PostCoital Test

Wednesday I woke up with a horrible back ache.  It ached all day.  I went to the ARS' office for the postcoital test.  I guess I have been in the office enough, I didn't even have to check in. As soon as I walked in the door, the receptionist waved to me.  They were running late, about 30 minutes.  This was the first time I have ever had to wait.  It was no big deal.  Things / emergencies, non-emergencies come up.  The doctor was actually not in.  He was in Portland and then heading to San Diego for a conference.  After the nurse called my name and took me to the exam room and after undressing from the waist down, while I was sitting on the table, I noticed a very long pair of scissors on the exam table.  Actually I wasn't sure at that point if they were scissors or what they were.  They looked like scissors and I was kind of starting to freak out.  I almost took a picture of the instrument, but didn't want the nurse to walk in and see me bare butt taking a picture of this instrument.  The nurse came in and we started talking about the instrument.  She said that they probably shouldn't have put it out on the exam table first because it might have freaked me out.  I told her that I was a little scared of it.  She said that the exam would feel similar to a pap smear.  She said that she would stick the scissor-like instrument up me to get samples (4 of them) of my CM.  It didn't really hurt per say, but was uncomfortable and definitely lasted longer than a pap smear (at least any I have ever had).  She said that I had plenty of CM, which was good because sometimes when women take Clomid it messes / depletes their CM.  She took the 4 slides in to look at.  When she came back, I could tell that the news wasn't the best.  She said that my CM looks good, but there aren't as many sperm as they like to see swimming around.  She said they like to see 5-10 and only saw maybe 2-3.  The nurse said that at this point we could do 2 things: 1) could do IUI the next day and then continue with the plan or 2) continue with the plan.  She explained what IUI was - DH collects his sample in a container at home no more than an hour before my appointment.  I bring the sample to the office and they clean and select the "perfect" sperm which takes 45-50 minutes then they use a catheter to insert the sperm into me.  She said that this procedure costs $250.  She said normally for an IUI cycle, they would do it 2 times per each cycle, but since I had the postcoital test this cycle, we could only do it 1 time.  She said that there is a possibility (small) that I could get pregnant with the 2-3 sperm that are there and that it was up to us. She said if I thought DH and I would be at all interested to go ahead and schedule it and that I could always cancel it.  DH said that we should go through with it.  So in a little over 6 hours, he will collect a sample and then I will take it to the ARS' office and the IUI procedure will be started. 

I have to say when the nurse said that there wasn't enough sperm in the CM, I had mixed feelings. Part of me was like what, I can't believe that about my man.  Then I was almost relieved that this wasn't all my "fault".  Then I was kind of scared and unsure of what to do / think next.  DH said after I told him the news, he felt depressed at first.  He said that he started thinking "It's because I'm overweight."  "It's because I drink too much diet coke."  "It's because of the underwear I wore growing up."  Then he said that he told himself "Why should I do this to myself, I didn't think this way about DW when we thought it was issues with her?"  I told him that he has a glimpse of what I feel like every day.  Now he knows (kind of) what I feel like and how I feel.  The truth is it is not my fault or his fault.  I don't know why my body won't ovulate (regularly) on it's own and why he had low sperm count / numbers in the CM.  I don't know if we will ever know.  Maybe it is something that we did or are doing, but maybe it isn't.  Maybe that's just the way it is and no matter what we did or do, it will still be the same.  I know that God is preparing our hearts for a 2nd child.  When we are ready He will bless us with that wonderful gift.  It's on His terms and time table.  All we can do is pray to Him and keep loving each other.  We definitely can't blame each other or ourselves.

Please continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers.