Random updates

The saline sono and trial transfer went smoothly last week, save my tremendous difficulty with the whole full-bladder thing. I had only vague instructions about what constituted a full bladder, and after Lindy’s experience with a not-full-enough bladder, I was a bit freaked. So I think maybe I overcompensated. And then they were running late (they had a couple of retrievals that morning and had tried to bump my appointment, but I really wanted J to come with me in case it was terrible, and his schedule wasn’t flexible) and then they did the trial transfer (needs a full bladder) and the saline sono (doesn’t need a full bladder) all at once, which I guess made for quicker work overall, but meant I had to try not to pee on the good doctor for even longer as he poked and prodded. So it was not fun, but not due to pain or anything. The other problem was that I felt really exposed (moreso than usual) - the RE had the speculum and the catheter and whatever else up the ol’ vag, and the nurse had the abdominal US, and J was just standing there holding my hand and looking around, and I don’t know why they even bothered to give me the little paper sheet since it wasn’t even in the picture. So that part wasn’t really fun, either. And after the doc and the nurse left, I had a bit of a meltdown (maybe the fluid had to leave my body, and my eyes were the only way?) before I was able to get to the bathroom. Oy. Note to self - next time, the bladder doesn’t need to be quite so full! (Do I have to lie there for the 30 minutes or whatever it is after transfer with the full bladder? Because I could really see the merits of a bedpan at that point. Really.)

J went for another SA last week. Results are still pending (part of the test has to get sent out so it takes longer, and then I couldn’t call AT ALL today, so I’ll try tomorrow) but I managed to eke out a brief report on the “collection room” since it’s the first time he’s done an onsite “collection”. He didn’t say much, but when pressed reported that there was a loveseat (me: “Did you sit on it?” him: “Yes, but I spread out a towel.” me: “Good.”) and a big TV and he made use of the video materials. Which makes sense, since he doesn’t get a lot of that at home. Pictures and stories are easy to store under the bed or browse in a store or on the internet, but movies are a bit of a rarity, and automatically more exotic. I didn’t ask what kind of movie it was, and I think I’ll leave it that way. I was really fascinated this time around, but it’s already a bit creepy to think that this little room will be part of our babymaking adventure, so if I have to think of it at all, I’m going to concentrate on the towel (hey, we use towels to clean up after sex at home, too!) and leave it at that.

Things yet to do in the preliminary stages:

Check on the results of J’s SA. (He’s been on an acupuncture/vitamin/herb regimen that hopefully has helped his morphology. A teeny-tiny voice in my head thinks this will somehow get us out of the ICSI camp, but really, any improvement will be good and increase our chances, even with the ICSI.)

Tell the clinic which pharmacy I want to use. (I think I’m going with the Apothecary Shop in AZ - they had great prices, and the pharmacist was really nice and knew people at my clinic by name, which seemed reassuring.)

Order up the first round of drugs. (Or all of the drugs? I’m not really sure how this works.)

Schedule a massage and mani/pedi for the weekend before I start Lupron. (I’ve been holding on to a gift certificate from the holidays last year because I couldn’t figure out when to go or what to do.)

Add some items to my “comfort box” which currently contains nothing but reading materials. (I’m not sure what else to put in there, but I really like the idea. Any suggestions?)

Get up the nerve to start Lupron on Halloween. (I’ve been instructed on the use of Lupron, and I won’t get any more info about stims/dosages until my suppression check - November 9.)

Brace myself for the birth of our friends’ baby - because it will probably happen the day I start Lupron or something. (Of course, I’m happy for them blah blah blah but within this particular group of friends, we were really supposed to be next. And we’re not. So it sucks just a bit.)

In the meantime, I’ve been working on the story of how we chose our clinic, because I think the RE’s nickname will come from there, and because other than the very (very very) long brain-dump above, I don’t have much cycle-related news. I'll try to be more interesting in the future (I know, I know, the point isn't for me to be interesting, but it seems like that would be nicer in the long run) but for now I guess I just needed to catch up with all of this.