AI, phone home.

Apologies for the update, again....

Well, said follicles grew!

My appointment was a few weeks ago, and went well.

The ultrasound tech was training a new girl and I learned a few things that I might not have otherwise learned. When on Clomid follicles are expected to be somewhere around 20-22mm in size by the time of ovulation. I had one large one at 21mm on the right side. Now, all of the right-sided cramping makes more sense. (There was nothing large enough to erupt on the left side.) She showed me my nice thick lining, and showed the trainee how to look for fluid (I had minimal, indicating ovulation was still to come/happen). At which point the tech looked at me and mentioned that 'everything looks like it's ready to go'. She then called downstairs and told them to start the thawing process.

Below are two pictures. One of my uterus, the second is of my right ovary and the huge follicle. I can barely tell what is what, but it's still fun to see!

About an hour later (they were training a new girl at the front desk as well), I was finally called back to a room where a nurse explained what was about to happen. I was to prep myself as if it were a regular annual exam, she would then come back into the room, locate my cervix and place the catheter straight up into my uterus for insemination. Sounds easy, right?

Finding my cervix was easy, but getting it to and having it stay in the proper position not so much. For those of you who don't like over-sharing, now is your time to skip ahead to the next paragraph. Problem, my cervix was tilting backwards. Solution, dig around inside the cavity trying grab the cervix with a speculum to position it correctly. She played around in there for what felt like 5 minutes, until she mentioned she was going to need a longer speculum. Yippee! Thankfully, the nurse was able to get a hold of my cervix with the longer speculum immediately, place the catheter directly into my uterus and preform the insemination. Whew! Just like that, it was over.

She then instructed me to lay flat on my back, knees bent and together, feet flat on the table extension until the timer went off (10 minutes), while she propped the lower end of the table up under me. The 10 minutes flew by and the nurse came back into the room and told me that I would need to schedule more blood work the following week (while in MN) and to continue on with life as normal. Alrighty! Done and done.

Later that afternoon, I was back at work and my whole lower abdominal cavity ached, as if I had done a million crunches, making standing up straight painful for the first hour. I'm sure there were several different reasons for the amount of pain I was in; ovulation, tossing my uterus around like a ball, and stress of clinching/not being able to relax.

The following day I was able to head in to the acupuncturist for my regular weekly visit, which worked out perfect as she wanted to see me the day after the IUI to work on making the embryo embed in the lining. This was probably the worst session I've had to date. She stuck needles in new places, my usual nap was broken up by the noises outside or my arms flinging themselves off the side of the table. When all was said and done that afternoon, the new acupuncture spots on my arms left bruises.

The week following the IUI my mom and I drove back to MN to see family, friends, and pick up my grandmother's hutch. As I explained to my aunts/uncles about the procedure with my openness about the whole situation, I was reminded that back in their peak fertility days no one spoke publicly or openly about these (and many other) issues. There is no way that I could go through this journey without voicing my opinion, checking in with others, or making notes. No way. I am so thankful to live in the era that I do. As should you, otherwise you wouldn't know the in's and out's of my fertility. ;)