Ow, and ick

Well, good news. My uterus is normal. No polyps or fibroids or whatever. My right ovary has a promising looking follicular cyst that should pop out a nice little egg later this cycle, so I need you to send your most fertile vibes to my vagina, please. Thanks!

The procedure -- the sonohysterogram -- was ok. Mine was performed by a doctor who, if I had to guess, is about 150 years old. Imagine all the vaginas that dude has seen in his lifetime. Anyway, he shoves in the speculum and realizes my cervix is too high (I'm really beginning to wonder if my high cervix/tilted uterus is what's really behind my fertility issues, although I don't suppose that would explain the miscarriages). So his little helper nurse runs off to find a longer one. Oh, joy.

The longer one works fine. I feel some discomfort akin to menstrual cramps, in addition to the mental discomfort of two people staring at my vagina under fluorescent lights. He swabs my cervix with iodine, puts a catheter through it, and then helper nurse pumps saline solution into my uterus while he does a vaginal ultrasound. If there is any sort of prize for most use of the word vagina in a blog post, this one might win it.

So yeah. Kind of a relief, but still kind of a mystery. I'm gonna give this cycle a shot before I run off for karyotype (chromosome) testing and subject my husband to another sperm analysis. I'm just wondering if all this infertility crap is my dumb, shitty luck. It just would not surprise me.

Meanwhile I'm continuing to have my heart checked out and went this morning for my holter monitor, which is strangely more painful than an old man digging around in my vagina. That's because for the monitor they've got to scratch the points of contact on your chest and other areas on the torso. It really burns for like half an hour. After that it's just annoying because you feel like a robot. Going to the bathroom is especially fun.

My echocardiogram is Saturday, and that's just an ultrasound of the heart. I fully expect these results to come back "normal," as in normal for me, slightly abnormal for others. I just want the doctor to say I should be fine to carry a pregnancy, which I expect he will. Not that I really care what he says; I'm still trying regardless, at least for the moment.

rite of passage

Today our anonymous submitter from April has another piece for us to read. It's about something most of us in the (in)fertility game have done at least once, often a few times. Results vary. Personally, I'm enjoying the injection of a little humor, as I'm currently entertaining Aunt Flo. Hope you enjoy, too.

Last week, I got to experience something all new to me in the world of babymaking: I took my partner's sperm sample for testing. You know, just in case I'm not the only one with the infertility problem here (Yeah. Right).

A few days before our appointment, I made sure to get specific details from the lab on the who/what/when/where/and how of sperm sample delivery. According to this office in particular, the sample can be retrieved from home or there in the office, but it must be checked in for testing within one hour. I knew this would be the tricky part because my partner usually clocks in to work at 7:50AM, which means he leaves the house by 7:35AM, but the lab only opened at 8:30AM and was a good 30 minutes away from our house. I'm no math whiz and even I knew that meant I would need to have my game face when it came to delivering the goods.

So the morning of the appointment everything at home went off without a hitch. My partner and I wished each other a great day and I was on my way. As soon as I was on the road, this crazy James Bond 007 feeling came over me. It was like I was on a top-secret mission, dodging bullets, jumping cars to get this prized possession to an undisclosed location. The whole drive, I held the sample cup in between my legs because the sample needed to be kept at body temperature. I was kind of like a mother chicken. I felt like I needed those Baby on Board decals covering every inch of my car. DON'T PEOPLE KNOW I'M IN A HURRY??!? THIS IS A SPERM EMERGENCY!!! I probably studied the clock on my dashboard more than I did the road in front of me.

I ended up arriving at the testing facility with 15 minutes to spare. I have no idea how that happened. "Yes!" I thought, "Mission: Accomplished!!!" I was the first and only patient in the office. The receptionist handed me worksheet after worksheet to fill out. I felt like yelling at her "THIS SPERM ONLY HAS 15 MINUTES, YOU KNOW!?!??!!?!" but I didn't want her to press the secret under-the-desk buttons that you use when a crazy person is nearby and you want to summon the SWAT team.

The whole appointment only took about 10 minutes, but it seemed like the most valuable 10 minutes of my life. We haven't received the results yet because of last week's holiday. Until we do, I'll be on the edge of my 007 seat.

Results: Round 1

I had Day 3 blood work last week and on Friday my doctor's office called to say what I knew they would: Everything looked normal.

Then my husband submitted his own "sample," amid much angst about his manliness, and the doctor's office called Tuesday to tell me what I knew they would: His sperm is normal. 

Now they want to schedule the next round of testing on me, which I imagine will include more blood work and an ultrasound or something of the sort. I haven't scheduled it yet. I'm waiting ...

I know Day 3 blood work means next to nothing. It means I haven't entered into early menopause, which is fabulous news. But it doesn't tell me anything else, at all. I hope Christina will not mind when I tell you that she has had Day 3 blood work done more than once, and all times it returned normal. This in a woman who has PCOS and endometriosis.

It occurs to me that I should send my doctor information about basal body temperatures I've tracked over the last six months or so, and clue her in on my own suspicions about progesterone deficiency. I will. I'm waiting ...

I guess I feel like I'm at a fork in the road. The road I most certainly will go down involves lots of poking and prodding. The road I want to go down involves naturally and happily conceiving a child without thinking too hard about it. These early tests are a bit deceiving, I think, in offering hope that everything could be normal, and it simply hasn't happened yet. A few more months might be all it will take.

Making Babies says that in any given cycle, a normally healthy couple has a 20 to 25 percent chance of conceiving if they're having sex two to three times a week. Chances do not go up just because you try over and over, month after month. I've never been known to be extremely lucky. Perhaps the coin is just landing wrong every month.

If I have to continue down this the path of medical testing, I'd like to be in optimal health. Is it wrong for me to wait a couple months until I feel optimally healthy? Is it realistic for me to believe I will ever be healthier than I am right now?

I hope it is.

So that's that. Round 1 is done. Round 2 is imminent. My brain is tired and needs to figure out what it's willing to do, and when.