Belly Shots...

Just wanted to update everyone on the status of the Lovenox shots. Before starting them I did a TON of research to sort of psych myself up for the shots. After the research I was terrified. People had posted pictures of huge black and blue pregnant bellies and posted horror stories about how painful the injections were, how their bellies had hard calluses from the shots. I was scared. I have now been shooting Lovenox for the last two months. I have to tell you the horror stories have all proven overblown in my case. Maybe I'm thick skinned, I know I have a pretty high pain tolerance. I have small bruises, but not too many and nowhere near as bad as I thought they would be. If anyone has to do Lovenox I recommend icing the area for 10 minutes before injecting. Use the skin in your love handles and I inject at a 90 degree angle. Inject slowly. Before administering the injection make sure the bubble is at the top of the syringe. At the end of the injection the bubble will ensure the Lovenox is pushed far enough down in your skin to prevent it from leaking out and helping to prevent too much burning. I used to ice 10 minutes after too, but I've stopped doing that now. The burn isn't bad at all. Here's some pictures from last week of the bruises:

You can see the small little bruises on my side. None last more than a day or two. Don't mind my gross hip bones. I've been trying to put some cushioning over them for a while now. I'm showing, but if you don't know me you might not be able to tell. These were taken last week and I'm actually bigger now, the hip bones are starting to disappear at this point!! Yay!! My work pants aren't zipping up but I don't want to buy any maternity pants until I'm safely in the second trimester. So I'm just walking around all day with my pants halfway zipped. I try to stay at my desk except when I'm forced to go to the bathroom. I had a realization this weekend after watching a few minutes of Kendra from Girls Next Door, one of Hugh Hefner's former girlfriends, special about having a baby. She was a few days from delivery when she went in for an ultrasound and her belly button was basically inside out. She no longer had her belly piercing. I was hoping to hang on to that last piece of my youth. The day I turned 18, my then boyfriend, drove me two and a half hours to a nearby town(I grew up in North Dakota), two and a half hours is nearby, to get my belly button pierced. I passed out after it was done when I stood up and saw it in the mirror, blood makes me queasy. Even after daily blood draws during infertility treatment I couldn't watch them actually take my blood or I'd pass out. My boyfriend had to pick me up and carry me outside. Real cool. I've kept it all these years and now it's finally healed. I bought a special adjustable ring that you're supposed to be able to keep in while pregnant. But after seeing Kendra's belly I think this pipe dream of maintaining my youthful belly piercing, which by the way NO ONE ever sees, except DH, is fading fast. Time to embrace Mommyhood and let my wild, youthful days live in the past.