Before it is tainted

I don't think I'm pregnant. I really don't. For a lot of reasons, including the fact that this was our first try and I'm just not the kind of girl who wins the lottery. (Or a raffle. Or even BINGO. Hah.)

BUT our experience with the first IUIs was so tremendously positive and affirming and good that I want to record it before it becomes just a failed cycle. (My sweetie thinks I'm being pessimistic, but I'm actually just trying to be zen and ok with it.) Anyway ... back to the good experience.

So we are using a feminist health clinic. They pretty much do only unmedicated stuff, and will progress only as far as Clomid. After that, you have to go to an RE or a Fertility Clinic, or whatever. Though that may be in the cards eventually, this was the right place to start (for us).

First, when it began to look like my OPK would be positive on a Saturday morning, we were thrilled because the health worker on call for that weekend was our favorite, favorite, favorite of those that we've met in the program thus far. Let's call her Earth Mother, Generous Spirit, Full of Joy, Totally Positive Health Worker. Seriously, she's amazing. We love her. So it just seemed like all the stars had lined up for us when we realized that this particular weekend were the only two days Earth Mother was on call this month (she only works part time) AND they were going to be the same two days that I needed for my first two IUIs.

It was great. As expected my OPK turned positive on Saturday morning and I called in. The clinic isn't normally open on weekends, only by appointment for inseminations. So when we got there on Saturday, my sweetie and I were alone with Earth Mother. No receptionist, no telephones ringing, no one else in the waiting room. It was like our own private babymaking palace. We met her there, she defrosted our donor, told us his sample looked GREAT, and then showed us the swimmers under the microscope. (Hello, 9th grade biology.) Then she was completely calm and gentle and professional and perfect with the IUI (she has been inseminating women for 20 years!). I didn't feel a thing. Then she left the room and let us be alone together as long as we wanted. She had taken a little bit of a sample of the mucus that was around my cervix and when sweetie and I came out of the room, she showed us the mucus under the microscope. It was all this perfect, beautiful ferning mucus. I'd never seen that before, and couldn't believe that our bodies actually produce something like that. It was amazing. Then she told us that everthing that could be controlled - a good sperm sample, good timing as evidenced by the ferning mucus, and a smooth IUI - had gone as well as they possibly could. There is lots that can't be controled, I know, we know, but it was a great start. And a soothing thing to hear. Then we did it all again on Sunday. And after we were done Sunday and we were leaving, Earth Mother actually hugged each of us and wished us good luck. We felt like we'd been blessed and sent out on the road toward motherhood by the best, most experienced, and most supportive of possible people. It was beautiful from start to finish.

And I am holding on to that, and all of the optimism that I felt on Sunday, right now. There are a lot of reasons that this (unmedicated IUIs) may not work for us (some of which I may go into in the future when I get braver on this blog), but it was such a good start. And even if it becomes just the first failed cycle of a difficult journey, I know that we will have been lucky to have had our first cycle be this special.

Wanted to write it down before the blood comes and I can no longer look back at it in the same way .....