Roadblock

We have been waiting for my next period to start our first cycle of IUI, and I can’t tell you how giddy and impatient I have been. For the past two or three days, I was more aware of my body than I probably ever have been before. I was hypersensitive to my increase in appetite, my very slight lower back soreness, the faint twinges on the left side of my abdomen. I closely inspected the toilet paper after every pee, hoping for the slightest bit of pink. And last night there it was, so faint that I would never have seen it if I hadn’t been looking so hard for it. The moment reminded me of when I got my first period at fourteen and a half years old. It seemed like all my friends had it and I couldn’t believe the injustice and embarrassment of having started high school without it. I will never forget sitting in our downstairs bathroom one day after school and seeing just the faintest tint of pink on the toilet paper and shrieking to my mother, “I got it! I got it! I got my period!” It was absolutely joyous. I had been waiting for it for so long and it signified so much about what stage of life I was entering. I was now fertile, I was becoming a woman. Yesterday brought me back to that moment with incredible force.

I went to bed quietly, knowing that my wife wouldn’t be able to sleep either if I told her as she half-woke for a minute when I slid into bed. Then this morning, on her birthday, I said to her, “I’m on my way to getting you what you said you wanted for your birthday.” She knew immediately what I meant and a slow grin crept up her face and we hugged excitedly.

I called the clinic around 12:30 to tell them I’m on Cycle Day 1 and when should I come in? I was told a nurse would call me back. So just now I got a phone call from the physician’s assistant who initially spoke to me about next steps after my surgery. I could almost hear her flipping through my file, checking everything off. She verified the medications I had been put on, reminded me that I would sign the donor agreement and the chicken pox vaccination waiver in the office, and then said, “And you also need a recent pap smear. The one your doctor sent was inconclusive.” My heart dropped. I said, “No one told me I needed a new one after that, so I figured it was sufficient or that my one before that was accepted.” She said, “No, you need a new one before we can start.” Cue me sobbing. “Hello? Hello? I’m having trouble hearing you.” “Yes, that’s because I’m crying.” “You’re still so young, you can just wait until next cycle and get that taken care of.”

I’m sure she was trying to be reassuring, but it came off as insensitive. I said, “It’s not about thinking one more month will make it difficult to conceive. It’s about us having wanted this for so long, having to spend years saving up the money for it, setting a goal for March, excitedly jumping every hurdle of the process to keep ourselves on track, jumping up and down together with excitement this morning when I got my period and we knew the countdown could finally begin, and then being told to just postpone it. If I had known the last result couldn’t be used, this could have been taken care of months ago.” She said she was sorry and stated that I could always get the pap smear done this weekend and have the results in time. I patiently reminded her that the reason the first was inconclusive was because I’d been told it would be fine to have it done on my period in order to get the results back in time for our October consultation, but clearly it was a problem. So it wouldn’t make much sense to get a do-over while on my period yet again.

I had told her at the beginning of our conversation (when it was still optimistic and joyful and she was so happy for us) that my cycles have become more normal since my December surgery to remove a dermoid ovarian cyst. I told her that my two cycles since have been 28 days instead of 24 and with four to five days of bleeding instead of seven to eight, so we could stick with checking me out at the typical Day 10 rather than pushing it to Day 8 as suggested a few months ago. She brought that up now and said since I have 28-day cycles now, I will likely not ovulate until Day 14, so even if I get the pap done on Day 5, they should get the results back in time.

I hung up and just cried. I thought about calling my wife, but figured having me sobbing on the phone on her birthday probably wasn’t very considerate and it could wait an hour until she got off work. I thought about calling my mother, but she is helping my sister with my newborn niece (a week old today!) and they are having enough challenges over there right now. So I decided to give myself a full minute or two to cry it out, and then try to keep it in perspective and act, because moping and brooding would not change any of this. I called my GYN to schedule another pap smear (and was told that my insurance won’t cover two in one year, so that’ll be $150, please, and do you want to move forward that way or wait until the fall?) and then ended up reaching out to my wife for comfort anyway.

Perspective. Action. Next steps: Day 3 bloodwork and gonorrhea/chlamydia testing tomorrow morning, Pap smear (hopefully my period will be over) next Tuesday morning, and then hope and pray for results in time for a Day 14-ish IUI. That’s all I can do right now.

Edited to add: Upon my wife’s suggestion, I called Aetna to ask whether a second pap could be covered if the first did not have enough cells. I was informed that I have unusually good coverage with this and that my insurance covers two paps per calendar year. So technically I haven’t even had one this year and I’m fine. I appreciate saving that money!