Second and last IUI

Today was the day for my second IUI. I'd love to say that everything was wonderful, but it wasn't. The lab took forever to prep the husbands sample and I was a ball of anxious energy. But happy energy, I started to drive the husband a bit crazy with my non stop chatter and questions.

Our FS did the IUI, he came over in between surgeries to perform it. Yesterday when the lovely nurse told me that the IUI was booked she said that another FS would be performing it but this morning the clinic rang and told me that if we could get in about 15mins earlier than our scheduled time our FS would be available. (Which meant I rushed to get ready and forgot to shave my legs, whoops!)

I found it to be really painful again. I have never had a problem with pap smears or internal ultrasounds but this procedure hurt. It hurt last time so I knew what was coming and that probably made it worse too.

The husbands sample wasn't that great, his count had risen to 10 million but after washing the count was down to 500,000. After the IUI was done our FS stayed and talked with us a while, he always uses the sandwich technique when giving bad news. He layers the bad news in between to good or positive things. He was happy that I'd responded well and had surged on my own without needing a trigger shot, but with the husbands count being low it does drastically reduce our chances this cycle. It wasn't so low that it was pointless performing the IUI because you only need one sperm to make it to that egg and we've got 500,000 of them on their way.

The FS said that with the husbands SA always being borderline or below average that this is the final IUI he'll do with us. He's hopeful that this cycle will be successful, but if it isn't then our next step is IVF with ICSI. I started to get a bit upset, I wasn't crying I just got a little teary. He saw this and was a bit concerned, he said it's not that we can't get pregnant it's just that we just need more science to get us there. And that for the next two weeks my job is to relax and think happy thoughts.

The curt nurse from last week assisted with the IUI and recommended that the husband and I both take an extra supplement, coQ10. I already take Elevit, a prenatal that the GP and the FS reccomended and the husband takes Menevit which is a multivitamin to support mens fertility. It was after she'd talked to us about that and handed me my progesterone pessaries (only one 200mg, once a day! Not one morning and 400mg at night!) and aftercare paperwork that I realised she'd made a mistake. She'd given me someone else's paperwork. I was just about to say something when she came back in with the right form and corrected the mistake.

But then when I got home I noticed something strange on the box of pessaries, there was a date that said exp Sept 2013. All I could think was, surely that's not the expiry date! This little box of progestrone cost me $80, it can't be expired! So I opened them up and there it was, stamped on each pessary wrapper was "expiry Sept 13" I rang the clinic and was put through the to the nurse, sure enough the progesterone was expired. Apparently she'd even entered the expiry date onto my file and just hadn't realised we're in October. Ah huh. She only checked the date with us at least three times, once on the consent form, once on the sample when it was dropped off and once on the prepared washed sample.

A small part of me thinks that she did it on purpose and wants this cycle to fail for us. I just can't help it. I know it's an over reaction and I'm being paranoid but first it was her telling me that "when this cycle fails" and now the expired medication.

I went back down to the clinic and exchanged the progestrone for a new box, the poor receptionist kept apologising and showed me the date on the new box twice, March 2015.

Now I wait. The beta is on October 31st, the day before our wedding anniversary and the day before the husband starts his two weeks of annual leave. So we're either going to a great anniversary and break and start planning how we share the wonderful news with our families. Or we're going to spend those two weeks shuffling money around to pay for the IVF and attending appointments, counseling and education sessions.