OUCH!

That. Effing. Hurt.
I survived the dreaded HSG test....  but barely.  
This is the procedure they do when they shoot black dye through a catheter into your uterus, then continue to push it so that it goes all the way through your fallopian tubes.  The point of it is to make sure there is no blockage so that you can ovulate and presumably conceive a baby.

I've been stressing this damn day for weeks.  I had heard things like:
"The pain is worse than childbirth!"
"I cramped for days after"
"It was the worst thing I've ever been through"
Blah, blah, blah...


You can only imagine what kind of thoughts had been going through my head!  So, I was as prepared as you can be going in.  I started the prescribed antibiotics the night before, took 800 mg of Advil the morning of, and did tons of visualization and positive thinking all the way to the hospital.


When the nurse called us back (she was really nice, btw) she explained everything in detail.  Then she informed us that spouses/partners weren't allowed in the room, but can come in immediately after.  Obviously, we wondered why and she told us that they'd had too many spouses pass out and that "it's just protocol!"  Ha!  So, I put my "brave face" on and went for it.


The NP that did the procedure was amazing!  I loved her right away!  She talked me through the entire thing and was really sweet about it all.  The first nurse held my hands and gave me little "pep talks" all the way through. 


I'm not going to lie, it hurt like hell when they squirted the dye in!   I got to watch it all on the monitor and when I wasn't writhing in pain, it was actually pretty cool!  The right side did a stellar job--the ink went through the tube and it looked like a beautiful black swirl.  The left side was the problem.  They asked me to turn over, back and forth, a few times and just when I was about to yank the damn catheter out myself, she said, "There it goes!"  It finally opened up and the ink went through.


The fun didn't actually happen, though, until after.
They brought K in and right at that moment the NP said, "Uh oh, she doesn't look too good--go get oxygen."  I lay there for awhile and then tried to get up to go get dressed in the bathroom.  K helped me inside and then VHOOOOOM the world fell out from under me and I nearly fainted.  They put me on a gurney and wheeled me into a recovery room where I had to stay for an extra half hour.

Me, the Drama Queen.


As we were walking out of the hospital, my lovely wife whispers, "So how the hell are you going to make it through labor?!!!"  Ha!  Let me just get pregnant first and then we'll deal with that...