If you consider that phrase an acrostic, you’ll understand what I almost yelled from my mother-in-law’s bedroom on Thanksgiving Day when the Mr. gave me the first injections. Three days out, I realize maybe it wasn’t THAT horrible, but it did hurt like the devil — especially when he removed each needle.

I’m on two medications administered with inch-and-a-half needles at the highest dosage allowed. One involves two vials of powder that have to be mixed via syringe with sodium chloride. The other requires refrigeration. Both necessitated stealth moves in a house full of folks who seemed joined at the hip Thanksgiving Day. It would’ve been a great time to inform my fairly new extended family that I was in the midst of fertility treatments; I just didn’t want to. It just seemed like a party killer. So rather than say anything, the Mr. and I eyed our watches for about an hour before an unrehearsed signal for a synchronized exit to the kitchen and upstairs. Essentially, he stood at the foot of the stairs over everybody tapping his watch. Real inventive, right?

He was the one who’d been paying the most attention to the nurse’s instructions. I was winging it, trying to teach him “aseptic techniques” that I learned from working one year at a hospital. That didn’t really help me with the specific instructions that I should’ve studied. Once again, I was the slacker and the Mr. saved the day — even if he did make me wanna punch him.

We’re still hanging with the in-laws, so there’ll be a couple more covert operations where photos will be near impossible. Stay tuned.