The Big Day

Tuesday, September 18, 2007
We go in. Nervous. I'm alone in the recovery room, while he's doing his job. The anesthesiologist comes and hooks me up with an IV. I warn him that needles make my nauseous, so he has an antiemetic and anti-anxiety drug ready. Hey. That wasn't so bad. Nah. I'm fine. Thanks! See you later!
NoooOOoOooo. Clearly I forgot from my polypectomy in April. The crappiness kicks in after they leave! Only now I'm desperate to lie down, and I'm all alone! Waaaaaah! My husband is off doing important things. No nurse in sight.
After about a thousand years, my husband comes in and saves me helps adjust the bed so that I am lying down. Lying down helps me feel better. So does pooping, usually. Don't ask me why. [I've found out, years later, from a nurse at another office, that if I talk through the puncture that the act of talking either puts pressure or relieves pressure on the vagal nerve, which helps prevent the vaso vagal reaction. Good tip. For most of the blood draws, just picturing my husband, or when he was present for the blood draws, really helped. But maybe that's because I was also probably talking.

Now the doctor comes in to talk to us. It's the lady doctor. The one I like. The only one who hasn't directly miscommunicated or messed up with us. (They're all at fault for the medication snafu. But the other doctors had said or done contradictory things while we were there, and not just general things that may have been some nurse's (failed) responsibility.) I had basically switched to her after seeing her for one of the visits before the IVF process (but after we had decided in May that we were going to do it.) I had requested that all my consults be done with her after that, and she happened to be available during my procedure times. The week after my projected transfer, she'd be going on vacation! Whew! Perfect timing! She explains about Day 3 transfers versus Day 5 transfers, and why they wait longer or don't wait longer. [Meaning they transfer them into the uterus 3 or 5 days after the retrieval and fertilization. Depending on how they look.]
Anyway. Blah blah blah, something something. Wheel me in. Okay, count down from ten for me. "10...9...8... Oh! Hey honey! Is it over now?"
Not long after I wake up, a nurse comes in (the one I like the best. But she only works back in this area, with the IVF stuff, not with blood draws and ultrasounds and in the rooms before routine exams and such. I've only ever met her in the halls before this visit.) She teaches us how to do the progesterone injections [Oh joy!] and watched as my husband administers my first dose. Yeowch! It has to be him doing it, since the injection goes in the butt cheek. And you have to jab it in. Pulp Fiction adrenaline-shot-to-the-heart-style. No lie.
She tells us to 'turn the other cheek' for each shot (alternate sides) since if we only do shots on one buttock, I won't be able to walk. As it is, by Day 2, I'm walking like a very sore cowboy. My coworkers think this is the Funniest. Thing. Ever. And my husband is "cracking" jokes [get it? Crack? Butt?] like nobody's business. "I need to put a prick in your ass." "I'm jabbing my wife in the ass every morning!" And so on. And so on.