And we wait

On Thursday I had my first (and hopefully only) IUI.  That morning I was a nervous wreck, and thought I might hurl at any moment.  Thankfully my husband was with me for the beginning part of it.  Well, he kind of had to be, since he was providing the sperm, and all.

But let me back up.  I woke up at the ungodly hour of 4 am that day, and lay there trying to will myself back to sleep for at least an hour before I finally gave in and took my temperature.  I know that it is not a good idea to take my temperature (a) nearly an hour earlier than normal and (b) when I’ve already been tossing and turning for an hour.  But when I got a temperature far higher than those leading up to that day, my heart sank.  I thought, we’re too late.  We’ve missed the boat for the IUI.  And I got up and started to get ready to go to work.

Then I thought, well, maybe I should take another OPK just to see.  So I did.  And it was positive.  Incredibly positive.  That line was so dark there was no questioning it.  So we were all systems go!

We went to the reproductive lab for John to make his deposit.  I read “Conceive” magazine in the waiting room while he did his thing.  (Side note: that is a pretty good magazine, but seems like you’d have to be pretty cynical to order a whole year’s subscription.)  Then we had an hour to kill while they washed the sample, so we went to get a cup of tea down the street.  I nearly ralphed with nerves, and could barely even stomach the tea.  When we made our way back to the lab, the sample was ready.  They gave me the test tube in a back room of the lab, and told me to put it in my bra to keep it warm – it felt like we were on some covert spy operation!

Suddenly all my nerves melted away and I was ready to get the job done.  John had to go to work, so I drove to my doctor’s office, test-tube-of-washed-sperm chafing me in my bra, and waltzed into the office to ask for, nay, *demand*, my IUI.   (I was polite about it).   My doctor was out that day, so they subbed in a different doctor.  I was perfectly okay with that, and in fact I liked this doctor a little bit better than my own.  His nurse wished me luck and said “This had better work!”  I told her that was exactly how I felt.

The procedure itself only took about five minutes.  It was pretty uncomfortable, because he had to clamp my cervix in place, and then to top that off, he had to force my cervix to dilate a bit more so he could make sure he had a clear path to insert the sample.  That hurt like a mofo.  But it was okay.  I lay there and thought, if this is what it takes, this is what it takes.  I’d certainly rather have had sex with my husband than have a doctor poking around my cervix, but we’ve tried that, a lot, and it hasn’t worked to give us a baby yet.  So here we go.

When it was over, he told me to stay lying there for about ten minutes and then I could be on my way.  And I was.  I drove to work feeling elated, over the moon, any other cliche expression to say I felt fantastic.  Convinced this was going to work.  The rest of the day at work I was in a surreal sort of bubble.

And now I wait.  My temperature was nice and high the next day, which was great, except I still have that nagging feeling in the back of my mind about that high temperature I had the morning of the IUI.  What if I had already ovulated?  What if we missed it?  What if we just spent about $700 for nothing?   But I keep reassuring myself of the following things:

1.  When the doctor was looking directly at my cervix, he said it did look like I was about to ovulate, because of the quantity of cervical mucus there.  (Fun, I know).

2.  My OPK that morning (using second morning urine, after an hour of not drinking anything) was extremely positive.

3.  My temperature was not taken under ideal circumstances – I’d been tossing and turning for an hour, and it was not the time I normally take my temperature.

So I will hold out hope.  In the mean time I’ve discarded that day’s temperature on Fertility Friend because I got pissed off when they gave me cross-hairs for *Tuesday*, which was two whole days before the IUI!  Makes no sense at all.  (My temperature on Wednesday was not even very high).

And that is that.  I’m proud to say we did have some well-timed intercourse 48 hours before the IUI when we thought I was about to ovulate and we might not get the blood test results in time.  So hopefully we’re covered one way or another.   This is definitely going to be the most nail-biting 2ww I have ever had.  Time to take a shower in baby dust!

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