By SN
Since I have the whole weekend to myself, I guess I'm finally up to bat in terms of it's time for me to add my thoughts to this little project.
I'll start with some updates - since apparently, we have not been great at keeping up with blogging. When last we posted, the plan was that we would do a bit of a "test-run" with the ultrasounds and things in the month before we actually tried to inseminate. We are now a couple of weeks out from that trial and I think I can finally talk about it.
It wasn't so much that it went poorly, just that it sort of really knocked me in the head as to reality of what we're jumping into. I called the doctor's office on Day 1 and made an appointment for Day 10 to do a "15-minute" ultrasound. My lunch was from 12:50 to 1:20 so I made the appointment for 1:00. I snuck out a little early and arranged for someone to cover me if we ran over a little bit. LB was off that afternoon and met me at the doctor's. I love our doctor, but he can talk your ear off so, Although the appointment was on-time, between him talking and it being the first ultrasound (so everything was inspected thoughoughly), it was 2:00 before I was back to work. Looking back, this was my first lesson in patience and how little control I (we?) have of this process. For those of you who know me, you will not find it hard to believe that this shook me up a little - even if I didn't realize it at the time. Anyway, on Day 10 there is not supposed to be much of a cyst (which develops around the egg that will be released) so the follicles are usually 6 to 7 mm in diameter. Always the over-achiever, on my Day 10 I had a nice, 12-mm cyst on my right ovary. I'm still not convinced if my counting was off or I just have non-average timing.
Since I appeared to have a good looking follicle, he wanted me back a couple of days later. Since I had some down-time from 9:45 to 11, I made that appointment for 10:15. I got there a little early and went on back - by myself this time because LB had to work - and waited. And waited. And waited. *Pause here for the back story: Right before I left to go to the doctor, I had gotten my final grade for my last class for my Master's degree - and it was a "B." The only "B" I got in my whole undergrad and Master's. I know, I know, it's one "B" who cares; but let's just say it hit me sort of hard so I was not in a great emotional place already.* And waited. 10:30 came and went, 10:35, 10:40, and at 10:45 - when no one had even checked to make sure I was still there - I put my clothes back on and left. I can only imagine what the little lady at the front desk thought as I left - tears streaming and barely able to speak - but they were very apologetic and the doctor actually called me that afternoon to try to set something up for the next day.
The next day was Saturday (and my graduation) so it wouldn't work, but the doctor met LB and I Sunday afternoon to do the second ultrasound. We had a winner - by Sunday the 12-mm cyst was up to 17.6 mm (he usually likes them around 18 at the peak.) In the meantime, I had a postivie OPT (ovulation predictor test or kit - OPK) on the Friday - but it was negative Saturday and then positive both Sunday and Monday) so he was pretty sure that Sunday would have been our day. He wanted me to go back one more time Monday to see if it had gotten any bigger or changed. I just went ahead and took the afternoon off on Monday and LB was off so we went in and it was gone! P.S. if you don't know, that's a good thing because it indicates the cyst ruptured and the future Little Flash was headed down the pipe.
Basically, our test run was a success and all that's left is deciding on a donor - oh, and that little bit about paying for it.
SN
