HSG: The Event

I don't know what is wrong with me lately. My blog is so neglected. I THINK about writing every day, even sometimes thinking "oh, I should write that thought down" so that I write about it later. But then I don't. Maybe I need to do a 7 day challenge or something (write something every day for 7 days) to get the juices flowing. In any case, enough blogging about blogging.

The HSG

It was okay. It hurt, but I survived. I'd heard anything from "didn't feel a thing" to "I thought I was going to die" and even a few "I passed out"s. I didn't know quite what to expect.

I got up early, took Robbie to school, took my 800mg of Motrin as instructed and headed to the hospital. And then I waited. And waited. At an hour past my appointed time, I put my coat on the arm of the chair and nodded off. Heaven knows what the woman who came to get me thought, but I was tired.

Once in the room, a competent sounding radiology fellow came to tell me about the procedure. I mostly just nodded and tried not to chuckle at his pronunciation of vagina. "vag-ih-nuh." I should have counted how many times he said it. The whole thing struck me as absolutely comical. Of course, then he confirmed that I'd had an abortion. Pardon?

Now don't get me wrong, I know that a miscarriage is a spontaneous abortion, and I have never felt gutted by that term the way that a lot of people do. I understand why many miscarriage survivors do, it just has never affected me that way. I honestly didn't know if he had his facts wrong, or that's what he meant. I clarified that I've had 2 miscarriages. "Oh..uh.. mis....carriages, yes.." and then started talking about how they would look for scarring from my abortions. I can't say I appreciated it, technically correct or not. But the real fun was yet to begin.

They get me up on the table. I was expecting stirrups. Stirrups and I are BFFs, you know. But no. Just a table. So I had to bring my feet together and tilt my knees outward. I had knee surgery a few years ago and this was not the most comfortable position (never mind the whole naked vagihnuh thing.) but again, just go with it. The regular radiologist and the tech were both relaxed and sympathetic. But then the fellow came with the speculum. And by speculum, I mean the jaws of life that they had clearly borrowed from the local fire department.

Jimminy Christmas that hurt! As someone who has been through more examinations, probings & surgeries of my lady bits than I care to count, I can't say I had dreaded that part. Sure, it's never awesome, but this was definitely unexpected. I'm now convinced that my radiology fellow had never actually seen a vagihnuh before, either professionally or otherwise. The regular radiologist kept saying "no no, not like that." "no, not that wide." "here, move it this way." This is not a conversation that one wants to hear near her crotch. I focused on breathing through the pain while I was sterilized. Then came the expected cramp when the catheter was inserted. I've had enough IUIs that I was prepared for that.

They injected the dye- more cramps. Nothing I couldn't handle. Breathe in, breathe out. They asked me to roll to my right side to get a look at the tube. And that is when the real fun began. My LEFT side felt like it was going to revolt. I stifled a groan. Then roll to my left side. My left side was on fire! I couldn't stifled the groan that time. Now I just focused on not crying. And then it was over.

As soon as all their equipment was gone, the cramping began to ease. The radiologist said "everything looks good." but then stopped and told me not to leave until he'd viewed the films. I cleaned myself up and waited. He came out and said that everything looked "pretty good" but that he'd look closer at the films to check for scarring. "Pretty good," he said again. I didn't really know if pretty good mean actually good or okay-but-not-great. I just knew I was ready to go.

Dr. K left a voicemail that afternoon and clarified. "Completely normal." Both tubes were fine and my "cavity" was as well. I was to set up a phone consult and we'd go from there. That consult is on Friday. I assume we'll officially declare it 25mg Clomid & IUI and call it a day. I do intend to ask about the dramatic pain on my left side.

That left ovary has been cranky since I started fertility treatments in 2006. Or at least, I thought it was my ovary which was cranky. It hurts when they palpate it at my year exam. At one point, I stopped having periods right around the time I weaned from pumping for Robbie and my OB and I both thought perhaps I had a cyst. An ultrasound showed a small one, and a round of provera fixed it right up. But it still aches almost every month around ovulation time. But maybe it's something else? Maybe it's my tube? Maybe I'm just a paranoid neurotic hypochondriac, I don't know.

Either way, everything appears to be open and intact, so that is good news. Testing phase complete. Next step- treatments. Someone ready the Xanax.

--Trish