Would you like to hear about my hysteroscopy? OK!
So I was very nervous. Everyone kept telling me, "Oh, it's no big deal," which made me mad.
"It IS a big deal!" I huffed to Philip.
"No one can win with you," he replied. "You'd be upset if they told you it was a major deal and scared you."
Which was true.
I took great care to pick out my surgery-day outfit: the baggiest, comfiest, frumpiest sweatpants and hoodie. I took extra care with my socks. The socks are the only personal item you leave on for a procedure like this, and it's like being initiated into a very select sorority to wear your first pair of infertility socks. I chose a fuzzy black pair with snowflakes. Yes, those were the perfect socks, good job.
At 10 p.m. the night before, I remembered that the nurse had instructed me to douche. Have you ever douched before? It is the most abusive thing you can do to yourself, on a number of levels. I didn't happen to have any douches sitting around, so off to the CVS we drove. The CVS was closed. "Well," I said, "the rapey Walgreens it is." I literally witnessed a robbery at this Walgreens once. At this point, Philip and I got into a fight. Because that is what you do when your nerves are on edge about an impending surgery and you're off buying a douche late at night from the rapiest drug store in town.
Also I am trying to find as many excuses as possible to say the word "douche."
So we studied the douches for awhile until we found the right one. Then Philip acted squeamish about carrying the box. No, I was not having that.
"I'M the one who has to douche, AND I'm the one who has to undergo the surgery -- I think you can handle carrying the box!" I said indignantly.
"I'm not only going to carry it," he said. "I'm going to hold it out to the cashier dude face-up like this." And that is what he did.
This particular douche was medicated, which means you mix in some iodine, which turns the liquid in the bottle a lovely shade of dark purplish-brown. Then you grit your teeth and slowly squirt it up into your hoo-ha via a very phallic-looking plastic wand, which feels cold and icky, and then the brown liquid trickles back down into the toilet. I have no idea why anyone would voluntarily choose to do this.
My douching mission complete, we went to bed and arose promptly at 6:30 the following morning so we could be to our clinic by 7:30. A very kind surgery nurse led me to a little room with lockers to undress and don a handsome hairnet and some paper booties over my awesome socks. I also had to take a pregnancy test, which always makes me roll my eyes.
Then I laid in a hospital bed in a small curtained area for awhile and stared up at the ceiling, where a light tile showed a colorful ocean scene full of fish and other cheerful marine creatures. A nurse came by to explain the procedure to me, and another nurse came to insert my IV while Chicago's "After All that We've Been Through" played tenderly over the muted sound system.
I was also handed some post-op instructions. I was not, under any circumstances, to:
1. "Drive a car, if a child, no bike riding, skate boards or gym sets."
2. "Drink alcoholic beverages (not even beer)."
3. "Make any important decisions such as signing legal documents."
Not even beer?! And there goes the big house closing I had planned for the same day as my hysteroscopy. :/
Philip got to join me after awhile, and he told me about an episode of Inside the Actors Studio playing on the TV in the waiting room, in which James Lipton was very self-congratulatorily sharing about a book that Matthew McConaughey had personally sent him.
"And James Lipton was challenging us," said Philip, "to go back and watch all of Matthew McConaughey's romantic comedies and realize what an amazing actor he's been ALL ALONG."
The anesthesiologist came in and gave me a quick rundown of what to expect from the anesthetic. And then it was go time. I walked myself into the OR, clutching my hospital gown closed behind me, and climbed up to lay down on the table.
The staff immediately got to work. A tube started blowing air into my nose, and my legs went up into the most serious stirrups I'd ever seen. "I like your socks," said one nurse, and I remember a brief feeling of victorious pleasure at the compliment. Then they started to strap me in, which felt claustrophobic for about one second before I started to slip off into dreamland and suddenly felt cozier, calmer and more tucked in than I ever have in my life.
Moments later I came to sudden consciousness and cried, "I'm still awake!"
"We're all done, dear," said the nurse.
Next thing I knew, I was laying back in the hospital bed in my curtained corner, feeling drowsy and crampy but overall pretty damn chill.
"Your heart rate is a lot slower now than before the procedure," Philip said. The nurse came and asked if I wanted soda crackers, water and Tylenol, and I nodded. She brought me this tiny bottle of water with a straw in it, and I sipped it quietly like a 5-year-old.
Time passed slowly or quickly -- I wasn't terribly with it. Then it was time to get up and change back into my clothes. I walked back into the little locker room in a bit of a daze and looked at myself in the mirror. I had electrodes stuck to the bare skin on my chest. I allowed myself a brief moment of self-pity, because really, I did look pitiful in my hairnet and electrodes, and who would have ever thought I'd have to go through all this nonsense just to MAYBE have a baby someday?
Then I snapped out of it and peeled the electrodes off. I got changed without further incident, until I somehow jostled a plastic basket of menstrual pads on a shelf and it tumbled to the floor, spilling maxis all over the place like some sort of slapstick act. I cleaned up the mess, shaking my head, and exited.
Outside the locker room, the nurse showed Philip and me some images of the inside of my uterus, which kind of looked like a fleshy pink balloon. Then we walked out into the waiting room, where I encountered my friend Alison, who is also seeking treatment at my clinic, and burst into hilarious laughter. "Fancy meeting you here!" I bellowed, while everyone else in the room looked on with puzzlement.
Then we drove home, and I proceeded to wolf down a blueberry muffin and some apple juice and then sleep for four hours on the couch. I felt some pretty bad period-like cramps and had a little light bleeding, but that was the extent of the aftermath. I was back to work the next day.
Later when we met with our RE, she said she had removed a "skin tag," as well as some "redundant tissue" inside my uterus, but that it was nothing out of the ordinary, and the tissue shouldn't have affected my fertility. They sent the tissue off to a lab to be biopsied, and results came back normal.
I wasn't supposed to have sex for a week, but eff that noise: I wasn't going to let my last chance to try to conceive naturally get thrown into the trash, especially since I had heard of other people who got pregnant naturally after having had a hysteroscopy. So we tried, and my hopes were soaring, because I had also started acupuncture again, as well as Chinese herbs and supplements with hopeful names like "Fertilaid" and "Pregnitude."
But, alas, nope. My period came right on schedule, and with it the usual tears, alcohol drinking and angry prenatal-vitamin boycotting. But then as always, I got my shit back together, and now we move onward full steam ahead to IVF Land.