IUI - the professional turkey baster

So, Travis and I had our first IUI this past Monday. I know it sounds weird but I was SO excited for it, like the kind of excited you get the night before a vacation or when you were a kid waiting for Christmas morning. It felt like we were actively working on fixing our problem and that was just so exhilarating. In the back of my mind, I know it is not good to feel this hopeful, because the disappointment if it fails is so much worse, but your mind is going to think what it wants to think.

I had made the huge error last month of withholding all sex while waiting for the IUI and when my meter failed to read the LH surge last month, we completely missed any chance of having a baby. So, we decided this month to have sex a couple of times during my "high" fertility days, but still gave it a rest for almost 2 days prior to the IUI. This has been explained by many ob-gyn's that an every other day schedule is the best method when scheduling sex for baby-making because they say it takes 48 hours for men to regenerate the required number of sperm to effectively fertilize an egg. 

I had made an appointment ahead of time with my ob-gyn, so we had our schedule down. Travis had to collect his "sample" and then we had half an hour to get it to the MD office. Same as when he went for his semen analysis, we needed to keep it as close to body temperature as possible. I got the pleasure of holding it between my legs while he drove; I'm pretty sure his eager offer to drive was so I would have to be the sperm holder. 

Once at the office, the nurse took the sample and then we just sat around for about 5-10 minutes. Travis went back to the exam room with me when it was time for the procedure, and as I have said in the past, I would highly recommend having your husband/significant other with you throughout these procedures.
1. It really is a comfort. You're doing a lot of things that are foreign and doctors' offices in general can cause anxiety, so a hand to hold or someone to distract you makes a big difference
2. Even though we are not making a baby the traditional way, WE are still making a baby. I think you have to go through this as a team for your relationship to stay strong.
3. Men's faces are just funny when they see some of the equipment that the ob-gyn pulls out. Men are visual creatures and I don't think they can effectively relate to what you as a woman are going through unless they physically see it with their own eyes.

The procedure itself goes in the following steps:
1. The semen is centrifuged down twice until it becomes a concentrated ball of sperm
2. This concentrated sample is put in to a sperm wash in two test tubes

Pic of sperm wash bottle (empty)

3. The ob-gyn rolls and inverts the tubes by hand. No vigorous shaking is what my doc told me. This takes about 5 minutes and the color goes from bright pink to a creamy light pink color
4. The doc then draws up all but literally one drop of the sample in to a syringe that attaches to the end of a skinny catheter (i.e. the turkey baster :) )

Pic of catheter w/ syringe filled with sperm + wash

5. The drop of sample not used is put on a glass slide to examine under the microscope to check out sperm function
6. The catheter has to be inserted up in to your uterus, so they start out much like a typical pelvic exam and slide it on up. The doc reviewed the positioning of my uterus ahead of time, but do not ask me how else he would know where he was anatomy wise. Some things I think are just better not to think about
7. Once the catheter is in place, the wash is squeezed out. It is about 3mL of liquid over all. This places the sperm smack dab where they need to be to easily fertilize an egg

I did have one complication, where he could not get the catheter past the upper part of my cervix. He had to use a second instrument, it's a big long word that starts with a T, but it looked like a long pair of scissors. He told me that this could be painful, kind of like the HSG. Not cool. We all know how much I loved that. As it turned out, there was a burning pain from the instrument (which was only used to help tilt my cervix to provide an easier opening, there was no cutting like with typical scissors, thank God!), but it was not as strong and, because I had experienced it before, it did not give me anxiety. 

Once the procedure was complete, I was supposed to lay on the exam table for about 10 minutes. He went and looked at the sperm sample and then he let Travis look at it to, which I thought was so cool for him. I didn't get to see it, but Travis said it was just amazing how many sperms were in that little drop and how fast they were moving. Good sign!

After the procedure was over, I had a lot of soreness and maybe bloating, which I think were from the tilting and probably some air getting squeezed through the catheter. This lasted about 2 days total and was especially tender on the first day. Anyone reading this that may know, is this typical? Also, how did this procedure compare to yours? I'm thinking the infertility docs probably have more high tech equipment. Finally, somewhat unrelated, does anyone know if they ever double ovulated while on clomid, like on day 14 and 16? I had two temp spikes this month, which seems really weird.