IUI and a Bombshell

14 June 2010

We sped off yesterday morning for the earlier than expected IUI. I was so nervous I drove through a red light about a block from the clinic. Thank goodness it was Sunday morning and there weren't many people on the road for me to mow down. When we arrived, it was strange because there was nobody around at the clinic except for another couple in the waiting area. Having never been on the surgical side of the clinic before we had no idea what the proper check in procedures were. After the two hour drive, I was bursting to use the washroom and all of the washrooms in the main part of the building are kept locked. I finally asked the other couple where the washroom was and got that figured out. Finally someone emerged from the back and took Hubs off to do his part. Afterwards we waited around again for further direction, and eventually someone told us we could leave and come back in a couple of hours. I still kept wondering why they wouldn't want to have done an ultrasound on me first. This cycle went so much faster than expected and I didn't even get to have a single monitoring ultrasound. My ovaries have not been scanned since before having surgery in March. Oh well, I'm sure they know what they are doing. As the sperm went for their gravatron ride we set off for a coffee shop to kill some time. We joked around about our triplets to be.

Back at the clinic, now there was nobody at all around. Eventually someone came out and took us off to the room with the stirrups. I got undressed and in position. They got the catheter ready and looked like they were all set to insert it. That's when I asked about having an ultrasound to know how many mature follicles there were. The Dr. said of course he would do the ultrasound, but he thought too many follicles would be the least of our concerns. He scanned me and there was one lonely follicle ready to release at any moment. This is when he landed me with the bombshell. He told me that my most recent Day 3 labs were sky high pointing to low ovarian reserve. The early ovulation was a result of the elevated levels of FSH and Estradiol. I know way too much, and immediately knew that this was really not a good thing. I didn't need the chit chat about the world cup to distract me from the pinch of the catheter entering my cervix -I was already distracted enough by this new development.

He thinks that because of my age (32) it's probably not an egg quality issue, but a quantity one, so it is still worth trying the IUI's. The next IUI he wants to move straight to injectables and see how I respond to that. Today's IUI timing was spot on and the sperm were superstars. Maybe, just maybe this cycle will work and I can just be pregnant and be done with it all. Gosh, and to think that this morning my biggest concern was too many follicles and multiple pregnancy!

On the way home we hit something sharp on the road and got a flat tire. At this point I completely lost it and burst into tears. It was Hubs to the rescue to put on the spare. After we got the car back on the road, Hubs insisted we stop for ice cream. My consolation prize was an Espresso flake ice cream in a chocolate waffle cone.

I had a short time to pull myself together for a birthday celebration last night. Feeling crampy and sad I had a short nap on the couch. Later when I used the washroom, I noticed that I was bleeding. Crap! Nobody mentioned that. I guess I'll have to call the clinic this morning about that. Now I need to try to pull it together to go into work today to see other people's babies.

Sorry this is not a funny blog post. Thanks for listening to me whine ladies!