I had to take ovulation tests all last week to
pinpoint when I'm ovulating so the RE could do the insemination when the egg
was actually there. Since they need me to call by 2 to schedule the IUI for the
following day that meant that I needed to test at work, which ended up being
more complicated than I anticipated. I have no problem working in the lab for
4-5 hours with no break, but as soon as I had to avoid using the bathroom for 3
hours, all I had to do was go. I use Wondfo ovulation tests and normally use
the cup/dipping method to test. I didn’t think I could discretely do this at
work and had heard that the foil packet the tests come in can be used as a cup,
so I gave that a try. It went okay the first few days but by the end of the
week I was wearing bulky sweaters so I could hide a disposable cup. It all
turned out to be a waste because I didn’t get a positive until Saturday. Since
our local clinic is closed on weekend, that meant we had to go into the city.
My husband normally works weekends, but was
actually off that Sunday, which worked out great. He did have plans with
friends but ended up cancelling those because I refused to take transit home by
myself after the IUI. The IUI process takes about 2.5 hours, but most of that
is waiting between the boy part and the girl part of the procedure. They wash
and concentrate the sperm for the IUI, which takes about 2 hours.
Luckily, they highly encourage the man to
"collect his specimen" at the office so we didn't have to make a
crazy sperm-drive like we did for the semen analysis. There was a lot of paper
work to sign and things to initial to make sure the correct sperm got back to
me at the end. I mentioned to my husband that there was less of a chance of a
mistake because the clinic was empty when we were there. They offered to let me
go with my husband to collect the sample but I passed on that.
There is an amazing taco place about a block
from the RE office, so we went there for lunch while we waited. The tacos were
SO GOOD.
The nurse didn't give my husband the option if
he wanted to come with me for the IUI. She just assumed that since he was there
he wanted to come in. She went over the IUI with me and all the technical talk
seemed to make him a little uncomfortable. There were 49.8 million sperm after
washing and we were told that was a really good number because a pre-wash total
of 45 million is considered normal. The IUI actually doesn't take that long.
The nurse put in a speculum and then placed a catheter through the cervix into
the uterus to deposit the sperm. Once everything was positioned she asked my
husband if he wanted to push down on the plunger to release the sperm. He
nope'd right out of that. It felt like a pap smear with cramping. I had pretty
bad cramping that nigh plus a lot of bleeding. The bleeding stopped and the
cramping was mild the following day. I was started on twice daily progesterone
suppositories starting 2 days following the IUI, to continue until my blood
pregnancy test or I got my period.
This past Tuesday my period arrived, so the
first IUI cycle was a failure. The clomid and progesterone lessened my bleeding,
but it didn’t stop it. I started my next cycle of clomid yesterday and will be repeating
this whole process starting next week.
Wednesday marked 1 year since we started
trying for a baby.
