Wednesday, October 14, 2009

On The First Day of Waiting

...I'll tell you a little bit about yesterday.

In the morning, we were still at the beach. I'd planned to be in the TWW while we were there, but my body had other ideas. We'll talk about just how damn many sticks I've peed on this month another time. At any rate, there seems to be something to this whole "stress can delay ovulation" theory.

The good news about all that was: no limits on hot tubbing or drinking red wine. And indeed, no limits were observed. It was beautiful and peaceful and -- here's the key, I think -- relaxing. ...The next thing I know, I've got EWCM out the yingyang, and a true, indisputable positive on my OPK. Since we were planning to leave the next day anyway, we took the early-squirrelly ferry and headed to the ol' Baby Factory.

Once there, I took off my pants and signed a lot of paperwork (including saying I am an unmarried woman -- but that's another post for another day). I had already talked to one of the IUI nurses about the peculiarities of my anatomy, why I thought the left side was the way to go, etc., but the other nurse was on duty. She sat down between my legs, syringe aloft, and I thought to say, "by the way, I know you've probably read my chart, but just in case...."

Her eyebrows rose just slightly. Here is a woman who knows better than to alarm a patient.

"Oh, just a minute, then. I'm going to get someone who will be very interested."

Great, I thought, another med student. Or that poor Zebra Fish guy again.

Instead, she brought the big guns: a doctor. And then the fun began. It was not on the order of the "fun" we all had at my HSG, but it was more like that than I had hoped. A tenaculum was involved. Ultimately, so was an abdominal ultrasound. (Given how pricey that pink (!) goo was -- and this was two vials-worth, as the clinic thought the counts were low -- I was glad enough that the doctor wanted to be sure she was in before pulling the trigger, as it were.) I tried to think relaxing thoughts, as Stephanie Brill has put the fear of God in me about the contraceptive properties of prostaglandins, but my cervix evidently has both ridges and bends, and that damn tenaculum did hurt.

But! The doctor says that if this one doesn't take, I should come early next time and they'll slip me some valium. So there's that.

Neither the doctor nor the nurse were overly excitable, which I think is good for us in re: not getting too worked up about any particular cycle. We're trying to think of this one as "getting started", which didn't stop me from waking up in the middle of the night a little freaked at what we just did. (Man juice. In my hoo-ha. Yowzers.)

6 comments:

  1. Pink? Really? Ewww. (ours was just regular colored. see-through-ish white-ish.) I'm glad they made quite so sure, though. And really, I promise that being a little stressed during the insem won't keep you from getting pregnant. Brill is good at making people freaked out about EVERYTHING. *g*

    ReplyDelete
  2. I don't care what color it is. Ewww. lol!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I read something recently... no longer remember what or where, but someone referred to it as unicorn sweat. I like that thought. :D

    ReplyDelete
  4. I remember how disgusted I was at the thought of man stuff inside me during and after my first IUI, but really by the time it gets to an IUI, I think it's pretty sanitized. :) I started thinking of it like donated bone marrow or blood, neither of which I'd have any trouble receiving.

    ReplyDelete
  5. "Man juice." Heh. I promise to do my very best not to drive you absolutely nuts with inquiring about your peesticks in this 2ww.

    Umm...given your affinity for peeing on things, you ARE going to test early, aren't you? :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Unicorn sweat??? That might just be the grossest thing I've ever heard. I thought it would be hard to top the canister of "Muscle Milk" I saw in the window of GNC on my way to the Baby Factory, but you've done so effortlessly. Pls to power-wash my brain now, k thx. ;)

    Melody, I like that comparison.

    Kymberli, I'm pretty sure we muffed the timing this month...which hasn't stopped me from deciding I'm pregnant or not every 2-3 seconds. In theory, I'm not testing until I'm late. We'll see what actually happens, but since I've already put at the OPK maker's kid through a semester of college this month, my native cheapness may well triumph.

    N, yes, bright pink. Hot pink. Jem pink. I suppose it's probably the medium the swimmers are suspended in, but I prefer to think the man in the can is just Truly Outrageous.

    ReplyDelete