Triggered

I was headed down the road for a 4 hour drive toward Fresno. I had a meeting the next morning, and then I would head right back home. My husband would be flying home from his trip tomorrow night as well, and then we would be doing our IUI Saturday.  The drive, the dinner with my work associates, and the evening flew by. I had a hard time sleeping that evening…ol TRIGGER (my Trigger shot, aka HCG shot) was in an ice chest out in my truck in the parking lot. My meeting was in the morning and then I would be headed back home. I had to give myself TRIGGER right at NOON. This meant that I would likely be mid-way through my drive home when I’d need to give it to myself. It was important that I gave myself the shot at that time, to line up with the timeline of our IUI the next morning. 

My meeting went great, and I was so glad to have a successful morning. I was headed home…so now where the heck am I gonna do this shot?! I had read on the instructions that I needed to inject myself in a clean environment….how many public restrooms would you consider a “clean environment”?? I was about an hour in to my drive and the time was nearing that I needed to pull the trigger…literally… where the heck am I going to stop? As a person that travels a lot and especially on this stretch of road, you would think that this wouldn’t be that difficult. I kept driving, thinking that something would come to me. Nothing did. Suddenly my alarm went off….”Give Trigger Shot”…its NOON! Crap…ok…here we go! I’m just going to take the next exit, and pick a spot. It just so happened to be in Merced, CA. I took the exit and the first thing I saw was McDonalds. Ok, so apparently we are going to have a McTrigger and then get back on the road! 

I pulled up to the McDonalds and I parked on the street next to it. I took a deep breath and decided that I was just going to do this injection in my truck….it is by no means a “clean environment”, but it was MY environment. I looked around, and there didn’t seem to be much traffic on this street, so I decided to slip in to the back seat and just go for it. My hands were a bit shakey as I opened up the package and started to read the instructions. There was an alcohol wipe inside, to clean the area. I laughed to myself as I read the word alcohol…yeah I could use some right about now! I finished reading the instructions, and I looked over to the big ol Yeti ice chest that this little tiny trigger shot had been in. I decided to grab the ice pack and use it to numb the area where I would inject myself….on my stomach about an inch or two away from my belly button..per the instructions. I am a farm/ranch girl who has grown up giving shots to just about any living creature that you can imagine….accept for a HUMAN. There is a weird mental block about poking yourself with a needle. As I prepared the syringe and got all of the air bubbles out of the medicine, I remembered a friend telling me that she had to poke harder than she thought when she did hers. So, here we GO! I took a deep breath, one, two, three, POKE! PHEW! I did it! I had to actually tell myself to push the plunge to inject the medicine. I pulled the needle out, and wiped the injection site. I put everything away and looked up just in time to notice that a man was walking on the sidewalk right next to my truck. He was looking directly at me. I KNOW he just saw me give myself the shot! I could not get out of there fast enough! I put everything away and climbed back in the front seat. 

The first thing I did was text my husband to tell him that I just DID IT! I gave myself a shot…in the backseat of my truck…in front of a McDonalds…in Merced. I was so proud of myself and excited for the IUI tomorrow that I didn’t even realize how weird it was, what I had just done, until I typed it out in text. The drive home flew by and the next thing I knew, I was picking my husband up from the airport. We went home to get some rest before our BIG DAY! I didn’t sleep very well again, but it was out of excitement! Everything was finally lining up and we were going to have a REAL shot of getting pregnant this month!

On the way to the IUI appointment, I was nervous and excited, but my husband was calm as a cucumber as usual. Josh was driving, and I was in LALA land thinking about the procedure. I was a little bit nervous because of my reaction to the HSG test that I had passed out during back in August. The IUI procedure is similar in the way that they insert a catheter through the cervix in to the uterus. The last thing I wanted, was to pass out and have another seizure. But I quickly pushed those thoughts aside, and focused on how exciting this was!

We had plenty of time to get there, and there was no traffic because it was a Saturday. As we were cruising along, I happened to look up and saw a Highway Patrol car, headed in the opposite direction. I glanced over and saw that Josh was going 76 mph. No big deal, the speed limit is 65 through here and all of the traffic ahead of us was driving about the same speed.  I also knew that Josh saw him when I did, so he slowed down. This meant that the CHP would have clocked him at less than 76 mph. NOPE! Just as the Highway Patrolman went by us, he slammed on his breaks, hit the lights, and turned to come after us. We pulled over and Josh got out his driver’s license. The CHP Officer comes to the window. He was pleasant, but not overly friendly as he explained that he pulled us over for speeding. I thought, what a jerk for pulling us over for being less than 10 mph over the speed limit…he interrupted my thought by explaining that the small section of the highway that we happened to pass him on was only 55 mph…well crap.  Josh handed him his driver’s license and I opened my glove box to grab the registration and proof of insurance. Ok, here is the registration…and oh dear God, this is my OLD insurance information! Great! I asked the officer if he could give me a moment, that I knew I had our current insurance card in an email. At this point the tears are in my eyes, and I can feel the red hot rage/weeping/hormonal craziness starting to come over me. He said that was totally fine and allowed me a moment. I choked back any tears and searched for the email. THANK THE SWEET LORD ABOVE, I found the email with our updated information and he gladly accepted that. My hormonal emotional explosion was squelched, and we were back on the road with our speeding ticket. I joked that I should have put on the water works and told him where we were headed, and that might of gotten us out of the ticket, but I just wasn’t quick enough on my feet to do that! 

We arrived at the Dr’s office and checked in. Josh was called back first, to give his sample. Once that was done, we would have a two hour wait for the lab to clean and inspect the sperm in preparation for the IUI. In the two hour wait, Josh and I were going to make a 30 minute drive to a granite outlet to do some shopping for the kitchen remodel that we were doing. I thought this would be a great distraction for our wait. We headed to the granite place, and I can’t even describe how much pressure and bloating I was feeling. My body was used to only having one, maybe two mature follicles and now there were 3! I was ready to get this done and go home to rest. 

Right as we pulled in to the granite place, Josh’s phone rang. He answered, and I could tell that it was the Fertility Center! He is basically a human robot, so I couldn’t tell if he was getting good or bad news. A few thoughts went through my head…1) maybe this is good and they’re done early and we can go back now to do the IUI 2) maybe this is bad…but I couldn’t think of why or how??? As the phone conversation went on, and the questions that Josh was asking, I could tell that this was NOT good news. He asked me to look up his semen analysis from August. I looked it up on my phone and handed it to him. At this point, I kind of blacked out a bit in my mind. I don’t remember what else was said, I was just feeling so defeated. 

Josh got off of the phone and told me that they were working on his sample and were really thrown off by how different it was from the sample that he had done in August…we were only in January…how could anything major have changed? THEN….the lightbulb in my head went off and I about LOST it….(Please excuse the “French” that I’m about to use…but I want to be real)……”It was that fucking fever!!!! Remember!! You had a fever for 7 days straight last month and NO ONE listened to me when I was worried about it effecting your sperm!” Josh had a look of horror on his face. I think he was hoping that this had been a mistake or that the original report was wrong somehow. Nope! This was simply a matter of his normal sperm count is nearly 40 million, and today is was 3 million……the fever must have devastated his count. We now had two options. We could cancel this procedure today, or he could give another sample in hopes that the combination of both samples would yield the 10 million that was the minimum requirement for the IUI. We both decided that after 3 extra ultrasounds and 9 hrs of round trip drives to the fertility center, an emergency flight home, a McTrigger shot, and a speeding ticket, that there was no possible way that we were going to just give up now! We decided to look at the granite quickly and then head back to the office. Oddly enough, I had a sense of calm as I chose the granite for our kitchen that day. I can only imagine that it was similar to how people describe major accidents seeming to be in slow motion. I was in slow motion. 

We arrived back at the Fertility center and checked in again. Instead of a nurse coming out to greet us and take us back to an exam room, it was one of the doctors. Yet another doctor. This was the fourth Dr that I have met so far. She was a younger woman with a very kind face…that just so happened to have that apologetic look written all over it. She didn’t take us in to an exam room though. Instead, she took us in to this tiny little room with nothing in it but a minimal desk and 3 chairs. She, Josh, and I barely fit in this tiny space. We sat down, and she immediately began to apologize. She explained that the sperm count had been only 3 million, but once washed and checked it would likely only be 1 or 2 million. She said that even with another sample, they would not have the minimum 10 million that they needed to complete the IUI procedure today. 

You guys, I lost it. Visibly, verbally, outwardly, 100% lost it. I yelled at this poor woman that I was meeting for the first time in my entire life. I yelled at her for something that wasn’t her fault…but I was going to be DAMNED if I was going to leave that office without being HEARD today. I told her everything that we had been through. I told her that I KNEW why his sperm count was what it was today. I told her that I was so frustrated because I told the nurses and doctor that I was concerned about that fever. I told her that “I AM NOT A DOCTOR and within a 15 second Google search, I learned that a fever for more that 24 hours can devastate sperm reserve for up to 75 days. I AM NOT A DOCTOR AND I FIGURED THAT OUT! Tell me, why no one listened to me! This will be our second canceled cycle! We spent so much extra money on this cycle to MAKE SURE THAT IT HAPPENED! I gave myself my trigger shot in the back seat of my truck in front of a McDonalds in Merced yesterday, Josh flew in last night from Colorado, and we even got a speeding ticket on the way here today. I am NOT leaving without doing this IUI today”.

As you can imagine, she was stunned. I can only imagine what she was looking at. A woman in tears and desperation sitting right in front of her on the verge of a mental breakdown….fueled by synthetic hormones, just to top it all off. She looked at Josh and then looked at me, and said, “Wow, you guys have been through a lot this week. Why don’t we get another sample to give us the best shot, and then go ahead and do the IUI. The odds of this working are slim because we usually want double the amount of sperm in order to complete the procedure, but this isn’t going to be any less than the odds of timed intercourse working for you today.”  She even offered to wave the fee for the IUI itself because of everything that had happened. She stood up and shook my hand and looked at me right in the eyes, and said this is going to be good! Let’s do this!

What a huge relief! We were going to actually be able to complete this mission….the odds of it working were slim to none, but you miss 100% of the shots that you don’t take RIGHT?!