super serious sperm
I'm so tired of people sticking things into my vagina.
I saw the Reproductive Dr. for my first appointment on Weds.
This is the tile mosaic when you walk in, it made me lol.
They take their sperm super seriously. (It's even funnier that they all wear multiple sperm shaped pins on their coats.)
I have the maturity of a 13 year old sometimes. Yes, I know (trust me, I know) how very important sperm are in the infertility process...still, it makes me smile. And I'll take anything that makes me smile.
So I had my "meet & greet" appointment Weds. When we realised the tests that they wanted, based on where I was in my cycle, we scheduled 2 HSG's for the following day. (We could have waited until my next cycle, but based on the fact that my deductible for my insurance restarts next month- I'm so glad we did it now. It would have cost a pretty penny.)
An HSG is a hysterosalpingogram ( I think.) For the first one, I had to go to St. Lukes for an outpatient procedure.
And it hurt. a lot.
They basically inserted a catheter into my utereus via my cervix. Painful in and of itself, but then they inflate a little balloon to keep it there so that they can inject a dye that they can watch to see if both tubes are clear.
The catheter fell out. Twice. Reinsert, and then reinsert again with a bigger one.
In between reinsertions, they were injecting the dye- which was pretty painful also. It burns. And then I had to turn to try and get different picture angles. I imagine it feels similar to what an early trimester abortion feels like. Except they do those under some sort of sedation (right?) I was not under any sedation. I was writhing. And bleeding.
The woman doing it & the tech in the room were both super nice though. The tech talked to me about her struggles with infertility & failed IVF cycle, and she was very encouraging. She told me if I needed to hold her hand during it or cry I was more than welcome to (really, that should have told me something about what to expect painwise.) And the ARNP actually walked out with me to the parking lot.
About an hour later I had to go back to do the same procedure in the Dr. office, with saline and an u/s instead of dye and an xray. The second time was much less unpleasant!
I"m not sure if it was because the Dr. was extra gentle, they had soothing lights & music, or that I took EVERY pain pill I could find in my purse. (It equaled out to 1/2 a loratab, 1000 of ibproufen, 250 of excedrin & 500 of metformin...which is a med. for insulin, not pain. It just got thrown in with the mix.) IT was probably a mixture of all three.
Today, I had another u/s to check out my ovaries, which look normal. My right fallopian tube, however, is not. They think that it's blocked, since the dye didn't "spill" or go through it. There could have been extenuating circumstances (pressure in the balloon, for example) but we know that the left one works, so thats a plus. (And I'm not redoing that test unless absolutely necessary.)
No pain today, thankfully. I managed to get some Christmas shopping done, and we went and saw The Hobbit at midnight. (SO good! And I'm not just saying that because Benedict Cumberbatch did the voice of Smaug.) And we got our Christmas tree. (yay!)
I've also started the diet that they put all of their infertility patients on. Heres hoping that it helps! Weight loss does tend to help with PCOS. It's difficult to do, and easy to mess up, but it can be done with the right diet. This diet consists of phases, but the outcome isn't no carb (unlike phase 2) it's the RIGHT kind of carb.
Theres a lot going on. I'm adjusting to this new way of life. I'm happy with the decisions we've made based on the cards we've been given.
I saw the Reproductive Dr. for my first appointment on Weds.
This is the tile mosaic when you walk in, it made me lol.
heh.
They take their sperm super seriously. (It's even funnier that they all wear multiple sperm shaped pins on their coats.)
I have the maturity of a 13 year old sometimes. Yes, I know (trust me, I know) how very important sperm are in the infertility process...still, it makes me smile. And I'll take anything that makes me smile.
So I had my "meet & greet" appointment Weds. When we realised the tests that they wanted, based on where I was in my cycle, we scheduled 2 HSG's for the following day. (We could have waited until my next cycle, but based on the fact that my deductible for my insurance restarts next month- I'm so glad we did it now. It would have cost a pretty penny.)
An HSG is a hysterosalpingogram ( I think.) For the first one, I had to go to St. Lukes for an outpatient procedure.
And it hurt. a lot.
They basically inserted a catheter into my utereus via my cervix. Painful in and of itself, but then they inflate a little balloon to keep it there so that they can inject a dye that they can watch to see if both tubes are clear.
The catheter fell out. Twice. Reinsert, and then reinsert again with a bigger one.
In between reinsertions, they were injecting the dye- which was pretty painful also. It burns. And then I had to turn to try and get different picture angles. I imagine it feels similar to what an early trimester abortion feels like. Except they do those under some sort of sedation (right?) I was not under any sedation. I was writhing. And bleeding.
The woman doing it & the tech in the room were both super nice though. The tech talked to me about her struggles with infertility & failed IVF cycle, and she was very encouraging. She told me if I needed to hold her hand during it or cry I was more than welcome to (really, that should have told me something about what to expect painwise.) And the ARNP actually walked out with me to the parking lot.
About an hour later I had to go back to do the same procedure in the Dr. office, with saline and an u/s instead of dye and an xray. The second time was much less unpleasant!
I"m not sure if it was because the Dr. was extra gentle, they had soothing lights & music, or that I took EVERY pain pill I could find in my purse. (It equaled out to 1/2 a loratab, 1000 of ibproufen, 250 of excedrin & 500 of metformin...which is a med. for insulin, not pain. It just got thrown in with the mix.) IT was probably a mixture of all three.
Today, I had another u/s to check out my ovaries, which look normal. My right fallopian tube, however, is not. They think that it's blocked, since the dye didn't "spill" or go through it. There could have been extenuating circumstances (pressure in the balloon, for example) but we know that the left one works, so thats a plus. (And I'm not redoing that test unless absolutely necessary.)
No pain today, thankfully. I managed to get some Christmas shopping done, and we went and saw The Hobbit at midnight. (SO good! And I'm not just saying that because Benedict Cumberbatch did the voice of Smaug.) And we got our Christmas tree. (yay!)
I've also started the diet that they put all of their infertility patients on. Heres hoping that it helps! Weight loss does tend to help with PCOS. It's difficult to do, and easy to mess up, but it can be done with the right diet. This diet consists of phases, but the outcome isn't no carb (unlike phase 2) it's the RIGHT kind of carb.
Theres a lot going on. I'm adjusting to this new way of life. I'm happy with the decisions we've made based on the cards we've been given.
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