Game Day!!!

The last that we were told was that we would get the appointment time for the baby making the day before.  The call came as we were driving.  I have to say that all the nurses at the clinic are just awesome, but the one that called is usually the one I laughed the most with.  She gave us our time (1100) and told us that we had to be there 15 minutes prior and for whatever fancy baby making reason, I needed a full bladder.  Considering how many stops I take on road trips, the latter of the two would be no issue.  Also, we arranged babysitting for the little one, so we could just go into town and relax until the poor kid that is stuck with half my DNA gets shot back in for a 9 month hibernation.  We were set…or at least we thought.

A few minutes later, we get a call from the same number.  Slightly confused I answer, and hear the same familiar voice over the Bluetooth.  “Hey, sorry.  I gave you the wrong time, your transfer will be at 11 and you need to be there at 1045.”  My smart assness was automatically deployed as I responded with “Dude, you need to go grab a coffee.  That is exactly what you gave us.”  After some laughter and an agreed need for supplemental caffeine, things were once again set.  Or were they…No joke, an hour and a bit later the same nurse came a calling.  I knew this was going to be good, so she got the most sincere and expecting hello?  I could muster.  There was no hi in response, but instead straight to the goods.  “Okay, so I went and got a coffee, I promise!  Then when I got back up I read a note to myself with your appointment time, but couldn’t remember if I gave you the proper time so figured I would just call.”  Naturally, I asked her if she had been sampling the fentanyl that morning, but then confirmed that yes, she had in fact given us the proper time and we were all good.  When I learned that she would be working the following morning, I asked if she wanted us to take her coffee order then?  Or when we got there in the morning.  NOW we were set.  All was good, and all I had to do was get a good sleep and ensure that this well-oiled machine of a body, a work of art really, showed up at the time that I was informed of 3 times now.  Let’s make some babies!

I woke up the morning of game day and the thing that pops in my head is “It’s Game Day Bitches!”  Immediately I want to slap myself because despite the fact that it is a current trend to add “bitches” to the end of some bold statement, it is so inherently wrong I felt ashamed for even thinking it.  Instead I resolved myself to the excitement phrasing of my generation and settled on tagging my excitement with baby instead.  Okay then, I was ready to try again….”Game day baby!”  Much more palatable overall.  I was ready to go get an embryo shoved into my uterus.  Boom!  I threw on my new capri joggers (my attempt at keeping up with fashion) and my wounded warriors shirt to have my battle buddies with me and we were ready to roll.  There should have been pyrotechnics, like when the teams walk out for the Super Bowl, but you know….smoke detectors and such are so restricting these days.

We dropped the kid off with grandma and took off to the clinic.  We hoped that we could get a decent breaky in once we got to town, but traffic caused too much of the delay and this morning was not the morning to stress about how much time we had.  Instead, we went to the clinic and decided Starbucks would do.  As we pulled in, the familiar parking attendant was there.  I wanted to stop and give him a high five for game day, but realized that no matter how nice of a guy he was, I would just confuse the crap out of him.  In true overthinking fashion, I looked to my wife and wanted to say a celebratory “Game DAY!” to her with my fist extended out for a more than appropriate fist bump, but I hesitated.  In the exam room, when we were told the force field was ready, I went for a high five.  There I was, stirruped up with a quasi-translucent paper skirt on and a doctor still between my legs when I raised my hand in celebration paired with my signature smile.  It took a moment to realize that despite the excitement and relief being reciprocated, I was receiving a look of bewilderment and confusion.  “I am not high fiving you.”  “Now listen here, this is my uterus and we high five it’s accomplishments!” at which point my wife reluctantly produced her hand to join in the ceremonious acknowledgment of the good news.  She looked at me with a sideways squint, her mouth forming an involuntary grin and she was trying to decide if she should be amused or mortified.   Fortunately my innate cuteness won that day.  Here I was now, faced with a similar situation.  Do I extend the fist to celebrate with my team mate in the baby making game, or not.  Yes, I do think this much and it is like a squirrel on redbull how fast it goes through this crazy head.  I decided that I clearly did not provide enough warning last time, so I would break from true sportsman (woman) protocol and simply ask.  She agreed to the fist bump and my excitement was brought right back up as the deal was sealed! We had arrived at the stadium and just needed to wait until kick off.

We walked into the clinic and it took all my strength to not raise my arms and announce my presence to the receptionist with an excited acknowledgement of the occasion, and maybe even a little happy dance.  Although I knew that she would greatly appreciate the gesture that would surely provide her giggles for hours to come, the other occupants of the quiet and serene waiting room may not.  I restrained myself.  I was however greeted with a welcoming smile and the lovely receptionist acknowledged the occasion with a more subdued smile, saying today was the big day.  Next best thing really…

It was a short wait until our lovely nurse came out to escort us to the back.  She confirmed my name and date of birth and I confirmed that she had her coffee already so we don’t have to do this thing three times too 😉 For some crazy reason I completely forgot the fashion faux pas of the olive green skirt thing that was waiting in my seat.  Seriously?  In my head I figured that as long as I was in my baby making power suit, I would be all good, but I was wrong.  Luckily, my great rapport with the nurse provided me some VIP options.  Apparently, there were more colors than green and she was going to hook me up.  First I asked for blue, but then I remembered that my general appearance confuses people as to my gender, so I should go pink to give them a hint.  No joke, I guarantee you that no other patient in the waiting room, or that past me in the halls with my fashionable pink skirt would have guessed that I was the patient.  Keep in mind that even with the skirt, I was still sporting my ball cap, in fact that was on me the whole time, but that’s for later.  It was so nice that I told my wife I should wear skirts and go commando more often.   She was not entertaining that line of conversation…

Once I was dressed for success, I started driving my wife crazy as I was pacing the tiny waiting room, causing the curtain to sway with the breeze of my ninja speed.  I wasn’t anxious about kick off, in fact I was looking forward to it in earnest.  I was pacing because I had to pee like a mofo.  The window had closed and my 11:00am kick off had passed.  I occasionally stopped to stare at the various nurses at the station in hopes to will them to make this happen, but my telekinetics were a little rusty these days.  Meanwhile, my wife kept telling me to just sit down and I told her to stop talking to me.  I can’t remember exactly what our back and forth was because I was trying to keep my bladder from pressing the pressure release valve.  I do, however, remember several times us asking each other how we are married, trying not to laugh and thinking that the people around us must think we were either hilarious or nuts!

I just about jumped in the air when the nurse came to get us.  It was one of the ones I was staring at through the curtain, so who knows, maybe it did work!  Regardless, we were rolling.  As the visit went on, my mind began to get clouded by the needs and desires of my bladder.  This became evident when I was asked to provide my name and date of birth again twice in like a 5 minute period.  For some reason this had turned into a skill level expert type task, but I powered through.  The embryologist came in and had me sign the thing that said they were throwing in an embryo with a 4AA rating.  I had no idea what that meant, but I did know that I had 15 more where that came from so it was all good.  Prior to disappearing into the next room, he politely let me know that I would be able to watch everything on the screen.  I looked at the screen and saw how they zoomed into this tiny little spec and I instantly wished that I had paid a little more attention in biology class.

There were two doctors in the room who I had never met before.  One was from a northern town that we had driven through many a time before.  She was surprised at our knowledge of the area as many people were only familiar with the name of the town. There we were casually talking about the region while I got back into the party chair, ready for the potato cannon to shoot the embryo back in.    The doc at the wheel was just working away and for a brief moment I realized that this is what my life has become.  Me just sitting there chatting as usual while some random pokes around in my va-jay-jay.  Tick that off my life goals!

The embryologist came back with this long tubey thing that apparently had the goods in it.  Thankfully the potato cannon was modified to be an embryo cannon size.  As the doc was doing her thing with the embryo cannon, the nurse was using the abdominal ultrasound.  Apparently she had to press down hard to help the doctor see, but I warned her that if she pressed down too hard, the doc was going to get some pee to the face as I didn’t know how much more the pressure release valve good take.  It turns out that I was making matters slightly more difficult as I was sitting up slightly, not to watch the screen, but because I was wearing my hat backwards.  I’m sure it is not often that they have to ask the patient to either take of their hat or turn it around, but that was the request given to me so that they could get the proper angle.  Pretty soon, it was all done.  As much as I wanted to sit there and discuss the big questions in life, I instead politely asked if it was okay for me to sprint to the bathroom.  I was dismissed and I have not felt that level of relief in quite some time!

Afterward, I went back to my change room and put my fancy wear back on and I felt like we were doing something wrong.  Was I escaping sooner than I should?  Did I need to put a plug in or anything so that I don’t lose it on the way out the door?  I not-so subtly pushed the curtain aside and the doc happened to be right there.  I gave a sheepish thumbs up as I asked if we were good to go.  I may have been across the room at the time, but ultimately I got the thumbs up back and we were free.  While we walked out, we passed several of the lovely staff.  I was so pumped that this part was done that I might as well have been jogging down the hall handing out high fives, dropping the mic and then giving a big peace out.  This didn’t actually happen, but that’s how pumped I was.  I promise, if I do any ridiculousness like that, I would bust out the camera for sure!  It was bitter sweet saying bye to these amazing people, but I also wanted to not have to come back because all fingers were crossed that this was it!  I’m not entirely certain if the feeling is mutual as I am definitely one of their more unique patients, but I like to think that they had as much fun as we did.  Well, I did…depending on whether I was embarrassing my wife at the time.

There is a little baby embryo bouncing in there and now it is time for the excruciatingly long, two week wait.  Fingers crossed, and magic baby thoughts everyone!