The Injection I Learned to Give Myself

I have been scared of needles my entire life. As a child I would hide behind my father at the doctor's clinic. So when our specialist explained that IVF would mean injections — daily, into my own stomach, given by my own hand — I laughed out of sheer panic. I genuinely did not think I could do it.

The first few my husband gave me. He would line everything up on a clean towel, swab the spot, count to three, and I would look away at the ceiling fan and breathe. He was gentle, but I could see his hand trembling too. We were two frightened people pretending to be brave for each other.

Then came a day when he was stuck in traffic across the city and the timing could not wait. I was alone, the cold injection in my hand, sitting in our car in a temple parking lot because I had panicked and driven somewhere familiar. I called my mother. She did not understand the medicine, but she said, "Beta, you have carried harder things than this. Pinch the skin and trust yourself."

So I did. My hands shook. I pinched the skin, I closed my eyes, and I pressed. The small click of the pen was the loudest sound in the world. And then it was done. It barely hurt. I sat there and cried and laughed at the same time, a grown woman weeping in a parking lot over a needle.

After that, something shifted. Every evening at the same time I would prepare my own injection, calm and steady, like making tea. I stopped being someone things were done to. I was doing this. My body was the one fighting, and I was finally on its side instead of flinching away from it.

We are still on this road and I do not know how our story ends. But I know this: the woman who hid behind her father is gone. I gave myself the injection. Whatever comes, I will face it the same way — hands shaking, eyes closing, but doing it anyway.