IVF education, Saline Ultrasound & more

Ladies.. be warned, if the nurse says 'saline' before she says 'ultrasound'.. then you're in for a treat. This is not the same as the lovely vaginal ultrasound we're alread used to.. it's very similar to the HSG (maybe my memory is a little fuzzy now but I'd say it's a close call on which was worse). Basically they insert saline thru a catheter into the uterus to see something in there better. Anyway.. I had to have this done as part of our prep for IVF. Last week I came in for some blood tests (a whole slew of tests including HIV,etc) that have to be done b4 going thru with IVF. Then DH had similiar tests done today before the class.

The class was an eye-opener. We came out of there completely overwhelmed! We watched a video on how to administer all these crazy injections, passed around sample needles, got a sample schedule (wow is all I can say on that), asked lots of questions, & signed a ton of documents. Oh and of course I was the only idiot that stabbed herself with one of the needles they passed around. It bled like you would not believe & was all swollen. That'll be fun tomorrow. I knew there was a lot involved in IVF ... but this is just crazy!

IUI #1

I had my first IUI today.. DH had to come in about 1.5 hours b4 me to do his part. Then, I was surpised to find out that a different doc would be doing my procedure. It was a little awkward but no worse than the HSG test. I had to stay there on the table for about 10 mins b4 I could get up. DH was headed back to work after his part, so while I waited to get up, I had to laugh that if this works, our child would be conceived while we were in different cities.. very possibly different counties if DH went back to the Lillington office. Won't that be something to tell the kids one day.

hysterosalpingography

So I had my HSG test a few days ago.. I'd been a bit worried about it based off the testimony of the only other victim I'd known who'd been through this. Then another girl had hers the day before me, thankfully she called to let me know it was not that bad. And she was right.. it's not comfortable by any means, but geez if we can't get through something this easy, we're not meant to have kids :)

They said to take some aspirin or something beforehand, but I didn't bother. We went in a big room with a doc & nurse who were really nice. They prepped me & inserted the catheter up into the cervix (that stings) and then filled me up with dye (ok technically it's 'contrast' but looked like ink on the screen to me). The neat part was that I was able to watch too.. it looked like an xray but it was moving instead of still. I was able to see the dye as it spilled out of my tubes (a good thing, means no blockage). All in all, they didn't find any problems here.

Turns out that my progesterone levels (the blood test back at the OB) were REALLY low. Like post-menopausal low. Apparently this is an indication that I'm not ovulating on my own. So with all the results, doc says lets try Clomid. So now we are into fertility treatments...