The big day :-)

So here we go, the big day.

I'm really excited, I'm excited that this could really be it, that in just a few short hours I could be on my way to being a mum for real, what could be more exciting??
At the same time though I'm trying to keep my feet on the ground.

My aunt keeps asking if I want her to come with me to various clinic appointments but I always saying no, a part of me thinks this is my journey and I need to do it in the best was I can but another part of me wonders that if she did come people at the clinic might think we were gay! Now you really couldn't be further from the truth so up unitl now I've gone it alone but today I just want to take it easy and although IUI isn't as delicate as egg transfer with IVF you're still recommended to take it easy for the day and driving home from the clinic in possible rush hour really wouldn't be taking it easy. 
 So this time I take my aunt up on her offer and make arrangements for her to come to me at 13.00, my appointment at the clinic is 14.30 and I don't want to be held up anywhere, plus my aunt is (usually) always notoriously late! Apart from today of course when she's bang on time. 
Even so though we leave a little later than we should and only just get to the clinic in time which can't be good for my keeping calm idea, neither is the fact that I hate her driving. I knew when I agreed to her taking me that her driving alone would stress me out a bit but I can hardly cancel now, grit my teeth and bare it I think.

My appointment is at 14.30 but it's after 15.00 when I'm finally called in by Jo, friendly and very capable Jo. She goes over a few preliminaires before going off to get my sperm.

I've had a bit of a wobble about my donor just because of his age as I read somewhere that as a man gets older his sperm count etc is lower and this guy is around my age. The thing is he was the only donor on the site that sounded genuine, the only one that I think had really thought about what he was doing and not doing it just for the money. Anyway when Jo came back and gave me the news I was over the moon and knew there and then I'd made completely the right choice. Apparently the average sperm count per ml is 16 million, my donors sperm count was 60 million. 60 million sperm per ml....wow!! Go little fellas!

To be inseminated is the same procedure as egg transfer in that a cafeter has to be passed through the cervix in order for the sperm to be transferred. This is an area I had difficulty with before during the trial and I'm nervous about it again, they just always seem to have difficulty with me and that worries me that things aren't all ok in that area, you just never really know do you?

As predicted Jo had real difficulty inserting the cafeter into my cervix. At least this time she had no problem actually finding my cervix, normally when I have a smear test they can't even find it! So she'd found it which was great now just to insert the cafeter. Jo tried four or five different cafeters and two different speculums before she had any joy, apparently my cervix is an 'S' bend. I was on that bed for about 45 minutes with my legs akimbo with a speculum inserted and a nurse between my legs making it even more uncomfortable but in the end Jo had joy and once the cafeter was in the right place the sperm was inseminated in seconds. Now I just need them to swim swim swim!

After a 15 minute lay down listening to some delightful Mike Oldfield I came back out to my aunt and we headed off. My acupuncturist wanted to see me for half an hour after my IUI so after being held up by the traffic a bit we ended up going straight there where she aimed to directed the energy in the right direction. 

Now I just have the dreaded two week wait before I can test.
I keep reading on different websites that people find this the worse time of the entire treatment. I wonder how I'll get on.