Makena Shots

     In June of last year(2021), I met with my OBGYN & the high risk doctor I had for my last pregnancy. I wanted to see what their thoughts were on me having a 2nd child. Obviously both of them were like "We really don't care." I got charged for both visits that were both a hugenormous(My own word)  waste of time. However my High Risk doctor added a tidbit I wasn't expecting. Since my first pregnancy was pre-term, she recommended I do progesterone shots or suppositories starting at 20 weeks of my pregnancy to ensure the pregnancy went to term. 

    Fast Forward 8 Months Later, I found out I was pregnant. I had to wait until 8 weeks to get a sonogram and meet with the high risk doctor. Everything went fine. Genetic tests came back, perfect. Absolutely normal pregnancy. First meeting with the high risk doctor- again everything beautiful. Placenta perfect (that was a problem last time), baby perfect, all according to plan. I continued to see them every 2 weeks for the first few months. Finally at the 16 week appointment I spoke to my High Risk specialist about starting Makena shots. She said she would put in the order, and they would call me. 2 weeks went by, next appointment- I mentioned it again. She said she forgot last time, would do it this time. (18 weeks at this appointment). Again I waited, but this time for a week. I called the high risk doctor and said "Hey, I'm supposed to start these shots like next week, can someone advise me on what to do?" The high risk doctor said they had called, and I should be waiting on a call from the pharmacy. I finally got a call from the pharmacy, they told me that each shot was going to be $757 since I hadn't met my deductible yet, also $80 a week extra for a nurse to drive to my home and give me the shot. However, I could call the manufacturer (Makena) to get copay assistance, I just needed to tell the how much money we made. A little invasive but OK. 

    I talk to a woman in the option care benefit coordination department. She sends me an email and tells me that 4 shots a month will cost me $1,122.16 a MONTH for 4 auto-injectors. Auto Injectors are basically EpiPens. I called Makena, and spoke to a man and basically walked him through his job. I told him my doctor, he couldn't find her in their system. I detailed each of their locations, he couldn't find them. So I walked him through how to enter their information into their system. I gave him names, addresses, fax numbers, every single thing he could use. I set up a profile in their system. It took almost 2 hours. Finally he asks for our income, I tell him and they lower the shots to $60 a month. I was informed that option care would send a nurse out to give me these shots. I called my high risk doctors office and told them what they said, they told me I didn't need a nurse that either my husband could administer them at home or they could. My husband said sure, but he wanted to be shown how to do it. So, at 20 weeks I was mailed 4 shots in a box with an icepack and a sharps container. We put the sharps container in the garage and I took my first shot to the doctor. I was also sent a huge book detailing way too much information. This book had things like how to survive a hurricane (I literally live the MOST in land possible) and what to do if I was being abused as an elderly person. Obviously whoever put this together just printed out the boilerplate packet and dropped it in the box. It just confused and infuriated me. 

    I brought the packet to the doctor. The packet said I needed to receive the shot in my butt cheek, they told me it would be in my arm. I didn't understand the discrepancy, but on the actual shot, they showed how you inject it in the back of your arm. So this may have been an auto injector, but definitely not a SELF-injector. I was given my first shot by the nurse who took my weight. She pinched the back of my arm fat (there isn't much of it) and then stabbed me with the shot. She held it there for 10 seconds. At first it hurt like a regular shot and then it started to BURN. It felt like I had been branded by a hot iron. It burned all the way from the shot injection site all the way to my elbow. Then it was sore for a few days like a COVID shot. 

    I took these shots every single week for 16 weeks. (Until 36 weeks). Everything i found on the internet gave mixed reviews. Some women got it, and they still had preemie babies. Some women got it and the week after they stopped they went into labor. Some women did them starting at 15 weeks, some started it at 24 weeks. There was nothing i found on the internet about cost, pain, efficacy etc. That's why i'm writing this post. 

So to sum it up:

Makena Shots

• Are expensive- but their is co-pay assistance 
• Burn like hell because of mineral oil
• Cause arm soreness for a few days to a week after receiving it
• Could be given as an auto-injector in the back of your arm or in your butt cheek with an abnormally large needle. 
• The pharmacy that distributes them will wait until the absolute last minute to send them. You need to call ASAP and set things up yourself. Do NOT wait. Also make sure you call them to schedule your refills. They will not call to confirm. 

My experience was that they hurt like a bitch. Eventually my husband was able to give them to me at home. We gave the sharps box to my Mother-In-Law to take to her work and give away to the biohazard people.(However you can take them to your doctor, pharmacy or mail them back to option care) I was able to stay pregnant until week 38. I stopped getting the shots at week 36. There were zero side effects passed on to my baby or me, other than arm soreness. My baby was born perfect, via c-section but that had nothing to do with the shots.