I couldn’t believe it. When the clinic called me last Wednesday afternoon with my final instructions upon “graduating,” they let me know that yesterday would be my very last day of Endometrin, the progesterone supplements I needed to take during the period preparing for my frozen embryo transfer through the 10th week of pregnancy. Endometrin are pills, but they are not the pills you are probably envisioning; they are not taken by mouth, but rather by vagina. You use an applicator and insert them into your vagina three times a day, once in the morning as soon as you wake up, once in the middle of the afternoon, and once before bed. And they are anything BUT clean: I’ve had to wear a panty liner every single day during this period, and when I have not… well, I’ve had quite a mess to clean up. And don’t even get me started on the “trail” that the pill leaves; it literally leaks all over the place, from the bed to the floor to the chairs I sit on. I’ve randomly found traces of vag pill all over the hallway floors!

But to be honest, I would take vaginal pills/Endometrin every single day and then some over taking progesterone in oil (PIO) shots, which are thick, painful, and administered on your butt with a longer-than-long needle. I am so grateful I have remained ignorant to the horror of that experience, which is what I honestly feared the most during the IVF process, but was made aware early on that the clinic would not be prescribing this for my protocol (or most of their other patients, for that matter).

It was almost bittersweet in some way, inserting my last vag pill yesterday evening before bed. It’s like this period of my IVF process is done, and fingers crossed, things will continue to go smoothly moving forward. Life is progressing; life inside of me is progressing. My pregnancy is progressing. I just need to keep my faith in this process going.