Baby Shower

As luck would have it, the day of my most painful IUI ever was also the day of a friend’s baby shower. On the best of days, a baby shower is potentially traumatic to a woman dealing with infertility. Getting that glaring reminder – that there’s something wrong with you, that normal people don’t need drugs and catheters and blood draws and ultrasounds just to get knocked up – two hours after yet another technician has penetrated your cervix was not something I was looking forward to. At least the baby shower didn’t happen to land on the first day of my cycle. That would have been trying.

I left the decision until almost the last minute as it was, informing the hostess that I wouldn’t know until a few days in advance whether I could make it. Five days before the shower, I made my decision, and let the hostess know. One day before the shower, I tested positive on my ovulation prediction kit (OPK) – and had to tell the hostess I would be a bit late to the shower because I had a doctor’s appointment. I am sure she was puzzled. I did, though, let my friend, Hope, know exactly why I’d be late.

T almost didn’t let me go. I was still curled up in pain after the recommended 10-15 minutes of lying on the table had elapsed. When T saw how white I was, and how I was walking somewhat hunched over, he said he was scared I wouldn’t be able to drive out to the shower. I convinced him I would make it, and the pain subsided – not completely, but a lot – by the time I arrived.

As far as baby showers go, and judged from the perspective of a rational observer, Hope’s shower offered up nothing about which to complain. No over-the-top cutesiness, baby talk evenly balanced with non-baby talk, and only two party games – participation voluntary.

I am not a rational observer.

One woman, a friend of Hope’s whom I’d met once or twice before, mentioned that she wished she could have a third child. Since she had two girls already, she wanted a boy. She joked that, if she carried another girl, her husband probably wouldn’t even show up to the delivery room. Someone suggested she do sex selection via IVF. I said nothing. But, I admit, I was bitter. How nice to have two healthy children, so easily. How fortunate to joke that having a female child would be of so little consequence that your husband would ignore her birth. How flippant, to suggest offhandedly fertility treatments solely to choose the sex of your child, probably blissfully ignorant about the pain and the side effects and the costs involved.

This probably sounds as if I were more bitter than I really was. These thoughts were fleeting, and I extracted myself from the conversation quietly.

Surprisingly, what affected me the most was not the cute baby clothing, or the tiny toys, or the baby talk, or someone asking whether I planned to have children. What caught me off-guard and threw me for a loop was that another of Hope’s friends, Cindy, was also pregnant, about 7 months along. I’ve been acquainted with Cindy through Hope on and off throughout the years, and I like her, but we’ve never been friends. So I’m not sure why it felt like such a punch in the gut to see a second pregnant woman at the shower. Maybe I just needed the time to mentally prepare, to put up a wall.

In the end, I went to the baby shower. And I’m glad I did. I am happy for Hope – truly I am – even as I am occasionally sad for myself. So I am glad I made the decision to try to put aside my negative thoughts and celebrate this new life that is coming soon

Back in the Stirrups Again

There's that old saying about doing the same thing, over and over, and expecting different results this time as a sign of insanity.... I found myself with my feet up in the stirrups over the past two days for yet another IUI, hoping again that I'll defy the 3% success rate odds.

In June, my entire treatment cycle was canceled because the Clomid caused me to develop ovarian cysts. I couldn't start Clomid in July, though, because I was traveling when I needed to visit the clinic for a diagnostic ultrasound. Clomid would have doubled my success rate odds to a whopping 6%. Alas.

I like to describe an IUI (intrauterine insemination) as the "medical equivalent of using a turkey baster." The clinic processes a semen sample, washing it to select only the best and brightest sperm, and somehow "waking up" the sluggish ones. Then, my feet up in the stirrups, my ass all but hanging off the end of the table, naked from the waist down, the technician inserts a catheter into my cervix. Through the catheter, the sperm are deposited directly into the uterus, apparently so that they have less of a chance to get lost and don't have as far to swim. Wait. I thought these were the best and brightest. Apparently, lazy, too.

In my experience, the pain can fall anywhere in the range from, "Wait, you're done? I didn't know you started," to, "F@s#$, I'm going to kick you in the face!" Yesterday's IUI fell squarely on the painful end of that spectrum. Normally, when there's pain, it's more like menstrual cramping, but only when the catheter is inserted. Yesterday, the pain got increasingly worse as the technician worked - and it did not end when she took everything out. I lay on the table, with one hand over my eyes and the other gripping my husband's hand, white with pain. Even after 20 minutes, I was scared to get up because I thought I might pass out or vomit. When I did get off the table and went into the bathroom, I saw that my face was pale as a sheet.

The next morning, of course, I was fearful, knowing I'd have the same technician. The wait seemed eternal; as compared to 1 1/2 hours from start to finish yesterday, the whole process today took 3 1/2 hours. There was no apparent reason for the delay. Luckily, today's procedure went a million times more smoothly. Only some slight cramping when the catheter was inserted, and it stopped within a minute.

So here I am, in another two week wait. Hoping that this time, the outcome will be different.