The Hard Life of a California Orange.

Today I went to an injections class.
What is an injections class you may ask?
Well, it's a class where I learn how to stab myself with a needle and inject myself with potent hormones.
Serious fun.
Adam didn't want to participate in the class, which is fine and good, these are they kind of injections that I can give myself, although I will show him, because I'm not so sure it's something I'll be able to do well. However on second thought, maybe it's like applying mascara, it's not so easy the first couple times, but after stabbing yourself in the eye with the wand you catch on fast. So maybe after jabbing myself too slowly or injecting it too quickly I'll get the finer, finessier points down. (oh yes the puns are all intended)
So the hard life of an orange.
You can't expect a room of hormonal women to actually learn on themselves? Actually that would be kinda funny since we have to inject it into your stomach, in the best part. The nice poochy part. We would all be self conscious and trying to hide from each other, yet trying to not seem like we are, and still trying to learn the ins and outs of injections. (seriously I kill myself!) I think the whole scene would make for great SNL fodder.
Back to the orange. After we prepared our needles and loaded with saline we get to assault the orange. After several jabs to get the pressure right, the angle right and insertion speed right we get to inject said orange with the saline. Which promptly comes out of the holes you just poked it with. Kinda amusing. But I am hormonal and weird things amuse me (and simple things turn me into a raving banshee).
While I was jab, jab, jabbing my orange while everyone watched, I envisioned the condom banana from sex ed. There should be a support group for fruit used in reproductive assistance, or lack there of. I didn't mention this in the class. I am sure that it would have been inappropriate. I often feel the urge to laugh when something is stressful, and cracking lame jokes makes me laugh. However this class was serious, we all have our happiness invested in it, I don't think jokes would have been right. But oh they were flying around my head.
When we started talking about the side effects I got a little more sombre. Apparently the crazy hormoned mood swings I have been on were only a warm up for what's to come. (Let this be a warning if you're going to come and visit in the next couple months, it's not my fault.) We also discussed the rate of miscarriage which is high, but only because we are so closely monitored that our pregnancies are discovered very early, while there is still a high chance of miscarriage. It's difficult to gauge this rate in the general population because they aren't monitored as closely. Also we talked about ovarian cancer, and this may or may not increase your chances. There is some research saying the more you ovulate the higher your chances are that you can get it. That's why being on birth control pills can lessen your chances. Or be me and have ovulated a handful of times in your whole life.... Anyhow on these drugs you don't ovulate you OVULATE! (caps and exclamation are needed) Which leads to another side effect. Multiple births. In the regular population the chance of twins is really small, with these drugs it's 25%, which is HUGE! The chance of triplets or higher is 5%, which isn't as huge, but still higher than the normal average for twins. We also had to sign a form stating if we would consider reducing a pregnancy to twins if there were 3 or more embryos. (more than 3 makes for a really high risk pregnancy) I was shocked at this. Your treatment can be effected if you aren't willing to reduce a pregnancy, they could skip a cycle if you have too many follicles. I checked that I would be willing, but really, I don't know. Lets just wait and see what happens. And the next time you eat an orange, remind it that it's the lucky one, destined for digestion, unlike the oranges in the REI clinic's staff room.