Back to Paint

I remember the IUI like it was yesterday. It was probably one of the weirdest things I have ever experienced.

The weeks leading up to the IUI were really no different than any other weeks in our marriage. I was taking my herbs again religiously and we were full of anxiety and anticipation about what the procedure would bring...but basically we had to just live life as usual because nothing more could be done until I started to ovulate.

We had talked to the doctor that first time we met him but that was the last time we ever even saw him or heard from him. After that initial meeting it was nurses that took care of us. Which was fine with us really since we didn't really like the Magic doctor to begin with. The week of the IUI life became crazy, mostly for me not my husband. Although dealing with me on a crazy week is a lot of work for that poor guy! I had to see the nurses several times that week to have a vaginal ultrasounds. This is when I began to feel a little like I was in the twilight zone.

When I was looking at my ovaries, for the 2nd time that week, on an ultrasound I couldn't help but tear up. It was heart breaking to me that my eggs were just...eggs...no baby. I was having the ultrasound to see that indeed eggs were being produced and that the size of them was healthy. But really all I wanted to hear was....you don't have to do this because your ALREADY PREGNANT.....its all I could daydream about as I lay there. Instead what I heard from the woman doing the ultrasound was....see those dark circles on the screen those are follicles it is what we are looking for. I already knew what we were looking for because I had been there looking at these same follicles two days prior but instead of interrupting her I let her talk...she said it looks like you are producing two follicles this cycle. I was so excited that there were still two..that gave us better odds on insemination day. I thought how could it not happen then if there two eggs!!!! She then said...Everything looks good and they should be ready to go for fertilization in the next few days..so call us when you know your ovulating and we will get you and husband right in.

I left the clinic that day and headed straight to the drug store. I was told I also had to do an ovulation test so that meant I had to pee on a stick for the next few days so we would get the exact day I was ovulating. I had also been on top of taking my temperatures for Hudson to give us a better understand of the months prior if this worked....it was just another piece to our puzzle. Just like clock work when my temperature jumped that morning of ovulation day the pee stick also told me I was ovulating! I called the clinic and told them and we were headed down within that hour.

Before we got out of the car we prayed. Again, asking God to hear us and bless us with a child. As we walked down the hallway looking for the office where it was all going to take place I had butterflies in my stomach. It felt more like knots really. I was so torn about just wanting this whole experience to be over and really wanting it to work! And then we were there standing outside the office door....we gave each other the are you ready look and then we walked in. We couldn't believe the other couples that were in the room. There was probably 4 or 5 other people in our same situation sitting there. All of us waiting on answers about our future. I was overwhelmed with emotion and so I just checked us in and picked up a trashy magazine that I pretended to read. I couldn't concentrate on any word I read tho. All I could think was how can there be so many people like us....and please JUST let this happen! I didn't know how much more I could take.

And then they called my husbands name. He had to go across the hall and make a deposit so to speak. They informed him there were magazines and videos of his choice. His face was red immediately at the thought of someone else being able to hear about the magazines and videos. They asked me to wait in the waiting room until he was done. Its hard to explain how weird it is to know your husband is across the hall in a sterile room trying to help conceive a child while I as the wife waited in a waiting room. When I visualized us conceiving it wasn't anything like this...I sat there and wondered if he felt as weird as I did? After what seemed like an eternity he came back to the waiting room. We both giggled like small children on the play ground as we made eye contact. And then he said...this is sooooo bizarre!

The next step was what they call sperm washing...or as I call it...give 'em a bath. What they do is take out only the best swimmers. They leave behind the two headed ones...or the ones that swim in a circle...or the dead ones. And just give us the A-team...which is what we needed only the best! However, it takes about an hour to find the A-team and so we were sent off to get a cup of coffee.

When we left the office hand in hand we both felt it...a spark of hope! This was going to work. As we sat and had a cup of joe we talked about the future for the first time in a long time the conversation was positive. And we began to pick out a theme for that white room. We were back to paint!