Seven Million

I haven't really shared much about this third cycle of fertility treatments. I guess it's mostly because there weren't any new developments. When I went in for my ultrasounds to monitor my follicle growth after taking my generic Clomid, it showed I had one large follicle and three smaller follicles. My large follicle was at an acceptable size to give me my shot to trigger ovulation, but they thought since my follicles in the past grew much larger, we could wait a day and try to get the smaller, not-so-ripe follicles large enough to trigger as well.

It turns out that I didn't need the trigger shot. When I had my ultrasound the next day, it showed that my large follicle had ovulated. It wasn't too late, though, since we deduced that it likely happened early that morning. I was even having some pretty significant cramping on the way to this appointment that had quickly gone away, so I was feeling comfortable that I had really just ovulated.

But time was of the essence. We had to do the IUI that day, as soon as possible. I called Jamie at work. He carpools and didn't drive that day, so I had to pick him up, take him home then deliver his little buddies to the doctor's office for preparation. I managed all of this in about an hour, so I was feeling... accomplished? I don't know, I guess I needed a win, so I chose that.

It takes about an hour for them to prepare the insemination. Basically, they separate Jamie's super sperm from the fluid so it's just a small concentrated amount that they shoot into my uterus via catheter through my cervix. It's really fun?

Luckily this time was much easier since I had just ovulated, my cervix was more open, which made the process much quicker than the last cycle. Once it's finished, they propped my butt up and made me lay there for 10 minutes. They set an egg timer and offered me magazines.

And now we're waiting. Again. It's the hardest part of trying to conceive. Right now I've got about six days until I find out if it worked. If my past two cycles are a prediction, then I'll find out before six days if it didn't work. If, in fact, it didn't work this cycle, we've decided to take the next cycle off to reassess and reevaluate and possibly get a second opinion on how we should be handling this.

If it did work, then scratch all that.