My Stork Got Lost

It’s been awhile, mainly because I got a little mopey after the cyst.  I had a follow up appointment with Dr T.  Everything seems to be back to normal after that all nonsense in January.  Turns out, it may end up being a good thing all this happened.

Here’s the deal.  Dr T asked my how my fertility consult went, and I told her I had cancelled it until all the stuff with the cyst was resolved.  She urged me to follow through with the appointment anyway and asked me which office I called.  When I told her the clinic and the doctor, she told me I picked a great clinic, but maybe it was a good thing I cancelled.  Huh?!

See, one doctor – the doctor I originally had my appointment with – is an older woman who takes a more conservative approach to treatment, according to Dr T.  She’s amazing and gets great results with her patients; however, there is a second doctor at the clinic who, according to Dr T, is also amazing and will be a better fit for me.  Something about how we’re a lot alike, personality-wise. She’s younger and keeps super current on the latest treatments and medicines.  And she’s a lot like me.  Sounds good!

So, I called the clinic.  Again.  The consult is set for March 28, with this new doctor. I’m taking Dr T’s advice on this, because that woman is the best.

I got a little weepy at the appointment – it happens a lot lately when I talk about anything related to babies or my reproductive system – but she sat down beside me, took my hand, and said, “Brittney, I promise you.  You WILL come to my office pregnant one day.  You WILL have a baby.  Don’t give up hope.”

I’ve never in my life had a doctor so kindhearted. She’s blowing my mind and I’m so, so glad I switched from Dr H.

So.  Now I wait for this consult.  I specifically requested the doctor that Dr T recommended, and I feel…good.  Hopeful.  It’s a nice change from being miserable and weepy.  We’ll see where it goes.

 

 

Well.  I had a super fun Friday, how about you?  Let me set the stage:

Act 1 – Scene 1

Brittney gets up at the same time she always does and starts her morning routine.  She puts on a pot of coffee, feeds her kittycat, then changes into her workout gear and hops on the treadmill for her morning jog.

Act 1 – Scene 2

Brittney’s about .4 miles into her run – barely getting started. She’s not even breathing hard yet.  Just casually jogging along to classic 80s rock. Ya know. Like ya do.

All of a sudden, she gets a sharp, debilitating pain in her left side.  Enough to force her to hop on the sides of the treadmill and yank the emergency shut-off doohickey, thinking it’ll go away in a second, like a stitch or whatever.

Act 1 – Scene 3

CUT TO – Brittney is lying on the ground beside her treadmill with no recollection of how she got there.  She’s hot all over, but shivering like she’s freezing.  She’s also sweating profusely and unable to catch her breath.  Her darling husband is still asleep down the hall, which is just as well because she’s in so much pain, Brittney is unable to call out for help.

Then, her stomach rolls and she gets dizzy.  She’s definitely going to throw up.  Trying to avoid barfing on the carpet, she tries to get off the floor and make it the 20 feet down the hallway to the nearest bathroom.  As she stands up, all hunched over and clutching her side like Quasimodo, her vision darkens and turns red.  Aaaand, down she goes.

Act 2 – Scene 1

Brittney comes to on the floor outside the bathroom, with her husband leaning over her, white as a sheet.  She’s still in excruciating pain and has no idea how long she’s been lying there, but her husband has grabbed his phone and is dialing 9-1-1.  I guess waking up to finding your wife unconscious on the floor will do that to a man.

She manages to croak out, “no ambulance!” and after some negotiation, he hangs up (she has a thing against ambulances and emergency rooms…).  Still writhing in pain, she rolls over into a modified child’s pose – head on the ground, knees under her, butt in the air.  Rocking gently from side to side, she tries to will the pain away.

Act 2 – Scene 2

After about 10 minutes and with her husband’s help, Brittney is able to go lay down on the bed.  The pain is still severe (understatement of the year, right there), but she’s not sweating so much and has regained her voice.

“I can’t go to work like this,” she manages. To which her husband replies, “no shit.”

He’s a man of few words.

And SCENE.

The rest of my day went about how you’d imagine.  I call my doctor, even though it was still before 9am.  I describe my symptoms to the answering service and within minutes, they’re calling me back with an earliest-available emergency appointment at 11am.  Then I email my boss, telling him I had food poisoning, and collapse back on the bed. Little did I know.

The pain starts letting up enough to where I can stumble into the shower.  Quincy takes off work, too, because I can’t drive myself.  We arrive at the doctor, they send me for an emergency ultrasound…but the kind where I have to drink 64 oz of water in the hour before the appt.  By the time they called me in for the ultrasound, I couldn’t sit down.  r breathe.  Or move too quickly.  I HAD TO PEEEEEE.

Anyway…not surprisingly…guess what the ultrasound revealed?  A large cyst on my left ovary.  They weren’t certain whether it had twisted my ovary around (ovarian torsion) and then flipped back in place or if it had recently ruptured, but no matter what, it was there.

Food poisoning my ass.  I should have known.

I have a follow up appt with Dr T next week, but for right now…I’m cancelling the visit with the fertility clinic.  Gotta get this taken care of first.

Bummer.

 

So…I took the plunge today.  I was sitting out on my patio this morning, sipping coffee and watching my pups play together.  It’s unseasonably warm – nearly in the 80s – and I was enjoying the first day of my mini-vacation.  Christmas is two days away, and I’m looking forward to being off work and doing absolutely nothing for awhile.  Except cooking. And hopefully baking, which may be difficult considering our fridge is STILL out.

Anyway, I looked over the list of clinics Dr T suggested and chose one in Sherman Oaks, which is relatively close to my office. I dunno why I chose this one, really, but I liked their website.  I don’t really know what everything means, but they do have a ton of information on there, and they offer a procedure called “mini-IVF” – which from the looks of it is just transferring one egg instead of a few.  Which sounds cheaper and gives you less of a chance of popping out the Brady Bunch, and I’m all for that. So I gave them a call.

Looks like I have my first consult with an RE in a couple weeks.  The consult itself is $300, so that’s got me a little nervous about how costly the treatment will be.  I know it’s going to be expensive; I have really good insurance but it doesn’t cover anything pertaining to fertility treatment.  Because that’s an elective procedure.  Sure. We choose to be infertile.  Right.

So, now we wait.  I can sit back and enjoy my Christmas break without having all the uncertainly looming over me.  I’ve taken the basic steps toward ending this fertility stalemate.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

 

This is probably going to be a long post.  I’m not in a good place right now.

I haven’t been myself lately.  I’ve been really depressed since the miscarriage and I don’t know if I need to see a therapist or not.  I’d prefer not; but I’m getting worse as time goes by.  It’s been what, three months? I’m not sleeping well; I’ve gained 8 lbs since October and I don’t feel like socializing at all.  I have the best friends in the world but lately I’ve left early for things or just cancelled stuff day of, which isn’t usually like me.  I’ve never been a flake, but I just don’t feel like leaving my house right now.

Obviously, last month was a bust.  I don’t know if things weren’t normalized enough or if it’s just not going to happen for us, but everything was perfectly timed.  We were on vacation.  I had my OPKs with me.  I surged as expected, and we had plenty of time to do what needed to be done.  And for the first time in a long time…it was fun again.  It was romantic.  Actually trying to make a baby was secondary to physically needing to be with each other, as man and wife.

But my period came and went, and here I am again, so absolutely miserable that it’s hard to get out of bed in the morning.

My friends and I are having our annual Christmas party on Saturday.  I’m forcing myself to go – I can’t flake on my best friends. We build gingerbread houses, exchange gifts, drink hot chocolate and eat way too much candy, but my heart isn’t in it like before.  This holiday season is just making me sad.  That’s not even an accurate description.  I’m…I dunno.  I feel like I’m in a daze.  I can’t focus on anything and I don’t want to do anything or see anyone.

Usually Christmas music just annoys me (especially since it’s been playing in the mall since Labor Day).  This year it’s making me cry, which is way worse than just being annoyed. I usually love the holidays, but this year I just want them gone. I haven’t even started shopping for my nieces and nephews, which means if I can’t get it on Amazon Prime, they’re not getting their gifts before Christmas, which just makes me feel that much worse.

Depression is such a clinical term.  I know people who suffer from depression, and I know it’s a real disease.  It’s more than just feeling sad; it’s headaches and body aches and fatigue and a whole lot of stuff I don’t even want to think about.  This isn’t depression. I don’t think what I’m going through is clinical.  So depressed really isn’t the right word.

Grief.  That’s a better term.  I guess I’m grieving.  I have good days and bad, and while Quincy swears he likes the new, heavier me, it just adds insult to injury.  I’m miserable and weepy so I bake to cheer up (I usually love to bake), or I’m lonely and feel like crap so I don’t want to get up and get on my treadmill, and then I put on a shirt that doesn’t fit anymore and just feel disgusted with myself.  So I get more depressed and eat a cookie or go lie down and read instead of going for a run.  On a good day, I’ll make plans or want to hang out with people, and but then I get a bad day, and I don’t even want to leave my house and end up cancelling plans, which makes me feel like an ass. I hate letting people down.

I’ve held off from talking to my close friends about all of this because even though we’re all the same age and we all eventually want kids, I just don’t think anyone can truly understand unless they’ve been trying for so long.  Or, unless they’ve miscarried themselves. I just can’t explain a lot of what I’m feeling. I’m not even doing a great job writing it all down…and if I can’t explain it, there’s no way anyone can really know unless they’ve felt it, too.  It’s like trying to explain color to a blind person.

I was 23 when I learned that it may be difficult to conceive because of an autoimmune disease.  We got married as soon as we could after Quincy proposed – I had less than six months to plan the wedding.  We actually planned the wedding weekend around my ovulation so, theoretically, we could conceive on the honeymoon.  We’d been together so long, it seemed like the natural escalation.

But it didn’t happen.  And now we’ve been trying – REALLY trying, with calendars and ovulation predictor kits and tests and procedures and fertility-friendly products – for over three years.

This is all like a roller coaster ride.  The two weeks before I ovulate, I’m starting up the slope. I feel great, full of hope and possibilities, and a little anxious.  Then, the two weeks after ovulation, I’m at the top of the ride. I’m hopeful and excited and more than a little anxious.  I start analyzing everything going on with my body, I pay extra close attention and make sure I’m eating right and taking my vitamins, I give up caffeine – everything.  And then my period comes and the bottom drops out from under me and I fall into a deep, dark valley.

It’s awful.

I start climbing back uphill – hopeful for the next month; trying again.  Rinse and repeat.

Recently though, every month I plunge a little farther down, and it’s harder to climb back up.  Since the miscarriage, it’s been a thousand times harder to get to the top.

I’m glad I switched doctors, but I feel like I wasted years with Dr. H.  When Dr. T did her very first baseline ultrasound, we learned I don’t have as many follicles as I should. I feel that’s something Dr. H should have caught years ago.  But she never did. That makes me so angry, with both Dr. H and myself for just blindly trusting her.

Not having those follicles may mean IVF, which we can’t afford and insurance doesn’t cover.  The procedure I had run in September – that painful, awful thing, was null and void because I miscarried. I was supposed to be super fertile for three months.  I was – I got pregnant.  And lost it, and it can take weeks to normalize after a loss.

When Quincy and I went to Texas in November, I relaxed.  I had normalized (I think); I had gotten my period again and would ovulate during our vacation.  I honestly thought we’d conceived again.  All the stars aligned in Texas. I was relaxed and still technically in the 3 month fertile window after the HSG.  I took my OPKs on vacation with us, and everything was perfect, timing wise. We had plenty of time to ourselves to…try. I may not have felt exactly like I did before, but every pregnancy is different.  And then, sure enough… two weeks went by and I got my period right on schedule.

I’ve pretty much given up.  I ovulate again over Christmas break (Dec 26^th, supposedly), and I’m off work the 23^rd-27^th.  But I’m not expecting anything.  Quincy and I have talked, I’ve talked to my doctor, and we’ve moved up the time line for fertility treatments. If a miracle doesn’t happen this time, I’m starting treatments right after the start of the year.

I’m tired.  I’m tired of living my life two weeks at a time.  I’m tired of people who mean well saying the absolute wrong things and adding to my mess. I’m tried of having people tell me how to eat, how to work out, and what position to be in when I sleep with my husband, like that is totally their business.  And I hate it when people tell me to relax.  Clearly, that’s not going to happen.  Relaxing won’t change my FSH levels.  Relaxing won’t give me more follicles.

Oh, and when people say to try again, because “the fun is in the trying.”

No, it’s really not.  There is absolutely no romance or fun in NEEDING to have sex, on a rigorous schedule.  No matter if you’re tired, or you worked late, or the dogs are hyper or you need to be up early the next morning or have a cold.  Or worse, if you’re annoyed at your spouse, but still HAVE to sleep together or else the entire month is shot.  That’s not fun at all.

Quincy and I have a great relationship, and we rarely get annoyed with each other, but it happens.  And more than once we’ve had a spat right when I’ve ovulated.  It sucks.  And, probably the worst part of it all – tests and timing and stressing about schedules gets us so tired of it all that the rest of the month makes you not want to even THINK about sex.  I miss just being able to be with my husband.  No ulterior motives, not because we’re trying for a baby, but just because.  I miss those days.

Friends have suggested adoption or have told me I don’t need kids (which really pisses me off).  Those are the hardest to deal with.  Because we will eventually adopt – it’s something Quincy and I have discussed  – but for someone who has spent their entire life dreaming about creating life and carrying it inside of them, coming to terms with the necessity and not choice of adoption is as painful as a miscarriage.  I’m still losing a child.

I feel so deeply alone.

Even though it took something horrible to make me switch – like her not returning my phone calls during a miscarriage – I’m glad I changed doctors.

My new ob/gyn is amazing.  I feel like I wasted a ton of time with my old one.  I’m not a spiteful person, so I won’t put her name in this journal, but we can call her Dr. H.  It’s been over a month after the miscarriage and she still hasn’t returned any of my phone calls, so she and her office can go jump in a lake.

Here’s a bit of advice.  Get second opinions.  And third opinions, if you’re not 100% satisfied with the answers you’re getting.  All my friends were questioning some of the things that Dr. H was telling me.  How she didn’t know why I wasn’t conceiving.  That getting pregnant was just “hard.”  But I took her at her word.  She was a doctor, after all, and I’m just a person struggling with infertility.  She has a degree and lots of letters after her name.  I’m just…a noob. But I should have looked into other doctors ages and ages ago.

Things have been better this last month.  I’m still not myself, but I’m a lot more hopeful than where I was.  I still have really bad days, and I’ve gained a little weight from the stress, but I’m trying to move on. Taking the advice of my new doctor – let’s call her Dr. T – I started ovulation kits as soon as I stopped bleeding…which actually let up right around my last entry.  I got my LH surge the weekend of Halloween, which all things considered was only about 2 weeks later than it should have come.  I guess it’s a small blessing that the miscarriage happened so early – I know sometimes it takes women a few months for their bodies to start working properly again, and I was only thrown off a couple weeks.

I got my surge around Halloween, but we didn’t attempt anything – we’re supposed to wait a cycle after a miscarriage for things to completely normalize.  But, this isn’t a bad thing at all.

Why?  Because, if things go the way they should, I’ll ovulate again next week.  Over Thanksgiving.  When Q and I are on vacation, staying in a super nice hotel with all the time in the world to ourselves.  It’s wonderful.

But anyway.  Let me tell you a bit about Dr T, and why I feel like I wasted so much time with Dr. H.

First of all, there is something to be said for bedside manner.  Take my primary care physician, for instance.  He is also amazing.  He talks to you like you’re a person and not just a name on a chart.  He remembers you.  He asks about things outside of his office visits.  He remembers the names of your pets.  Dr. H barely remembered my name and never asked about anything else.  Her office was very clinical, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I think that doctors are better at their jobs if they get the whole picture of the person they’re trying to treat.  At first, I was fine with Dr. H’s no-nonsense demeanor – I assumed that her stuffiness was because she was just a really good, super busy doctor.  I’m not so sure about that any more.

Dr. T – my new doctor, actually cares. She chats with you before she gets down to the actual appointment, just to see how you’re doing. She did an ultrasound on me at one of my first visits – something that Dr. H actually never ordered – and Dr. T noticed I only have 2 follicles on my right side and 4 on my left.  She wants to schedule a follow up visit after this next cycle to see if that number changes.  Apparently, a woman my age is supposed to have more than 10 on either side.  This may be the #1 cause of why I can’t get pregnant (and stay that way…).

Also.  I can email Dr. T with any questions I have.  It takes her a few hours, but she always responds to my emails.  I had a ton of questions about the miscarriage, my next ovulation, that sort of thing, and I was able to just shoot her a quick email and get a reply.  I like this.

Most importantly – she emailed me a list of fertility clinics she recommends.  Some have free consults, some are pricey, but the point is, she sent me a pretty big list of clinics in my area that I could check out.  Dr. T covered more in two visits than Dr. H covered in years.  So, yeah.  I really like her.

I’m going to look into the clinics.  I have new insurance, and even though the insurance itself is pretty exceptional – they don’t cover fertility treatments.  They’re “elective” procedures.  So Q and I have to save up a bit before we go that route, since everything will be out of pocket.  But a consult can’t hurt, so if nothing happens over our Thanksgiving vacation… I’ll make an appointment with one of the fertility clinics.

Life goes on.

I don’t even know how to start this entry.  This past month has been a nightmare.

I had my HSG on September 18.  Test came back negative – no blockages.  My doctor was supposed to refer me to a specialist, but we hadn’t gotten around to that.  Anyway.

I ovulated September 22nd or 23rd.  Right on time.  I know this because Quincy and I were in a pretty stressful, busy week, and neither of us had the energy to do what needed to be done the night I got my LH surge.  I was angry, I was upset;  we wasted the first of our “extra fertile” months after the HSG.

I wanna slap everyone who says, “the fun is in the trying.”

Wrong.  Dead wrong.  There’s nothing FUN about having to plan exact dates and times for sex, month after month, year after year.  It turns something that should be and fun and romantic into a chore.  Chores aren’t fun. But I digress.

Anyway.  We missed our window, life goes on, we’ll maybe have more time to try next month. And then…things start happening.

I *knew* that I was pregnant Sept 29^th.  It would have only been about a week after ovulation, so I can’t describe how I knew, not really – but I was feeling different.  My lower back had started hurting, to the point where I had to go to the chiropractor. I had a ton of creamy discharge…way more than I’ve ever really had.  I’d been tracking my periods for so long I knew immediately that this cycle was different.  I told my sister I thought I could be pregnant, but I had about a week to go before I’d even be late.  I don’t like to test early anymore – it just adds to the misery when I get a negative result.  So I’d wait until I was late to even buy a test…but I just knew.

Then I started spotting 4 days before my period due, and I did the unthinkable – I gave up hope.  I always spot before my cycle; this was a little early, but it never, ever occurred to me that this may be different.  I just settled into my gloom, thinking the two week wait was over. I was spotting.  This was my period coming. I called my sister and we cried it out.  I just gave up.

And there are so many things I should have done differently.  Here it was, what we’ve been waiting for over eight years…and I ignored it.

The day came that my period was supposed to start.  I’d stopped spotting, mostly, so I figured it was coming any minute.  I was dizzy, nauseated, crampy…all things that happen when I’m about to get my period, only more so.  A day went by.  Two days.  I started spotting again, just a bit.  A third day.

When my period was four days late and I was still only spotting, I called my sister again.  She convinced me to test.  Sunday night, October 11th, I was officially 5 days late…and I finally took a pregnancy test.  Actually, I took four tests.  Three different brands.

I was pregnant.

Two days later I started bleeding, heavily.  I called my doctor, and her receptionist told me to go the ER.  I didn’t; I hate emergency rooms. Instead, I called a friend who had miscarried twice, and I had to promise her and Quincy that if it got worse or I got super light headed, we’d go to the ER. Then I went to the bathroom, closed myself in a stall and let all that life flow out of me.  And cried and cried and cried.

I didn’t have any pads.  I don’t wear them.  I put in a tampon to stop the mess and tried to go back to work.

I called my doctor the next morning, once the bleeding had let up a bit.  I was miscarrying and needed to see her.  Her office never returned my call, so I went to my union’s health clinic and got a referral for a new ob/gyn.  The diagnosis on the referral?

Spontaneous abortion.  This was a nightmare.

I went to my new doctor Friday the 16th.  I was better – the bleeding had let up a bit more, but it was still pretty bad.  I didn’t even think we had a chance this month, I got pregnant anyway, and then we lost it.  I was grieving, but doing better.

Until my new doctor did an ultrasound and we saw the little sac and all the…stuff…still in my uterus.  I broke down in her office.  I took a personal day off from work.  I thought I was okay, but I was – and am – so far from okay I don’t know what to do.

I’m still bleeding.  It’s been continuous and heavy for nearly two weeks… not counting the week or so of spotting prior to that.  It was bad enough to miscarry, even when we weren’t expecting a pregnancy – but seeing all that hope and life and possibility leaking out of me is the worst thing in the world. It would let up a little, and I’d switch to just a panty liner for a day…and then it everything comes flooding out again.  Having it stop and start like that over and over again…I start crying all over again every time I have to change pads.

I should have tested sooner.  It may not have changed the outcome, but I’ll never know, and it eats at me.  Maybe if I knew; if I would have tested sooner, I would have gone to the doctor when I didn’t stop spotting.  Maybe they could have treated the threatened miscarriage instead of it ending like it did.  I’ll never know.

Maybe if I knew, I wouldn’t have had coffee and tea trying to stop being so exhausted.  Maybe the caffeine prompted the miscarriage.  I dunno.  If I knew, maybe I wouldn’t have gone to my chiropractor and gotten electrical stimulation and ultrasound on my sore back, which could have also caused the miscarriage. I’ll never know, but I can’t stop myself from taking the blame.  Like it was my first test as a mom and I failed.

I’m not in a good place right now.

 

 

A little Thursday sitcom:

Background information:  An HCG is a blood test to check for the pregnancy hormone.  It stands for Human chorionic gonadotropin and it’s the hormone produced by embryos after they’ve implanted.  It’s what you test for when you pee on a stick and hope for a second pink line.

An HSG is hysterosalpingogram.  It’s a sadomasochistic procedure where they shove a garden hose through your cervix and squirt you full of radioactive dye, then snap pictures to check for blockages in your girlie parts.  I’ve had both, mainly cause they won’t do an HSG without an HCG, because it’s generally frowned upon to knock a zygote in the nose with radioactive sludge on a stick.

That said: I had the HSG Friday last week and have been not-so-patiently waiting results. Remember, it was delayed a month already. I had an HCG test (also called a beta test) a week ago today, because they needed to make sure I wasn’t pregnant before they shot me full of dye. Spoiler Alert:  I wasn’t.

Anyway, when I called Tuesday, I was told the results were in and my doctor would look over them and call me back Wednesday.  She didn’t.  They called today, left a message that the results were ready, and I returned their call.

Real conversation I just had with my doctor’s office (abridged, with color commentary added in bold):

Me: …Hi, I’m wondering about my test results…

Med Assist: One moment..

Insert overly-happy elevator music here…for 5 minutes…

Med Assist: Mrs. Miller?  Oh, hi.  Yes, the doctor has read over your results and, well….you’re not pregnant.

Blink. Blink blink blink. 

Me: Um, I know..? Ya moron. I thought we were checking for blockages?? Because we all KNOW I can’t get pregnant.

Med Assist: Um, what test did you have?

I swear I can HEAR her twirling her hair on her finger…

Me: An HSG.

Like it says in the notes.  Right in front of you.

Med Assist: Not an HCG?

*Brittney bashes head on desk*

Me: I’ve had one of those too.  We knew the results of that, which prompted the HSG.

Med Assist: And when did you have the HSG?

*Brittney bashes head on desk again*

Me: Friday.  It should be in the notes?

On your desk.  In front of you.  Ya moron.

Med Assist: One moment…

Insert overly-happy elevator music here…for 5 minutes…again…

…Brittney throws something….

Med Assist: Mrs. Miller?

Me: Yes ma’am.

Med Assist: The doctor must have only reviewed the HCG.  I’ll make a note to have her review the other test and call you back.

Me: Thanks.

FOR NOTHING!!!

I dunno, guys.  I’m seriously reconsidering my chances with this particular doctor.

Well.  I can now add “vasovagal response” to my list of vocabulary words I never want to hear again.

Let me start from the beginning.  First of all, the lady who rescheduled my HSG could actually do simple math, so my timing was perfect this month.  I had my pregnancy test the day before, it was negative (nah, really?!?!), and so my appointment was confirmed at 4pm Friday, Sept. 18th.

My husband picked me up at 3:30, I took the 4 Motrin my doctor suggested (because the procedure is “uncomfortable,” mind you), and went to the appointment.  I get there, they have me undress completely from the waist down, put on a hospital gown, and lay down on their x-ray slab.  They prop a pillow under my head and under my butt and cover me with one of those super-sterile tissue paper “blankets”.  So far, everything was well within the parameters of what I considered a “normal” medical procedure.

Then the fun started.

I’ve told you my concerns about male doctors and such messing around with female parts and pieces.  Turns out, my concerns were justified.

The guy comes in, and he’s nice enough.  He’s an older gentleman; he looks like he could be someone’s grandfather.  He actually reminded me of Ducky from NCIS, which actually made me feel better.  I mean, if you’re a 30-year-old male digging around in parts unknown, that’s one thing.  But if you’re over the age of, say, 55…clearly you have a decade or two of experience with this sort of thing, right?

So I relax.  Also, he’s chatting with me to get me more comfortable with what’s about to happen (just like Ducky!!!).  I’m feeling better about everything.  Maybe this won’t be so bad.

Famous last words.

He preps everything, which involves me scootching down the slab with my knees up.  Then Mr. Radiologist Dude inserts the speculum – not comfortable, but we’ve all been there…just a little pressure.  He then uses a gigantic cotton swab, like maybe something Shrek would use on his ears, to prep my cervix with iodine.  Or bactine, or Lord only knows what.  I’m not a medical professional.  It was something orange that prevents infections. It could have been Tang for all I know.

Then he says something that will forever change the course of this appointment.

“Hrmm.  It looks like your cervix is closed.  Usually we’d send you back to your doctor to get you dilated…but let’s just see if we can work around that.”

Um, sure.  Yeah.  That sounds like a great idea.

I take a deep breath.  How bad can it be, right?

I gotta quit it with the famous last words.

He proceeds to shove the medical equivalent of a garden hose through my closed cervix. Maybe it wasn’t that big, but Holy Mother of GOD the pain.

Imagine stomping on a lego.  Then stubbing your toe on a pissed-off rattlesnake.  Then falling headfirst into a bed of hot coals while being chomped on by an army of bullet ants.

This was worse.

I couldn’t breathe.  I couldn’t move.  He asks, I kid you not, “you okay up there?” and I couldn’t even answer him because MY ENTIRE BODY WAS PARALYZED FROM PAIN AND I COULDN’T SPEAK.

Everything flashed hot, then cold, I broke out in a sweat, and when he asked again, “um, should I stop?” I was finally able to croak out a pathetic little “no!”

BECAUSE NO WAY IN HELL WAS I GOING THROUGH THIS AGAIN.

Finally it’s over, and he removes the garden hose and everything else he’s crammed up there.  Then he tells me I can go change.

The next thing I remember, I’m lying on the floor in the changing room/bathroom. I don’t remember getting there, and I don’t remember getting my pants back on. I’m sweating, I literally can’t see – all I can see is a little tiny sliver of too-bright fluorescence surrounded by a field of black. When I manage to get up and stumble back to the x-ray slab, I barely make it. His assistant catches me, lays me on the slab while yelling for Mr. Radiologist Dude.

Then she grabs a blood pressure monitor.

Then they decide they need to call Quincy in there. Someone exclaims I’m white as a ghost and sweating. Now they’re talking about calling paramedics.  Oh, joy.

Quincy looks at me and doesn’t even crack a joke, so I know I must look like hell.  Mr. Radiologist Dude, in his ever-jovial demeanor, exclaims, “looks like you’re having a vasovagal response.  It’ll pass in a bit. Here, have some pedialyte.” Not joking. They gave me baby diarrhea water.

For those non-medical types like me out there, let me explain something to you about vasovagal responses: they occur when your entire freaking body shuts down as a result of intense trauma. Ya know, like when some dingbat shoves a tail pipe up your hoohoo and squirts radioactive dye into your girlie parts.

So.  Word of advice.  If your doctor ever refers to an HSG procedure as “uncomfortable,” you have my permission to bitch-slap her.  She’s a dirty liar.

Secondly, if you have concerns about someone without a vagina poking around in yours…follow your gut.  Wait for someone who knows what the hell it feels like down there.

Third, if your technician ever says “hrmm…” while looking inside your hoohoo, close your knees, girl, and run like hell.

Next time we’ll talk about the extra-long twin mattresses they have you wear out of there cause you’re seeping all kinds of strangeness.  I had to duck-walk to our car.  Ya know, once my blood pressure rose above “Dracula” and I drank my baby diarrhea water.

Okay, seriously.  When someone’s only job is to correctly schedule super-important, date-specific medical procedures, and they mess it up…they really need to find another line of work.

Argh.

I had – HAD – my HSG appointment scheduled for yesterday afternoon.  I had already requested a half day off from work, I brought all the Motrin with me; everything was ready.

And then I get a phone call around 9am.

Turns out, the woman looking over the appointments for that day noticed a problem with mine.  See, HSGs have to happen on a certain day of your cycle, early enough so they don’t interfere with ovulation, but late enough in the cycle to be clear of all, uh…residue…from your period.  Any additional gunk down there can lead to infections – they’re literally shoving a catheter up into your uterus and fallopian tubes and like things as sterile as possible.

When I called and scheduled it – like I was supposed to – on the first friggin’ day of my cycle, the man counted the days and set up my appointment for yesterday.  For yesterday.

But – the woman who was getting all the appointments ready yesterday noticed that he scheduled me for ONE DAY LATE.  He miscounted.  They’re supposed to happen between days 7-8, or something like that.  I was literally one day late, and couldn’t do the test.  They couldn’t risk it messing with my ovulation.

So, due to some moron’s inability to compute second grade math, I have to wait another month to see what’s going on.

I know it shouldn’t bother me so much.  I’ve waited this long, right?  What’s one more month?

But it does bother me.  I’m 33 years old.  How many more months do I really have?? And now I can’t do anything but wait. I had just started really getting proactive, searching out doctors, hopping on the infertility train and seeing where it takes us…and now we’re delayed a month.  It drives me crazy.

Well, silver linings: instead of having a medical procedure yesterday afternoon, I did the next best thing: bought a bottle of rum and headed to a friend’s house to vent.

The hangover is *almost* gone.

I think I’m psyching myself out too much about tomorrow. I’m over-analyzing  everything and it’s giving me a stress headache.  And most likely a stomach ulcer, but I’m pretty sure I can chalk that up to the gallons of coffee I’ve been throwing back recently.

Let me start from the beginning.

So, last week when I was “officially” diagnosed as infertile, my doctor had me schedule something called an HSG, or hysterosalpingogram.

Gesundheit.

It’s done at an imaging center, not in her office, so a bunch of strange people will be looking at all my goods. Not excited about that, but it’s necessary. An HSG is a procedure where they inject radioactive dye into your fallopian tubes and take a bunch of x-rays to check for blockages.  Sounds like a good way for me to pop out one of the XMen, but at this point I’ll take my chances.

Supposedly, if the radioactive dye travels into my ovaries, all is good, but if not, it means my tubes are blocked.  Eggs aren’t traveling down to my uterus, and that could be causing the infertility.

If my tubes are blocked, they can try to unblock them with laparoscopy, but that can damage the tubes… which can lead to a high risk of ectopic pregnancies down the line. So, if they are blocked, I’m in a little bit of trouble.

If they aren’t blocked, my doctor will refer me to a clinic for insemination, which is cheaper than IVF but still not covered by my insurance.

She says since I’m getting a dark line on my OPKs every month, I’m definitely ovulating.  This means I’m NOT a candidate for fertility drugs (Clomid). I don’t get a positive OPK every month, but my hormones do spike. She said that if she put me on Clomid, I’d have 5-6 eggs released which would never last to term, and I’d have to “selectively terminate” all but 1 or 2.

Which isn’t an option for me, but neither is popping out the Brady Bunch.

But, she also says that whether or not the tubes are blocked, there’s an uptick in the number of pregnancies that occur in the 1-3 months after an HSG.  Something about microscopic blockages that don’t show up on x-rays, but that get cleared out with the dye. So…who knows? Maybe it fixes the problem all on its own.

Oh, and the procedure is “uncomfortable” so she recommends 800mg Motrin 30 minutes before I go in. Super exciting.

I’m scared that it’ll show everything is clear and we still won’t have a cause of my infertility. I’m scared that it’ll show a blockage and I’ll have to have a risky procedure done to clear them. I’m scared it’ll hurt. I’m scared about a lot of things.

Oh, and the radiographer they have at the clinic is a guy.  I have nothing against male doctors, per se – my primary care doctor is a dude – but I’ve never had a male doctor look at my girlie parts before.  I’m more comfortable with women down there, seeing as they actually have the parts and pieces they’d be poking at, and, in my opinion, have a little more experience dealing with female nether regions.

I’m an equal-opportunity hater: I also don’t think female doctors or med techs need to be dealing with male parts and pieces.  They just don’t know.

I could request the female radiographer, but she isn’t available for weeks.  So I either wait, or I’m stuck with a dude. It’s freaking me out a bit.

Prayers are welcome, but at this point I don’t know if we should pray for blocked tubes or unblocked tubes. With blocked tubes, we’d have an answer, but with unblocked tubes…it’s still a mystery as to why I can’t get pregnant. I don’t know if I’d rather know why and face the consequences or NOT know why, and always be wondering what’s wrong with me. At least insurance would cover some of the cost if there was a legitimate reason for my infertility, like blocked tubes or endometriosis. If they aren’t blocked, it’s all out of pocket from here on out.

Sigh.