IUI - Uncheck......

Well if you are wondering…which I doubt you are, it didn’t work. Just picture me driving a car, throwing fistfuls of money and my heart and soul out the window. Yep, basically my nightmare come true. It’s been a week since we knew. It happened in church no less. I mean why wouldn’t it? Cause right now even God doesn’t seem to give a hootn’ nanny either.. I’ve been thru basically every emotion since. If you haven’t guessed, today is ANGER. 

But I managed to pull myself together long enough to schedule a consultation for next week with one of the highest rated infertility specialist practices in the country.   My gut just tells me this will be better. I need better. Something. Anything. I need options. I need hope. I need someone to tell me that I don’t have to live life without a child.

IUI - Check Check (cont.)

Needless to say, insemination was NOT over the weekend. It was exactly like I suspected it would be, inconvenient and a giant pain in the ass (literally), as is the rest of this IF journey.  I cried when the doctor doing the scan informed me it would be Monday at the earliest. Yep, broke down right there on the table, naked from the waist down, paper skirt and all. He tried to calm me my rubbing my shoulder with one hand but also while waving around the lovely WAND as he talked. Did I mention the wand had just been USED to do the scan.  Bleck. All in all it was a meltdown moment of epic proportions. At least he was kind enough to say the injectibles might be making me emotional. OH REEEEEEALLY? Because my regular RE didn’t seem to think so.  I guess a million bloggers can’t be right!?!?! 

Now don’t get me wrong, things were going very well. Plenty of big follicles and a great E2 level, both right on schedule at the current dose.  And I was very grateful for that. What sucked was having to hide yet another doctor’s appt from my co-workers and boss. Isn’t it sad that the biggest stresser in this whole thing is sneaking around? **sigh**  In fact, up to that point, the biggest pain has been the trips to the hospital every other day.  It’s not quick stroll by any means. It’s a huge university teaching hospital. Half an hour away from home and work. And you don’t exactly  park and skip to the front door. You have to pretty much promise God your first born for a park close to the walkway and by walkway I mean LONG ass catwalk across the street. Then another hike up to the Women’s Hospital.  I always arrive sweaty and out of breath, needless to say. I swear for a week I thought the injectables were causing me hip pain even though I was putting them in my belly. Then it dawned on me one brisk morning walk across said cat walk that the pain was from the freaking daily hike across the world to get to the u/s room.

The good news in all of this, was only two more shots!  WOO HOO!  We are making progress…..albeit slow. Progress is progress. (See me finding the good in something. For Once. IN MY LIFE.)  I made plans to be off for the entire day even though the doctor and nurse and receptionist told me it wouldn’t be necessary. Um yeah it is.  No way I want to risk this entire process although technically I would only be sitting at a desk all day.  but still….it’s my planned conception and I can veg if I want to!!  Veg. Yeah right. Funny. Only if vegging means being bent over all day, crying, praying for God to make the pain go away. Needless to say, the IUI was not the quick, easy, painfree procedure I had been promised. 

First and foremost, I spent the morning trying to convince my DH he was acting like a two year old, whining about his part of the process. I mean really? I would gladly trade the umpteen thousands torturesI have had to endure for what is basically 10 minutes of well, BLISS.  MEN. Who the hell needs them???????  I have never seen anyone looked as relieved as he did when he came out of the lab. Although he spent the next two hours hoping ‘everything’ was okay AND worrying that they might mix his ‘boys’ up with the Asian guy who went in after him. Gee babe – the support is undying isn’t it?! **sigh**To top all that drama off, the procedure hurt.  BAD. It took 3 tries and 4 speculums and the nurse still couldn’t get it right. She went in search of a doctor – at this point I am still surprised that a nurse is in charge of all this – “I’m sorry, you’re NOT a doctor?”  The doctor had no problems getting it all to work. probably because she didn’t hesitate AT ALL and forced the catheter and its contents into my cervix at lightning speed. I later read this isn’t how it is supposed to be done. FANTASTIC. $4000 and everybody’s in a hurry.

SO apparently, according to my RE, I am one of the .0001% of her patients who have pain after the procedure. The internet seemed to view things differently but again, I am entrusting this doctor with my future so I guess I kinda gotta go with what she tells me. Her suggestion: TYLENOL. Really? Tylenol huh? That simple. Well what the hell. At that point I was willing to try anything. She called back to check on my at 10:45pm and asked if I had been crying like that all day. YEP. PURTY MUCH. I was still in a.g.o.n.y. almost 12 hours later. My reproductive organs felt as if they were made of shards of glass. I couldn’t get comfortable. I couldn’t take it much longer. Her two suggestions were either the ER or Perc.ocet. It was an easy decision really. The ER wasn’t coming near my cervix. Sooooo Perc.ocet it was. I actually managed to get some sleep.

And this brings us to today. 9dpo.  And today is the first day I have not felt a single cramp.   Really. Not even remotely kidding.

TO BE CONTINUED…

IUI - CHECK CHECK!

My mind is still spinning. I still can’t believe we are already 8 days into a round of IUI. I pinch myself every day… literally. Those shots HURT like a mother. We were prepared for at least 3 months of lup.ron or BC. I wasn’t happy about it mind you, but prepared to trudge through it. But Dr. M – our fertility goddess as I like to think of her – said it wouldn’t be necessary. The scar tissue was worse than the endometriosis so she thinks we can move right along. I almost kissed her on the lips.  Little did she know, it was the day before AF was scheduled to visit.  A quick follow up appointment turned into a ‘holy shit-fire we are learning to give me shots today’ appointment. Before we knew it we were ordering $2000 worth of medications and in a time crunch to have it delivered by cycle day 3.

That ordering experience could be a post all it’s own. In fact, it was all going so well, I just kept waiting for a glitch. Instead of making us come all the way back to the hospital which in itself is no small feat (30 min drive, park a mile away, walk that mile, walk all the way to the Women’s hospital, walk that mile again, PAY to park, driver another half hour back to work. Each appointment feels like a mini marathon) for the injection class, a nurse gave us the quickie version. Before we even left the parking garage I was on the phone with the insurance company verifying they covered nothing. I didn’t have so much as a glimmer of hope that it would. What would have been nice is to have been able to speak to a rep that spoke fluent English.  Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep calm when you are embarking on having a child FINALLY and the person on the other end of the line can’t understand V vs. E?? GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR 

After that we had the daunting task of figuring out which of 4 medications would be cheaper where. I had to go back to work so this was left up to my hubby who still, up to this point, couldn’t keep the different between IUI and IVF straight in his mind. It was kind of cute though. I have never seen anyone research anything so thoroughly in my life. He even made a spread sheet.  I was a tad irritated that he was even now trying to save a buck, but would thank him later when we soon came to realize mixing the shots was pretty easy (we had the more expensive option of premixed pen injections but went with the ‘comes in a billion parts and has to be mixed’ cheapo stuff – I’ve since read its actually more effective but I didn’t dare tell him that!) In fact, he has also taken on the task of mixing the meds for me. I think its help him feel like he is actually part of the process. Either that or he takes great joy in watching me get stuck with a needle daily. Eh, either way, it gets him home early every day!

Oh yeah…the glitch. I took the pharmacy ALL DAY LONG to verify the insurance covered nothing. Even after I told them so. With 45 minutes to spare, our debit card declined. Twice. I was about to throw up. My husband called the bank. They wouldn’t help him since the debit card has my name on it. EVEN THOUGH he opened the account almost 20 years ago. I called the bank. The rep got testy and told me I had to go to our local branch. Needless to say, I told the rep WHAT THE F-CK WAS UP and before I knew it they had kindly upped our daily transaction limit so the charge would go through and I could get my freaking medicine. YEAH. IT’S LIKE THAT CRAZY BANK LADY! WORD!  (envision me throwing gangsta signs here).

Yesterday was my first ultrasound and E2 check. The resident who helped with my surgery did the scan. Boy does she need to work on her concentration face. It closely resembles the look the nurse on American Horror Story had when she saw that Vivienne was in fact carrying the anti-Christ. She found one 13 on the right and 12 and one 11 on the left (bad ovary?) side. E2 was 198. I was told this was all good news. OK? If you say so. We were thrown into this so quickly, I didn’t know what was good or bad. Maybe that’s why I stayed so calm?!!  Hmmm…there might be something to that method.

Tomorrow is my next scan and I pray PRAY PRAY insemination is over the weekend. It’s going to get difficult to hide this from work folks. When the box of meds arrived (you have to sign for them so work delivery was the only option) with a big refrigerate immediately sticker the receptionist wanted to know what it was. I told her a puppy. Her face = PRICELESS!

TO BE CONTINUED…….