The good news is that the preliminary results of my dye test are looking good. The dye went through the uterus and the Fallopian tubes and no blockages were visible at all. The radiologist confirmed this, but nothing is official until my OB/GYN gets a gander. So HOORAY!!! Fertility drugs, here I come.
The bad news is that I feel like I've been kicked in the stomach nine times hard by a jack-booted thug. The HSG was not an easy test for me. (Gents, there are details coming up, so be strong of heart.)
I was pretty worried when I saw the speculum sitting on the sterile tray. I loathe them like nothing else on earth, evil chrome ducks that they are. So there I am, lying on my back, thinking of the Queen like a good girl. Then he inserted the speculum and opened it. I have very good reason to think that he set it on "cue ball" diameter. I'm reasonably certain that he should have been able to see up through my body cavity to the undersides of my hair follicles as wide as that thing was.
Then came the catheter. Lucky for me that it wasn't a urinary catheter. I think lucky, anyway. The catheter was supposed to be inserted into my cervix, but it took somewhere in the neighborhood of fourteen tries, each of them painful. But then the good ol' medical professional grabbed a tongue depresser (or a hockey stick, I'm not sure which) and tucked that up there right alongside everything else and he started trying to manually dilate my cervix. Oh, holy ow. Ow. And ow again.
Matt was holding my hand and being a good husband while all this was going on, so he gets points for that.
Five to seven minutes into all of this, the doc achieved some sort of success with the catheter and released the speculum (thankyoubabyJesus). But then he inflated a small air bladder on the end of the catheter, which opened up my uterus nice and wide and also resulted in some rather spectacular cramping on my part. After that little bit o'heaven, he started injecting the dye and moved the X-ray machine over my lower body. We were able to watch the dye pooling in my uterus and then making it's way through first the left and then the right Fallopian tube. It was quite interesting and actually took my mind off the heinous pain.
I'll spare you all the tidying up details. The rest of the story is kind of boring but involves lots of physical discomfort from the dilation of the cervix. My pending step-mother assures me that it will go away by tomorrow morning, but I'm still going to tell my boss that I can't do any manual labor for a few days, "On account of my uterus." That usually halts the questioning process dead in its tracks.
So, thanks so much for the well-wishes. Chris, I'd be curious to chat with your wife about her process. She must have a way higher pain threshold than me!
Finally, Extra-Special Bonus Credit and Most Honorable of Mentions goes to my friend Carla, who sent me a yippy-fun care package that arrived yesterday. It included another six episodes of The L-Word, a print issue of The Onion, a CD copy of David Sedaris Live at Carnegie Hall, and last but not least, a package of tissues from MikWright, one of the funniest greeting card companies ever. These tissues have a 1950's era photo of a very highly groomed woman sitting on a couch next to a six-ish year old girl who looks a bit miffed. The caption says, "Monica, dear, that was a precious little story. Now, be a sweetheart and fix mommy another martini." Heh. Thank you so much, Carla!!!