I went in for a Saline Hysterosonogram today (a procedure where water is injected through your vagina into your uterus and then your doctor looks for uterine abnormalities through transvaginal ultrasound). It helps the doctor to see how your uterus is shaped, your uterine lining, or any abnormalities such as fibroids or polyps.
First of all, they tell you it’s not that painful.
I disagree. The pain was short, but for about 10 seconds I was having some of the worst cramps in the world.
Secondly, I have polyps. Two of them, to be exact. And the doctor said they were in “prime real-estate,” and would need to be removed by doing a hysteroscopy.
When I heard this, I first wondered what a polyp actually was… and the doctor explained to me that it’s basically like a skin tag in your uterus… and it can prevent my embryos from implanting.
So I found a great picture of one in a drawing, in case you were curious:
Aren’t they cute?? But too bad, they have to go.
A hysteroscopy is a minor, outpatient surgery and luckily, we were able to schedule it soon enough so that it doesn’t change anything with my IVF cycle (which is extremely strict with medications and such). They just go up your va-jay-jay with a tiny pair of scissors (AH!!!) and snip (AHHH!) the polyps away (AHHHH!!!!!!!!!) while you are totally out of it.
There have been several frustrations the last few days as we have tried to get authorization from our insurance to actually move forward with the IVF cycle… and we still have yet to get authorization. We’ve been worried that authorization won’t come in time for us to go through with this in December. For those of you who have done fertility treatments, you know how stressful the financial side of things is. I’ve been so stressed and anxious, this polyp situation just adds to it.
However, I was talking to my therapist (yes, I am a Masters of Social Work student and I have a therapist, and it’s fantastic!) who works specifically with clients going through fertility treatments and she told me to take 40 minutes everyday to relieve my stress in anyway I need to (I will discuss what I do later).
So now, I am just going to roll with the punches (or try to). I am at the mercy of my body right now and I need to be ok with that. Things probably won’t go as planned with our IVF cycle, and that’s ok. I need to remind myself that I am strong and I can do hard things.
Thanks for reading through this long update, hopefully I have some good news to follow later in the week!
The Fertility Project 