Testing

Most people never set foot into a fertility clinic, which I think is great. I don't wish that upon anyone. The long hall to the entrance door, opening the door, and seeing other couples sitting there, same ages as you, and with the same look on their faces, despair and desperation.  Its a different feeling, you know you are all there for the same reason, but no one speaks, baby pictures are on the walls to inspire you, and there are pregnancy magazines on the tables.  No one looks at them though.  People in the clinic are all praying and wishing for the exact same thing.  Its a very weird feeling to know this.  To the normal people out there, they don't get the feelings you go through when you have issues with fertility.  And of course, we didn't know at all what our situation was going to be like either.

We got called back and had a consultation with the nurse practitioner.  She wanted to do some blood testing on me, an ultrasound, and then testing on the hubby.  Reluctant, we knew it was needed.  We needed to know why I didn't ovulate every month, and if the hubs was ok too.  Mainly because he had had a rough time years ago, when a tumor was found wedged within his organs.  It wasn't cancer, and was able to removed, but he had a cyst on his testicle that could cause problems conceiving.  When we were going through the surgery with the tumor, we spoke about IVF, sperm banks, etc, not knowing if chemo was needed.  Little did I know, we would be talking about these types of things again, a few years later, this time for real!

One of the options we were given that day were IUI, which is artificial insemination.  Basically they would use medication to beef up my ovaries, and then meds to release the egg or eggs at the time they wanted it to, and then insert the swimmers using a catheter.  It was in the office, it was like a pap smear, and then you would have intercourse for 3 days after to ensure there was plenty of swimmers in there.  Then you would test in 2 weeks, and hope for the best.  The swimmers would be cleaned first, and warmed so that it was optimal for insertion.  Leading up to the day of, you would get checked and make sure your ovaries were responding to the meds.  They had good luck with the IUI's so we figured we would try it.  You could do up to 6-7 of them, with about numbers 3-4 usually working.  We had good odds, we were young, and it was the least invasive.

So, we set out for IUI.  Its exciting at first, to think, ok we are under the care of a doctor, so this has to work right?  Well, not everything works the first time, or at all.  Its a toss up, and you have to be patient, again.  Your patience gets really tried through all of this.