Tuesday was the Big Day, IUI #3. I had the trigger shot on Monday and went in yesterday for the procedure…the whole thing still kind of gives me the creeps. I guess it’s the whole getting-pregnant-without-having-sex thing that weirds me out.
As I was lying on the table, feet in the most uncomfortable stirrups known to man (they are these plastic shelf-like things that you put your knees into, so instead of having your feet propped up in the stirrups, these things force you to splay your legs out and make a totally awkward position even worse! I HATE the shelfy-things!) Anyway, I was trying my best to breathe and relax, when I heard the doctor take the speculum out of the drawer of torture devices and heard the distinct clang clang of the metal knobs being adjusted…it was not, as they say, music to my ears.
BeBop offered to drive me to the doctor’s office, and I kept saying "No, thanks — I’m fine. You can go back to the office." I felt like saying, "I don’t need YOUR help I can do this all by myself thankyouverymuch," which technically is not true, but that’s how I felt. Anyway, he insisted on driving and waiting and I was actually quite thankful afterwards.
As we were walking into the office, I ran into one of my sister’s best friends. She’s pregnant and was there for her glucose test. If we’d arrived 10 seconds later than we did, she would have been inside the lab. But with our luck, we fling open the door and there she is.
And there we were. Me and BeBop, heading to the gynecologist’s office with a sterile cup of my husband’s sperm tucked into my bra.
"Oh hi, HI…funny seeing you here!!! God, we are running sooo late…okay, yep, well have FUN with the blood test yah bye bye," I stammered as we rushed by her.
I was so embarrassed to run in to someone I knew just moments before the IUI because this time around, we’re not telling anyone we’re doing fertility treatments. Last time, I told ANYONE and everyone. BeBop is still pissed at me for telling our mechanic, whose wife — to this day — pesters him for details when he goes in for an oil change. I told all of my family, friends, coworkers and various randoms I met throughout my day. I kid you not I practically rented a frigging billboard to announce it to all of greater Northern California.
Looking back, I was so sure we would have a baby, that it didn’t seem odd to share our plans. When people would ask, shortly after we married, "do you have kids?" it seemed disingenuous to just say "no" and leave it at that. That was only the first part of our story, there was so much more — Hello! Let me yammer on about the most intimate details of our private life while you stare at me in abject horror.
"No we don’t have kids YET but we’re trying and trying is so…trying! But I know we’ll be pregnant soon. I just tend to ovulate really late in my cycle and they suspect I might have PCOS but I don’t think I do because I do ovulate on my own, just a little late, and I don’t have excess hair on my face and blah blah blah blah blah…"
GOD WHY IS THIS WOMAN TELLING ME ALL THIS I JUST ASKED A SIMPLE QUESTION TO MAKE CONVERSATION?!?
I guess I so believed that it would happen, it just didn’t seem like a big deal to share. But as time went on, every person in my life from the mechanic’s wife to people I barely knew through work would constantly ask, "how are you feeling?" Which was just a nice way of saying: are you pregnant yet?! GAWD what’s wrong with you two?!? Are you sure you’re doing it right?!?!?
The pressure was just too much, it became so depressing to report bad news over and over and over again. Granted, I take all the blame for being such a fucking blabber-mouth, but still, it sucked big time.
So this time around, we agreed to tell no one. (Thus this blog.) It feels weird to not be telling anyone, including close friends or my sister. Everyone is in the dark. Which is why writing everything down seems like a good plan. It provides me with some kind of outlet.
So seeing someone I know fairly well in the doctor’s office, right before we did the IUI, was so odd; I felt like I had a huge secret and I guess I did. Under those circumstances, bumping into a friend while smuggling a cup of your husband’s jizz in your bra is just, well, WEIRD. But now that I think about it, maybe that kind of thing is always weird…
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