As mentioned in previous posts, male lady doctors are, in my experience, rather uncomfortable to communicate with. Maybe it’s just me being a lesbian man hater, but this dude clearly has no understanding of my parts or their feelings.

We’ve been monitoring ovulation daily. The tests we are using are pretty fancy little pee sticks. According to the instructions, typically, the results will show two days of high fertility indicated by a flashing smiley face. This, typically, will be followed by two days of peak fertility indicated by a solid smiley face.

On the second day of flashing high fertility we called and made an appointment for an IUI treatment the following day. The third day of test-indicated ovulation we displayed another flashing smiley face but decided to go ahead with the appointment. Upon arriving at the doctor we discussed with the nurse our results who advised us to have Dr. Awkward do a vaginal ultrasound to see how that egg was looking.

We followed the nurse into an exam room that was decorated 20 or so years ago. She instructed me to undress from the waste down and cover myself with a ‘sheet’, which we all know is just a GIGANTIC paper towel. I suppose the 6 by 8 foot paper towel draping my lap is, somehow, supposed to make me feel less exposed when the doctor’s got his face inches from my vagina. Regardless, I do as instructed and sit waiting for several minutes, criticizing the atrocious and unnecessary ‘art’ taped to the ceiling, before a different nurse and the doctor come into the room.

He sits down on the stool and scoots in close. He instructs me to come forward on the table, a little closer, a little closer, I do. He instructs me to lean back, I do. With a shrug, according to Virginia, he jams his camera wand in. He moves it around for a few minutes calling out graph numbers to the nurse. He pulls it out, prints a picture and tells me my eggs not quite ready.

I ask him about the timeline and if it really matters if we do it today or tomorrow, doesn’t that baby gravy have a couple of days of swim in it? He doesn’t really offer any clear direction but suspects we need to wait another day or two or three. We wrestle the options for a few minutes and elect to keep testing and come back in a day or two or three, feeling confused and unguided.

Two days later we are back in the office. We follow the nurse into a different room, she instructs me to once again undress from the waste down and cover myself with the [paper towel] sheet.

She comes back in a few minutes later and tells us she’s going to get the specimen and she’ll need us to identify it. She leaves and Virginia and I make a list of all of the things wrong with this place and wonder if we can leave a comment card. There’s no music which leaves the mind way too free to wander, the art taped to the ceiling in this room is even worse than before, the room is filled with articles about why you aren’t getting pregnant. She brings us a frozen teeny tiny container of gravy, I nod that the number on the side match our donor’s number. She instructs Virginia to hold it while it thaws.

They come in several minutes later. Scoot forward, forward, lay down. He pries my vagina open, without warning, with his speculum, followed by inserting, quite possibly, the longest syringe ever made, and drops off the juice. He stands, removes his gloves and leaves the room. The nurse instructs me to lay there for a few minutes and relax.

A few weeks have passed and we now know we will have the delight of going through this process again. We’re disappointed, but it’s not a perfect science.