2001-2002 First Treatments

The day I had the D and C, I my doctor and others asked if we wanted to have a service for this lost baby.  Everyone was very kind...but I did not want a service -  there was no baby because the development stopped so early.  We did not have a service.   Losing a pregnancy was very humbling.  We just wanted to move on.

In the days after, I was shocked at how many people called me to reveal to me their own stories of pregnancy loss.
A couple months later we (I mean I) was back to charting temps and tracking other body changes.  One challenge we had from the beginning is that Dan was an IT consultant, and he was away from home 5 days a week.   Many times he was not around when the "right time" hit.  Several times I did contemplate jumping on a  plane for the day.....

We did some basic testing and drug therapy - but no success there

By late 2001 we decided to try artificial insemination, where my cycle is timed so that the doctor knows when I should ovulate.  Then Dan produces a "sample" in a cup at home, then I would drive to the clinic with the little jar shoved in my pants to keep the little guys warm.  Isn't that sweet?  The clinic does a process called "sperm washing" to separate the fast swimmers from the morons.  The fast swimmers are then coddled and stored in a catheter.  I get to take another ride in the stirrups and have them put inside.  The layman's term for for Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) is "The turkey baster", becuase that is pretty much what it is.  So after they give the "boys" a head start toward the egg - I sit there for 20 minutes then go about my day.  Two weeks later you go in for a pregnancy blood test, where they would tell me the result was negative.  We did this process 3 times with zero success.  Needless to say things were getting frustrating.  It was now 2002, and we had been trying to have a baby for over 2 years.