Alright if you don’t know what progesterone oil is, you need to before starting the IVF process. I was taken completely by surprise with no warning from my care providers and man DO I RESENT THAT.

What is progesterone?

Progesterone is a hormone that’s needed to prepare the uterine lining for implanting an embryo. With IVF, you start on it a week or two before your embryo transfer and then stay on it until you confirm whether or not you’re pregnant.

If you are pregnant, you then use it daily through the early stages of pregnancy – aka the first trimester.

In a natural pregnancy, your body makes the progesterone you’ll need to maintain a healthy pregnancy. In fact, our bodies make it every month. In an average cycle, progesterone comes into play after you ovulate to help thicken the lining of your uterus in preparation for getting pregnant. If you don’t get knocked up, your progesterone drops and that’s the signal for your period to start. Rinse and repeat each month.

During pregnancy, our bodies continue to make progesterone to keep the embryo in place as it grows and develops. If you have trouble creating enough progesterone, you might have trouble getting or staying pregnant.

What is progesterone oil?

With an IVF pregnancy, your body may have trouble making the progesterone levels it needs because of the IVF process. When your doing FET, or a frozen embryo transfer, your body likely isn’t making any progesterone at all. So it’s recommended (highly) to supplement the process in order to give you the best chance at getting, and staying, pregnant.

The easiest way to do this is with progesterone oil injections which are usually done in your lower back/ upper butt area. You’ll need to do this daily until the placenta can take over production which is usually around 8-10 weeks. Your doctor will probably recommend you stay on the oil until 12 weeks or potentially even later to give some overlap and ensure your body is making what it needs before you stop.

Remember, you’ll be taking Estrace or an estrogen supplement at the same time because progesterone oil can do bad things to you by itself, one of which being an increased risk of cancer. So don’t skimp on your daily duo.

So what’s the catch?

Aside from the cost that can be between $60-90 CAD for a 10ml vial, progesterone oil HURTS.

You’ll need to inject yourself at the same time each day, usually in the morning. It’s very important to maintain your schedule because even one missed dose could impact your ability to stay pregnant. Miscarriage rates are higher with IVF so you really want to do all you can to protect your pregnancy.

The catch is the oil is freaking torture after a few days. You’ll want to alternate the side of your body you inject yourself on each day to help avoid that but even so, be prepared for pain.

There were some days where even walking to work was agony. Sitting down, moving, sleeping on the side you injected that day can all be incredibly painful as time goes on. Fun times all round.

What helps with the pain?

I discovered a few things to help with the pain (no thanks to my doctor or clinic. Praise be Google.). Here’s what I learned:

1. Use a heating pad to warm the oil before you inject it. I used one of those hot/cold ice packs. 20-30 seconds in the microwave and then wrapped the oil part of the syringe (NOT THE NEEDLE PART) in the pad for about 2 minutes. After it’s warmed, you don’t want to inject it right away because if it’s too hot, or if the needle has gotten heated, you can burn yourself and that’s no fun. Trust me, I learned the hard way.

2. Inject yourself slowly. Big needles are no fun, but this isn’t a fast push sort of injection. The slower you can go the better chance the oil has of dissipating into your body. Oil is a thick substance so if you push too hard or fast, it will hurt you more and cause more bruising.

3. Take a hot shower afterward or use your heating pad. If you can, heat the area after you inject yourself to help the oil dissipate. I could tell the difference between days when I did this and days when I didn’t. If you have the time, sit on a heating pad for a bit before you go about your day and your body will thank you later.

4. Use a body pillow to sleep. By the evenings, you’ll be in pain. Shifting from side to side in bed can send shooting pains through your body. I used a body pillow so I could prop myself up on my stomach to sleep so neither back of my thighs were really touching the bed or holding much weight.

5. Walk slow. Honestly, I don’t know if you could really exercise much on this drug, but I’m betting you wouldn’t be able to run. I moved pretty slowly during my progesterone oil weeks to give my sore legs a break.

6. Inject yourself correctly. Since I had little to no instruction from my clinic, I think I was injecting myself badly at first. I used this video to teach myself how to do it right. This was really the only time I missed having a partner who could have helped get the needle into the right spot for me. Doing it alone meant some major contortions to inject yourself properly.

What else does progesterone oil do to you?

Remember how I skipped the murder stage when I was doing my hormone injections during my IVF round? Yeah, well, it got me in the end. For me progesterone oil made me feel like my brain was on fire. I have very little patience and wanted to rip people apart of they dared to speak to me sometimes. God help the idiots who crossed my path because they made me see red.

Since I’m doing this as a singleton, I didn’t have to worry about decimating a partner. I honestly don’t know how women in relationships get through this phase. You must want to kill your man/partner all the time unless he’s an A+ rockstar of a human being. Even my family that I adore made me want to tear and rend.

This phase was by far and away the worst part of the entire IVF process. You hurt. You hate. And you want it all to stop. But you can’t because you’ve got a little life in you that’s dependent on those daily injections.

Is there any hope?

Nope lol. Other than to tell yourself this will end. Personally, I stopped the oil 3 weeks ahead of schedule because my doctor could not give me a good reason to stay on it other than the standard “this is our recommendation.” I don’t endorse going rogue with medical decisions! This was a personal choice for me based on the research I was doing myself. When I asked why I needed to be on the injections so long, my doctor really didn’t have much to add other than that’s the standard. I waited until I hit 10 weeks which is when your body should have already taken over and then weened myself off for a week. Who knows if that was right. I’ve read some women ween off it for 2-6 weeks and others go cold turkey. My clinic, of course, had nothing to say about the stopping process so I did my own research and went with what I was comfortable with. I highly recommend you talk to a medical professional before you stop as stopping early can be a risk in itself.

Vaya con Dios, my friends

You can get through this. Do whatever you can to keep yourself calm. Have lots of hot showers. And remind yourself this too shall pass. When it does, you’ll hopefully have a healthy pregnancy and baby to look forward to.