Chapter 5 - Second IUI
We decided to do another IUI the following month. My doctor told me it might take many IUIs, you never know. It is now February 2012. My sister is still pregnant, she is due the middle of March. I have been going in for the morning monitoring fun times as previously described. My IUI is scheduled for tomorrow Friday, February 10, 2012. I have already scheduled to take the day off because of it. My phone rings at three o’clock in the morning, it’s my sister.
“What’s wrong? Are you in labor?” I ask, thinking that can’t be the answer because she’s not due for another five weeks.
“Umm… yeah, I am. We’re at the hospital and I’m in labor.” She said.
“Holy shit! Ok. Ummmm… I’m having an IUI today, but I will get on a plane as soon as I can.” I say.
She lives in Chicago. I hung up the phone and started sobbing. This was too much to handle. My sister was having her baby early and I am scheduled for an IUI because I can’t have babies at all. I’m breaking down.
I pull myself together and quickly call my fertility clinic and start looking up flight information. I also have my husband Google if you’re allowed to fly after an IUI. I decide that I don’t care what the answer is. I book my flight to Chicago to depart a few hours after my IUI that same day. My husband goes to the clinic in the morning and gives his ‘deposit’. I go in the afternoon and get turkey basted (that’s right, I made it a verb). As soon as I’m done with the IUI I walk out of the clinic, hail a taxi and head to LaGuardia Airport to get on a plane to see my sister. The whole time I’m getting text message updates about the labor from my brother-in-law.
I am sitting at the gate crying hysterically, getting text updates. I’m sitting on the airplane, we are backing out of the gate, all cell phones are supposed to be powered down and I am whispering on the phone to my brother-in-law because my sister just pushed the first child in our family out of her. Yay! I’m bawling hysterically on the plane, the really attractive type of bawling where the snot is gushing from my nose and my face is red and puffy. People around me are pretending not to notice while at the same time staring at me with their side-eyes.
(This is what they looked like.)
Fuck you assholes!! I just missed the birth of my first nephew because I can’t get pregnant on my own and I had to be turkey basted today!! (Verb.)
I get to O’Hare airport push my way off the plane as only a true New Yorker can. I run through the airport which is impressive since I haven’t run anywhere since high school field hockey practice in the fall of 1999. I make it to the taxi line and realize quickly that saying, “my sister just had a baby” does not make other people want to let you go in front of them. I wait. Dying inside. Anxious. Almost in tears again. I wait. I take a taxi straight to the hospital, which is more like a really nice hotel, but sure, we’ll call it a hospital. I run (again, still impressed with the amount of running I’m doing) to her room. I get there and see my sister and burst into tears. We hug. I apologize for missing the actual birth. I meet my nephew for this first time. I hold him in my arms and I know that I will never forget that moment for the rest of my life.
About thirty minutes later I go to the bathroom down the hall and have massive diarrhea. Massive diarrhea. The type that makes you so happy that it’s a single stall bathroom. Crazy day. This IUI definitely did not work, between the stress and anxiety, the running and the diarrhea. I might as well just forget about the IUI this month and focus my energy and crazy thoughts on next month’s fertility treatment.
The next day I was at my sister’s house getting ready to have her come home, mopping the floors, going to the grocery store, when I my phone rings. It’s my sister. I pick up and all I hear on the other end is sobbing. I start freaking out. Did something happen to the baby? Could this be happening? Do horrible things happen to babies that are less than a day old? We are all in their kitchen, me, my parents, my brother-in-law’s parents, my sister’s step children. Everyone is having regular loud conversation.
I start screaming into the phone, “Paige is the baby ok? PAIGE IS THE BABY OK? Paige! Answer me!!!”
My mother who often times (ok, all the time) wins the award for the loudest voice in the room and the most oblivious to it keeps talking, I scream, “Mom! SHUT UP!!”
“Paige. Is. The. Baby. Ok?” I’m shaking, I can feel my pulse racing and my face turning red with anxiety and fear. Paige is crying so hard she can’t answer me.
The room is now silent and everyone is staring at me, waiting with baited breath for the answer, is the baby ok?
Finally she squeaks out, “he’s --.”
