April Buske

Part of the fertility journey requires strangers inside of you. And this is what it feels like when you get bludgeoned from the inside. When I talk about strangers inside of me, let me preface that this is not a post about multiple personalities, though while on some fertility drugs, your entire circle will be certain there are at least two people in your mind at all times (mood swings, anyone).

Part of my infertility/fertility journey is this complicated thing where I know from blood draws and ultrasounds (not the external kind you see when people are getting their babies looked at, but the kind that has a wand that is inserted inside you – that’s called “transvaginal”) that I ovulate, but for whatever reason, the ovulation prediction tests (OPKs) never  show a positive result (unless I’ve done a trigger shot that month). All of that to say, they can’t tell from an OPK that I’ve ovulated. That means we have to check each month to see how many and what size my follicles are (follicles are the little sacs of liquid that contain a single egg).  That ‘checking’ is done by a transvaginal ultrasound.  For more info on what a transvaginal ultrasound is, click here. For a diagram see: (A medical diagram from Mayo Clinic).

At my fertility clinic, there are two main ultrasound techs. These are the two that are inside of me the most, I’ll talk about IUI in detail at some point and you can learn more of the strangers inside me.  Back to the ultrasound techs: One of them looks super nice and the other looks super mean. We’ll call them nice-face and mean-face for lack of better terms. Their wand skills are exactly the opposite of how they look. Nice-face was the first tech I experienced, she looked quiet and sweet. I was prepared for the discomfort of taking my pants off and laying there with my nethers only covered by the thinnest flat sheet I’ve ever seen or felt.  I anticipated the discomfort of the wand. Let me pause to show you a pic of the wand:

(photo source: First Cry Parenting)

Yup, as you can imagine, it’s not fun… back to the story:

I was prepared for ultra cold ultrasound gel.  I figured it would be uncomfortable. And it was. Very much so.

Turns out nice-face is straight up, no-holds-barred, violent with her wand. It feels like she’s trying to bludgeon me to death from the inside. It’s as if there are noisy neighbors above her and she’s using a broom handle to beat the ceiling. Then, she’d want to look at my ovaries, and it was like she took that broom handle of a wand and turned it 90 degrees in a direction no vagina is designed to have something point. Once again, she’d want to get as close as she could to what she was looking at, and it was like she was trying to hit my shoulder with it.  And if that wasn’t enough, she’d want to look at the OTHER ovary and turn that wand the other direction, repeat proverbial bludgeoning.  Her face, in the most unapologetic and deceptive way,  lied to me. (Ok, violent is an excessive description, but it makes for a more dramatic story. She just was a little more ‘firm’ with the wand than I anticipated.)

My second ultrasound was done by mean-face. Surprise, her face lied to me, too! This lie was totally acceptable though. She was gentle and calm. She talked me through what to expect saying things like “I need to look at the ovary on your right side, so you’ll feel some pressure”.  Mean-face did her business thoughtfully and carefully. She was in and out in a jiffy. Not to say that it was a purely comfortable experience, but it was leaps and bounds better than what I expected after my first experience with nice-face.

Over the last year, I’ve had a dozen or more of these.  I pray deeply for mean-face every time. I’ve not always been lucky enough to get her, but I’m grateful for when I do.

It’s never comfy, but I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make a baby!

What would you do for the thing you want most?