My very first (and hopefully last?) IUI

It is done.  I survived being inseminated.  Now begins the 2 longest weeks of my life to date!

I left work Thursday morning and arrived at the clinic at around 10:30 (my appointment was at 10:45).  I checked in and paid, and the girl at the desk said, “Good luck today!  No offense, but I don’t want to see you here anymore!”  I definitely do not wish to go there anymore, so at least we are in agreement.  So I sat down in the waiting room, and a few minutes later P showed up.  He had already stopped by earlier to drop off his sample, but came back just because he wanted to be there.  Maybe for moral support, maybe to keep me company, or maybe just out of curiosity.  Or maybe to make sure that I was getting inseminated with HIS sperm.  Although, it would be impossible to tell if they had mislabeled the tube.  (I wonder how often that happens?)  Anyway, it was nice to have him there.

So when I checked in, the girl at the desk said that they would probably be calling me back shortly, and that she didn’t think they were running behind. However, a sign in the waiting room indicated that they were very busy due to the holiday, and that the wait times might be longer.  So when 10:45 came and went, I didn’t think much of it.  But I waited, and waited.  Started freaking out a little.  P told me I should go up and ask what was taking so long, but the girl who had been at the desk didn’t seem to be there any longer.  Finally, at about 11:30 or so I went up and got someone’s attention.  I am not sure what happened, but somehow my encounter got lost in the computer, so although I had checked in, the nurses and doctor in the back had no idea I was there.  The HELL?  Ugh.  I don’t even want to get into how fed up I am with this place right now.  I don’t think they even apologized for the mishap.  Unfortunately I’m stuck with this place, as the reviews of the other fertility clinic in town are worse.  Like, MUCH worse.  With any luck, I won’t have to worry about it much longer, but I digress…

Once we were finally called back, the nurse took us to a teeny tiny room with an exam table with stirrups and one of the smaller ultrasound machines.  “I was just about to call you and ask where you were!” she said.  I was freaked out that it had been too long and that the sperm wouldn’t be any good anymore and that we’d missed our chance.  She reassured me that with the media it was in, it would be good for hours – till the end of the day, even.  HUGE sigh of relief from me.  She left, and returned with the doctor after I had a chance to de-pants myself.  It was the doctor I spoke to on Sunday, when I was questioning her decision to increase my Menopur dosage yet again.  Dr. Babymaker must be on vacation.  She seemed nice enough and was very gentle while inserting the catheter.  And then it was over in a matter of like, 30 seconds.  The nurse and doctor left me to lie still on the table for about 15 minutes.  This is where I was very glad that P had come with me.  Otherwise, I would have been lying there all alone, staring at white fluffy clouds against a bright blue sky (as painted on one of the ceiling tiles).

My husband is too funny.  “Was it good for you?” he asked, as soon as we were alone.  HA HA.  Then he proceeded to open every drawer, every cabinet, and touch basically everything in that tiny room. (“Ooh, a drawer full of speculums!”)  He did the same thing when I took him to the doctor back in September for his fever.  He has to check everything out.  I have a feeling our kid is going to drive us crazy  (well, me, anyway). At least it provided me with some entertainment.

After 15 minutes the nurse returned, and said I could get dressed.  Before leaving I made sure to get that prescription for Progesterone.  I got it, no problem, but it annoys me that I had to ask.  If I weren’t so knowledgeable, I probably would not have gotten it. The lady doctor was kind of surprised that I didn’t already have it.  It’s so very important at this place to be an advocate for yourself, because any one patient does not get the individual attention that he or she needs.

Afterwards I had to return to work.  It would have been soooo much nicer to play hooky and go out to lunch with P or something.  He seemed disappointed that I had to go back.  But I got through.

I am now thinking that I ovulated while we were sitting in the waiting room.  Flashback to Wednesday, where all day long I felt cramps and twinges on the left, where I thought the follicle was.  As I went to bed around 10 PM on Wednesday, I felt some sharp throbbing pains there, and when I woke up on Thursday morning…nothing.  In addition, I noticed considerably less CM.  I thought that you weren’t supposed to ovulate until 36 hours after the Ovidrel injection.  This would have been 26 hours after.  It didn’t make sense.  But then, while we were sitting in the waiting room before the IUI, I felt some pain on the right side, enough to make me close my eyes and wince a little.  That would have been about 39 hours post trigger, which makes much more sense, and if that was really and truly when I ovulated, what great timing!

I was pretty sore for the rest of the day.  Maybe not having ovulated for about 9 years had something to do with it, and maybe it was having a catheter pushed through my cervix.  But we tried to BMS one last time on Thursday night and it just wasn’t happening.  Oh well, I think we gave it our best shot. What’s done is done, and now it’s up to fate.

I has a follicle!

I’m kind of in disbelief, because I was SO sure that something would prevent me from ovulating again and that my ovaries didn’t get the whole recruiting a dominant follicle thing, but…I was wrong!  I’ve never been so glad to be wrong in my life!  The scan today showed a 15 mm follicle on one of my ovaries…it’s up for debate as to which ovary it is on, but the last word I got was the right ovary.  The nurse who did my ultrasound told me it was on the left, even though I was pretty sure she was pointing the ultrasound wand to my right.  And the official report said it was on the right, so…yeah whatever.  My clinic just can’t stop demonstrating their incompetence.  But who cares!  So just the one follicle, everything else is in the 7-9 mm range, though there are quite a few of them especially on the opposite ovary.  My lining isn’t that great – 6.4 mm – which confuses me because I thought that the nurse who scanned me on Wednesday said it was 7 mm.  I think it was really more around 4 or 5 mm then, and she read it wrong.  Again, WHATEVER.   It will thicken up in the next couple of days I’m sure.

I couldn’t believe what I saw on the ultrasound screen.  The nurse said, “Oh, looks like we’re going to have another Christmas Day IUI.”  I was like, “Really?  You’re open then?” “Oh yeah.  We have to be.  I’ll be working.”  She didn’t seem too thrilled, hehe.  She wasn’t able to give me the measurements from the scan, so I had to go to the nurses station to get them.  That bitch nurse that I’ve been dealing with on the phone all week was there.  Alright, to be fair, she isn’t always a bitch.  Just most of the time.  Today was no exception. She seemed annoyed that I had to double check on the results.  I was getting conflicting information – first the nurse doing the ultrasound told me that I had an 18 mm follicle on the left, and the bitch nurse told me it was a 15 mm on the right.  Excuse me for wanting to know what the hell is going on with my body!

Regardless of that exchange, I left the clinic to head off to work, elated.  I was on cloud nine.  I couldn’t believe it was happening for real this time.  Three cycles, all canceled and no ovulation.  I guess the fourth time’s a charm?

I got the call back with my E2 level (297) and further instructions.  The nurse who called (not the bitch nurse) said that the doctor (not Dr. Babymaker) wanted me to do 150 units for the next 2 nights…and right there I stopped her.  First of all, she didn’t know what medication I was on (she asked if I was on Gonal-F or some other medication I’ve never heard of).  And second, that is the dose that made me overstimulate last cycle.  I was pretty pissed off.  I said, “I’ve put so much time and money into this, I don’t want to screw this up again!”  She explained to me, “Well, I can only tell you that this is what the doctor wants you to do”  and I said, “Then maybe I should talk to the doctor directly!”  And you know what?  She put me on hold, and I got to speak to the doctor!  Shock and awe.  You see, I just needed to be assertive and ask for what I wanted.  I don’t know why I couldn’t do that before.

The doctor explained that the reason she wanted me to go up to 150 for the next two nights is that with my E2 level and a 15 mm follicle, I need just a bit more to push that follicle to maturity.  She didn’t think that I would overstimulate at this point, because everything else was much smaller and hadn’t changed since Wednesday. She then said that I was more at risk for UNDER stimulating at this point, because the follicle wasn’t growing as fast as expected, and my E2 was also not rising as fast as expected.  But, she said, if I was more comfortable staying with 112.5 units, it would probably be okay because that follicle is close to being mature, and that it was more important for me to do what I am comfortable with.  All of this actually made sense to me.  See?  All I needed was to talk to the doctor.  The voice of reason.  No more am I going to settle for shitty explanations from the nurses when I don’t understand why my doctor is telling me to do something.  Not that the nurses don’t know their stuff, they do.  But they don’t live inside the doctors’ heads, so they can’t explain their reasoning.

So, it looks like I won’t have an IUI for Christmas Day (damn!  That would be so cool).  The IUI is scheduled for Thursday.  BUT…my Christmas present is that I finally get to use that Ovidrel syringe that’s been sitting in my fridge since July!  Hooray!!!

After hearing the doctor’s explanation (and talking with some of the HA ladies) I decided that it probably doesn’t matter what dose I do for the next two days, as long as I don’t decrease it.  So tonight I did 2 full vials…yikes!  But since all of the other follicles have not changed in size since Wednesday, I am comfortable with this.  I want that little egg to be good and ripe and ready to meet up with P’s sperm!  Oh it feels so weird thinking about actually having a chance at conceiving a child!  And although I know the odds aren’t great (I’ve read it’s around 15-20%), it feels so good to have it be something other than zero!