With a tear stained face, puffy eyes, and still a trace of anger, I was led back out to the waiting room. My husband, Josh was going to give another sample and we were going to do this IUI today. I couldn’t help but remember the times that I had re-entered the waiting room with my TRIGGER shot in my little ice chest. Remember how upset I was? Remember how frustrated I was? …well, that was now merely a laughable moment to me. Had I known how much more frustrated I would get, I would have laughed at myself right then! I had to snap myself out of this, and get my mind right. I shifted my focus to the fact that we were ACTUALLY going to complete the IUI today. It wasn’t going to be under the conditions that I had envisioned, but our odds would actually be better than they ever had been before! We knew for SURE that I was ovulating, I had a nice big follicle ready, and that my uterine lining was thick and healthy. Cleaned sperm was going to be injected directly where it needed to go, and that would eliminate a lot of the environmental hurdles from one of them getting to my egg! This wasn’t all bad….hell this was probably our best chance yet. OK! I have my game face back on and I am BACK!
When Josh walked back out in to the waiting room he approached me cautiously…in fact, I noticed that everyone was avoiding eye contact with me, but was being overly courteous. I’m not a bomb waiting to blow! I am simply a woman that hit her breaking point…while she happened to be pumped up with synthetic hormones. I agree that’s not a good combo, but I wasn’t sorry about how I had acted. I DID feel sorry for the Dr that happened to be the one that I unloaded on, but someone was going to have to hear it. While Josh and I waited for the second sample to be cleaned and prepped, I decided to kill time by reading the BIO’s on each Dr in the fertility center. I got to the Dr that I had lost it on. She was a younger woman with very soft features, and a really kind smile. I read her schooling info, Medical accolades, and then I got to her emphasis and specialties….STRESS MANAGEMENT….I kid you not! This Dr’s specialty is stress management related to infertility. Talk about comedic relief!!! This poor woman is fully experienced in handling stress related to infertility, and she just got verbally laid out by a stressed, hormonal, maniac. I was now thinking how she was likely evaluating me during my entire tirade!
The clock ticked by slowly, and finally a nurse came out to bring us back for our IUI. She was following suit with everyone in the office, and was very kind, quiet and sweet to me without making eye contact…I’m assuming that word had traveled quickly through the office….I might as well had a straight jacket on and a sign that said proceed with CAUTION. Once in the room she explained for me to undress from the waist down and cover my lap with the paper. Same drill different day. She left the room and I suddenly realized that we were really going to do this! Then I remembered my episode of passing out during my HSG test. I shuddered at the thought. I thought about how that Dr got the catheter in and as soon as she did, I felt massive pain and lost control! I passed out right there on that table and woke up to realize that I had had a seizure. I had to snap myself out of that thought! This was going to be a breeze! There would be no passing out today!
The Dr walked in the room confidently, and said “OK, is everyone ready to make a baby?!” I said yes! Then the nurse walked in with the vile of sperm. She proudly announced, “Here is the cleaned sperm we have 2 MILLION! Please double check your names on the tag, and we can get started!” Now remember that they typically only do the IUI when they have a minimum of 10 million. I am still in disbelief that a fever was able to do that much damage! But we were doing this today and hoping that it’s enough. I laid back and the Dr began with a quick ultrasound. The follicles looked like they had already begun the ovulation process so we would only be doing the IUI today. If all of the follicles still looked fully intact, we would have likely come back the next day for a second IUI. Once the ultrasound was done the Dr took out the catheter and I had to stop looking. I took some deep breaths and the Dr gave me the informative play by play as she began. I appreciated her talking through the procedure so I knew what to expect. It was no surprise that it took her a second to get the catheter through my cervix…this is the second time that I have hear that my cervix is “tricky”. As soon as the catheter was through my cervix, I felt that familiar feeling….ya know that one that I felt just before I felt that excruciating pain that made me pass out. It’s hard to describe, but it’s a very odd feeling of an almost warm dull cramp. As soon as I felt it, I started to panic a little, but that panic was very quickly squashed with the Dr saying, “Ok, the catheter is in and we are going to introduce the sperm”. Oh wow! Ok, that was IT?! The next thing I knew I felt her pat my leg to let me know we were done! She let me know that I would need to lay there with my knees bent for about 10 minutes, and then I would be done! As she began to leave the room, I felt like I had to say something. She started to leave and she put her hand on my arm and said something to the effect of “you take care of yourself, and I wish you the best of luck”. I said, “I am so sorry for getting so upset. It’s just that on top of all of the things that we have gone through this week, we are over 2 years in to trying for a baby and I just lost it.” She smiled at me and said that there was no need to apologize. That we had been through a lot and she completely understood…..OK this lady knew exactly how to help a stressed out person.
The minutes flew by and we were ready to leave the fertility center. We walked out of the room, and typically we are told to go out to the front desk. But I walked up to the nurses station and the nurse smiled and told me that we were all set and to have a great day…they didn’t charge us for anything that day. We weren’t really expecting for that to happen and regardless of how upset I was, we were fully planning on paying for the day. It did take a little bit of the sting away. Now we were sent home to wait….that’s all we could do was wait….the longest 2 weeks of my life…….
PippSqueak Chronicles 