Today was the day of my 1st IUI. I had a really hard time choosing the donor. I researched so many banks and could not decide which one to go with. I have been seriously researching since February. I had it narrowed down to 2 and I had a donor I liked on each site. Of course the one I really wanted was on a waitlist. I waited a few months but the donor was still not available so I went with my 2nd choice/ different bank. I was all set to complete the purchase when I found an old FDA warning letter from 2011 that changed my mind. It was a warning letter to the bank stating that they had found testing issues with 26 donors! They did the medical testing on the donors originally and quarantined the sperm but they never re-tested the donors for the required things prior to releasing the sperm. When I contacted the FDA to see if the bank had been inspected since then and if there were any recent complaints they told me I had to file a Freedom of Information Request. I decided I wasn't comfortable with that bank even though other people had used them and had great reviews for them. Their customer service was great but I couldn't get past them messing up with 26 donors. How many more did they let through that no one ever found out about? So, that led me back to the other bank and luckily they had a new donor that fit what was looking for.
I placed my order on Thursday and had it delivered to the doctors office on Friday. The doctor told me to test for the LH surge only in the morning and to call to arrange for an appointment for the following day once I got the surge. I'm glad I didn't listen to the "only test once a day"! I tested randomly throughout the day on Sunday and it was late afternoon before I got the surge. I re-tested the next morning and the test was negative. If I had only tested once a day like they said to I would have missed the surge completely. I went in for the IUI today and had a nurse practitioner I had never met before perform the IUI. She was really nice (at 1st) and explained everything that would be done. She said the sperm had 25% motility but they usually see 30%. She said they couldn't tell what the count was at their office because it was frozen sperm and they didn't have a microscope that powerful. ?? How can they tell motility percentage if they don't have a number to base it off of? 25% of what? I'm going to call the lab and speak to them directly.
The IUI itself was very painful. I believed everyone when they told me it would be like a pap. I was in a lot of pain and they had to apply something to open my cervix because she couldn't get the catheter in. It felt like she basically rammed the utensils in me and when I swore she replied "Well this is what you wanted right"? Uhmm no! Holy hell! I thought the IUI was the easy part. I am really beginning to doubt myself. If I can't handle an IUI, that everyone else says is nothing, how can I possibly handle child birth?!? I expected to be uncomfortable but I really didn't expect that kind of pain or the bleeding afterwards. Can't stand up straight kind of pain. I came right home and laid in bed for 3 hours and am feeling better. I'm not really sure what to think, I just can't imagine going through what many other women have had to go through to get pregnant. Years of this and way worse. I'm not that strong, I'm already wondering if I could put myself through it again.
I can tell you from my own experiences with two different people giving me IUIs, that each time is different. My OBGYN (who has performed three of the IUIs) is much more gentle than the Nurse Practitioner (she did two of them). This last one, I was so tensed up at the mere thought of the NP doing it, that we had to stop and wait a second so I could relax my muscles. The NP did tell me she does the IUI slightly differently technique wise...I think it causes her to need the speculum to go in farther or something. So, hopefully you won't need another one, but even if you do, if you stay relaxed (easier said than done) and have a different person, it could be much less painful.
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