All That Blood, and Nothing to Show for It

Today I got to go get some pre-IVF bloodwork done. Five vials, not bad--pre-IUI bloodwork was seven. This from a girl who's not wild about blood and needles (better get used to it, eh?).

But it does seem ridiculous that they need that much blood. Not to be too anal, I'll leave that to DH, but I timed it and it took more than one minute to get it all out. It felt sort of wasteful, like I should have just donated it instead. Only I can't donate blood, because I lived in England during that whole mad cow thing. Moooo. I hope I don't have crazy babies, if I ever do get pregnant. Cause I ate that beef.

Anyway, it's sort of sad when you recognize the hospital phlebotemist. I sure as hell hope he doesn't remember me. I'm not one of those people who likes to get really chummy with medical professionals (hence my aversion to the arm-rubbing dental hygenist), and I figure this kid does not care to know anything about me, either. I started to wonder today if maybe he'd think something was wrong with me, like I was really sick and he should feel sorry for me. But then I realized I should get over myself, because probably all this kid cares about is that I don't hyperventilate and pass out, and that when I pee in the cup I shoot straight and don't make a mess.

Speaking of which, that office has one of those nice little pass throughs where you can slide your sample in from the restroom and someone else takes it out the other side. I've always appreciated this very discreet way of not directly acknowledging that I did, in fact, just pee in a cup. Of course, I couldn't care less at the fertility clinic (maybe it's something about the whole "laying-there-with-your-legs-wide-open" thing), where they don't do that, but instead walk into the room with an OPK still dripping to tell me what my urine hath revealed.

But today, when I went to put my little cup in the pass through, there were like 10 different cups already in there. It was a challenge to fit my cup in too. (I also noticed that it looked like I overfilled, in comparison.) Which got me thinking about the poor stranger on the other side, who's going to spend all day handling other people's urine. I guess I'm not the one in the lab who should be bitching.