NoodleGuy is a superstar!

Last IUI cycle we had a bit of a roadblock in that NoodleGuy didn't have the optimal "donation" session, so to speak. It was 5:30am - hard to feel sexy, he was under the weather and we had done a pre-emptive session of our own only 38 hours prior (at the nurse's suggestion because I was triggering at only 14mm due to my body looking like it was going to ovulate naturally). The sample was small and we were worried it wouldn't make the 5 million threshold for a good IUI. Lo and behold, it was 12 million post-wash. Not the greatest since NGuy usually has very good counts, but it was better than we had hoped.

This time, however, we had tried sort of a new trick: extended foreplay for the 2 days beforehand. No culmination allowed, just lots of middle-school type fooling around. I don't know if that was the magic elixir but the numbers don't lie! 198 million total, 48% motility, ROP of 3 = post wash count of 48 million. Yippee! WAY higher than the 20 million that most REs consider optimal.

The IUI itself was uneventful. I don't have much discomfort with these things, good for things like this, but bad that I can have issues like Stage IV endometriosis and have no idea. Anyhoo. it was easy, my favorite nurse did the procedure. She talks everything through: when she's going to touch your leg, what angle your cervix is in, what she had for dinner last night. She's awesome. Props to Mary!

So now I just wait. I harassed my RE into giving me progesterone this cycle -- my clinic normally doesn't give it for anything but IVF. I can't figure that out -- almost everyone else I know gets it for IUIs. It may not be necessary but it certainly doesn't hurt. And there is research that injectables can cause a luteal phase defect, so why not give it as a precaution? Last cycle was a bust because the cycle ended (AF) only 7 days after the IUI, something I feel would not have happened with progesterone. So, I was not going to let them deny me it this time, and now I have it. It's making me sleepy and a little cranky, but c'est la vie.