IUI#1 CD15 – Swimmers on their way!

I finally got back to the office after our IUI procedure this morning. We got up early, drove separately to the doctor’s office (because our workplaces are in opposite directions), waited about 40 minutes while they thawed our swimmers, then went into the procedure room. Here we are hanging out in the lobby...

The procedure was less uncomfortable than I’d anticipated. I also got Kaitlin to take a video while it was being done. :P I peppered the nurse with questions. They’re not going to give me progesterone… they just want me to call them if I haven’t gotten my period by Valentine’s Day. She said I could start testing at day 14, which is February 12^th. I don’t know if I’ll be able to hold out that long… I may start testing earlier. I actually find BFN’s less disappointing if I test for many days in a row, with each day being a little more warning that it didn’t work, than to wait and wait and then test and only get a negative… or have AF show up.

I also asked her, rather anxiously, if she was very sure my follicles were still in there and I hadn’t ovulated yet. She said that with a trigger shot they pretty much always know when ovulation will happen, 36 hours later, and that I was probably ovulating right about when we were doing the insem. She also said I had some good, fertile CM and my cervix was very open, both good signs. She had a little trouble getting the catheter in – I guess my cervix is a little bendy – but then there didn’t seem to be any problem once it was in there.

She also said that I had 10,120 million sperm in my sample, and that anything above 10 million is good.  She let us keep the little vial, too.  According to its label, the sample was obtained on 1/23/2013 – an interesting tidbit.

So now we wait. I made the mistake yesterday of googling pregnancy results for women with high FSH. The results were pretty depressing, with a lot of the medical sites neatly declaring that it was pretty much impossible for such women to get pregnant with their own eggs. Something about how our eggs fertilize fine and divide fine, but don’t live long enough to implant because they don’t have enough mitochondria to sustain them for the week or so between release from the ovary and implantation.  It was really discouraging. I told Kaitlin about it and, in her typical geek-girl way, she responded that my eggs have The Force… then waved her hand over me going “The Force is strong in you.” LOL.

I also found quite a few stories of ladies who had high FSH and were able to get pregnant . So I’m trying not to be too doom-and-gloom about it. But I also hate getting my hopes up if my chances aren’t good… I guess I’d just prefer to be sure that I have realistic expectations . The doctor is kind of maddeningly vague about my chances. I understand, because they don’t have a crystal ball any more than I do, but goshdarnit I really wish I had some hard and fast numbers tailored to my own body – not  “the average woman has a 20% chance” but “YOU, personally, have a ___% chance.” Course, I can wish all I want and that doesn’t make it happen. :P

So the nurse told me I would almost assuredly have cramping, and to take Tylenol but no ibuprofen products as those might interfere with implantation.  I do feel crampy now… not sharp contracting cramps like the really bad AF ones, but more like that general hyper-sensitivity and heaviness that I get throughout my AF cycle. It’s funny because I never really thought of that as cramping, but I guess that’s really what it is. I’m feeling it more on my left side than my right… no idea if that means anything, but my left side was the one that had three follies so who knows?

And now comes the hardest part of this entire process... the waiting. Waiting, for two weeks, to see if my period starts. To see if I get a positive pregnancy test.  And there’s literally nothing further I can do to help the process, except continue to take my prenatal vitamins. At least up to this point there’s been something I could DO. Some action I could take every few days or so. Not now. Now, we wait.

I did get the hooks off of my teeth last night at the dentist, and got my teeth cleaned, so the projects I’m going to try and focus on during this TWW is getting our engagement photos taken, getting Kaitlin’s bills reorganized, and decorating my new office at work.  I also have an embroidery project for the SCA that I have to start working on like a madwoman starting this weekend. So I’m going to try and stay busy and not get either too excited or too pessimistic. Whatever’s going to be will be…