooper and I’m quite proud of myself. But the other thing that left me light hearted and happy was the fact that I was taken care of. No worries, no fighting with people to do stuff for me, nothing. It’s so uncommon for me to have anything go smoothly when it comes to our infertility and treatment of it that when things go well, I’m left shocked. Most people have this blood work and work ups done as soon as they see their doctors when they have trouble conceiving, yet we are almost at the 4 year mark and we are just getting to this point. So it’s really no wonder why I’m almost expecting the bottom to fall out of everything and shocked when it goes smoothly.