I Want the 29 Million That I Paid For!

Unlike all of our previous IUI attempts, Sweetie was not in town and thus could not provide a fresh specimen for use. I knew this ahead of time and so I had him make two deposits of troops in the Sperm Bank so that we wouldn't miss an entire cycle because of his work schedule. All told, he banked about 60 million sperm (Super Sweetie!). Only half usually survive the unfreezing, so the projected total for the insemination was 29 million. It was such a relief not to have to worry about how many he might produce on a given day, too, so it was worth the cost of freezing right there.

I arrived yesterday at Dr. Uterus' office at the appointed hour for The Procedure, but not after seeing Dr. Uterus drive into the garage while I was walking to his office - glad to know I wouldn't be keeping him waiting since I was running a little late myself. While I was being ushered into the ubiquitous exam room, his nurse told me that they had 11 million motile sperm unfrozen. I knew this meant that they had only unfrozen the one batch, not both. Rather than panic, though, I simply asked if it was possible to have the other one and told her that the plan all along was to use both. I refrained from demanding the 29 million sperm that I had paid for. There was no need to be rude, after all.

This turned out not to be a problem as it only takes 10 minutes to unthaw them (I'm still kind of fuzzy on how that actually happens - Sweetie swears they put it in the microwave). I was very glad to have that extra time to relax and do my version of meditation while listening to my favorite album by Matt Pond PA on my iPod. I was nicely relaxed and in a good place mentally when it was finally time.

I was nice and comfortable (well as comfortable as you can be on a table with a sheet while lying on paper) when Dr. Uterus came in as his usual bright self. I decided ahead of time that I wanted to have some time after he inserted the speculum to relax again since that particular part of the procedure is always uncomfortable and made me more tense. He had no problem with this and I was glad to have that extra time to get used to it. There was a little discomfort with the actual insemination, but that was similar to my prior ones.

In the end, we had 25.5 million motile after the unthawing which was pretty close to the anticipated number. I was perfectly happy with this outcome. And I was really proud of myself for being able to relax and be positive about the insemination, particularly in light of all of the hand-wringing-drama that it took to get there. Rather than assume that it was doomed because I was so worried, I recognized that I had a good chance and that chance was no where near being over.