IUI #2 insemination

We had our second artificial insemination yesterday. I was sitting in the procedure room, half naked with a towel draped over me for modesty, hoping that my bladder was just full enough. A well dressed woman comes into the room, wearing a short black dress, black stockings, and long black boots. She is holding a tube of sperm, and wants us to read the label to make sure it is correct. We confirm that those are our names, and then she asks me to put my legs up in the stirrups. I realise that she is the doctor!

I suddenly feel very embarrassed and nervous. I am getting accustomed to medical people in scrubs seeing me half naked, but this woman doesn't look a bit like a doctor. Here I am, legs splayed with everything on display, in front of a woman who looks like she's about to go out on a dinner date. I am so flummoxed I forget to ask any questions about sperm numbers or quality.

The IUI itself was a bit painful, but it was over very quickly. Happily, they did not play any love ballads for us while we rested for 15 minutes. They even let me keep an ultrasound picture of the sperm cells entering my uterus (the white dot in the center-right of the picture).




I must say, I am really glad that I have a break from the three-hour round trip to the hospital, the blood draws, and anxiously waiting for the phone to ring between 2pm and 5pm each day. We are taking a break cycle after this one, so we have six weeks of rest and relaxation.

IUI#2 CD12

CD3-CD7 50mg Clomid
CD8-CD11 Estrogen
CD8 Disappointingly, the dominant follicle is on my right ovary, the one with the partly blocked tube. The follicle is 12.7 mm, and my lining is very thin at 3.4 mm, only 0.35 more than at CD3.
CD10 Dominant follicle at 16mm, lining at 4.8 mm (compared to 7.6mm when I was on Menopur)
CD11 Dominant follicle now ripe at 19mm, but lining only 5.78mm (triple stripe pattern). We trigger with HCG at 11pm. The needle injection hurts.

I have been extremely irritable lately, and my poor husband has had to bare the brunt of it all. He also has this thing about me taking personal responsbility for my actions, so I can't get away with just yelling at him and then blaming it on the drugs. Perhaps they could also percscribe some valium so that I could glide serenely through the days, instead of feeling my blood boil at every minor hindrance.

If this cycle doesn't work, then we will take a month break over Christmas, and then one to two more IUI cycles. If I am still not pregnant, we will move onto IVF. I am ambivilent towards IVF. On the one hand, there will be more medications and drugs and operations. On the other hand, I no longer have to worry about adhesions and blocked tubes, and our chances of success go from 10% to 40% per cycle.

These past IUI cycles have been odd. After so many months of privately monitoring my cycles with temperatures and LH cycles, I am surprised to find a team of midwives now working with me, and wishing me "good luck". I do appreciate the support, and the extra monitoring and knowledge, but the endless blood draws and commuting to the hospital are exhausting. And these area just the IUIs - we haven't even gotten to the hard stuff yet. I hope that all this does not last for longer than it has to.

We go in for the IUI tomorrow at noon. Either way, no injections for at least six weeks. Fingers crossed.