February 2007: Remember, I Told You: It’s an OUT Hole

After January’s disastrous attempt at IUI, I was ready to give it another go. This time, I took more Clomid, because I’d still spotted on the lower dose, and Dr. F wanted to see if an increased dose would help. In both January and February I was also taking Prometrium, which is an oral progesterone that Dr. J said would be just as effective as the other, less comfortable method I’d heard of—suppositories. It hadn’t worked, and I was starting to get very nervous about whether progesterone really was the root of the spotting problem. Maybe I really did have something more serious.

With the higher does of Clomid came the famed hot flashes I’d been warned about. They weren’t what I expected. From the way they’d been described to me, I expected to literally feel like I was on fire. I mean, how many times have you heard a menopausal woman stop a conversation with, “Oh my gosh, I’m having another hot flash!” like it was breaking news? Maybe I just know some really melodramatic women, but it’s happened more than once in my life.

The hot flashes were more confusing than anything else, because I kept forgetting there was a reason I felt hot all of a sudden. I just kept asking everyone in the room, “Are you hot? Is it hot in here?” And my feet, which are always cold, would suddenly be too toasty. I’d have to resist stripping down like someone in a drug-induced state might, and content myself with slipping my shoes off whenever it was socially appropriate to do so. (I wore tall boots to a concert one night—that was a bad idea.)

Lucky me, I again ovulated on a weekend, and had to page the on call doctor. This one, Dr. T, seemed a lot nicer and arranged to meet us the next day. And things looked straightforward enough—DH and I came in early with the “specimen,” Dr. T showed up a few minutes later and whizzed it around in the machine, and we all went into a room for the “quick and easy” insertion I’d been promised.

But the “out” hole thing…that was a problem, and I should have remembered it. Dr. T's attempts to insert the catheter were sort of like threading a needle. A lot of uncomfortable jabs trying to get it in the eye, with a speculum in, no less.

After 15 minutes, Dr. T said she was going to try another catheter. Another 10 minutes. Still with the speculum too, and I was starting to get really uncomfortable. I just kept looking at my watch, saying to myself, Okay, if she doesn’t finish in another 5 minutes, I’ll tell her to stop. But at the end of that 10 minutes, she had a new solution. “Let’s go across the hall to the ultrasound room. I’ll use the ultrasound as a ‘map’ to get me to your uterus.” Yes, that's right. She needed a map to my uterus (which makes me feel like there should have been some exciting treasure once we got there).

Here was one of those situations where, as I said in an earlier post, medical assistants are invaluable. Because sometimes, the doctor just literally needs a second set of hands, and this was one of those times. Since there was no one else around, that second set of hands was DH. He got stuck pressing the ultrasound wand to my belly, with Dr. T looking at the screen and simultaneously trying to shove the catheter in the right direction. So, trying to thread a needle by looking at a picture of the needle. And still, the speculum. It wasn’t cool.

So after about 10 minutes of that, Dr. T finally conceded defeat. She made plans for me to take Cytotec again and come back the next morning for another try. The next morning was the same thing, only 25 minutes long instead of 40. It hurt again. And it still didn’t work.

Infertility makes you feel like a huge failure. “Why can’t I get pregnant?” you wail to yourself, again and again. But this made me feel like a real dumbass. Not only could I not get pregnant, I couldn’t even try to get pregnant! I mean, the cheater way, with a doctor and a sperm wash and all the extras!

Dr. F had offered to send me to the infertility clinic the month before, but I’d resisted. It was another one of those, “If I do that, it’s like admitting I’m infertile” moments that I wasn’t ready for. But seeing the desperation on Dr. T’s face grow as she tried every possible method of getting that sperm up there, and seeing my poor husband giving me an ultrasound, ultimately made me decide it was probably a good idea. Even if it meant I really was infertile.