This weekend, I needed to look for something under my bathroom sink.  Many things get tossed under my bathroom sink (extra hair products, toothbrush head replacements, contact solution), but something very personal is kept there too.

My used and unused fertility drugs, needles, prescription labels, and old HPT’s (only ones from my successful cycles) are kept under my sink – far away from anyone who would wonder why I still have them, but close enough for me to always know they’re there.

I had to dig and dig to find what I was looking for (and never found them) and pulled the bags full of unused needles, labels, extra meds, and HPT’s out to keep searching.  I then found a 2 liter bottle full of fertility needles and used vials – probably from the cycle that worked for Matthew.  I disposed of many, many IVF needles about 4 months ago and did not know that I still had a bottle full of used needles from our IVF efforts stashed away somewhere.  I was sort of stunned to find them, actually.

Under my sink were 4 IVF (2 fresh and 2 frozen) cycles worth of used needles, memorabilia, and emotions.

And now in my garbage can, shred pile, and (proper) needle disposal containers are 4 IVF cycles worth of… nothing.

Several months ago, I was not ready to let go of all of this, especially the prescription labels.  Today – I am.

As I cut the 2 liter bottle open (because you can’t dispose of them that way, apparently, so I needed to put them in laundry bottles instead) and sifted through various needles and vials of used medications, I remembered certain things.  I thought about how I administered Foll.istim (I had forgotten how the needles screwed onto the pen), how I mixed my Repron.ex each night, and how surprised I was that Ovid.rel came in glass syringes.

But I was not emotional.

I was not at all clinging onto these things any longer.  The same is true for the prescription labels I dutifully pulled off of boxes and bottles to put in the shred pile as I put the bottles and boxes in the trash.

I felt nothing.

I thought a little about the HPT’s from this cycle and decided to just keep the first one that showed me that Bryson was coming (4dp5dt) and the one taken at 7dp5dt because that was the date of the one I still have from Matthew’s cycle (they were transferred on the exact same date, just 2 years apart).  All the rest went in the trash can.

Am I healed from the pain of our infertility?  Those prescription labels were a testament to what we went through, the years of agony and depression, the effort we put into building our family.  Today – they are nothing more than trash.

I dare say I might be healed… and that’s a good feeling!

This is my contribution to the Monday Snapshot at PAIL.