Hysteroscopy

Today I went in for the much anticipated and somewhat dreaded hysteroscopy. I inserted the cytotec to soften my cervix about 5 hours before the procedure. I was told to show up at the clinic one hour early so I could take an Ativan to "relax" me. I showed up, the pharmacist asked me if I had a ride to take me home........this was never mentioned and I assured him I would be fine. I took my Ativan and went back to the room where the nurse told me she was going to give me an injection to help with cramping. I was surprised at the mention of an injection and really began to wonder what was next. This already wasn't ANYTHING like the hysteroscopy the RE preformed (which took 30 seconds and was a piece of cake........sorry if I've mentioned that about 10 times already, I just can't get over the difference). The nurse said I had the thickest "butt skin" she'd ever experienced (thanks to all of the PIO and estrogen injections I'd been doing for all that time, I now have thick "butt skin") I sent a text to my coordinator and told her that if they came back in the room with mention of an epidural or any other type of "pain management", I was going to get the hell outta there. At the rate they were going, I felt like I was being prepped for a hysterECTOMY, not a hysterOSCOPY!

I sat in the procedure room in anticipation (very nervous) for about half an hour. The nurse told me that the doctor said it would be a quick procedure and she'd even probably wind up doing it between patients. "Great!" I thought. "I can get back to work in no time!". 

The doctor came in, inserted the speculum and said "whoa, you are not spotting, you are definitely still bleeding quite a bit". Yeah, sorry about that :(. She then proceeded to inject my cervix 4 different times with Novocaine. I actually felt the affects all the way up in my face. Strange feeling! The first two were pretty uncomfortable. After I was numbed, she started attempting to dilate my cervix and said that it was "fighting her". This......was not good. Ouch. She brought in 4 other nurses along with an ultrasound machine to guide the instruments into my cervix just to dilate it so she could fit the scope through it. Here's where I started hearing the "retroverted uterus" term again. Ah, how I remember hearing that so often during my own pregnancy. Apparently my uterus is VERY tilted and pregnancy didn't fix that for me. Damn it.

Once the scope was in, I was in so much discomfort (think labor pains), but saw that my uterus looked normal (which I wasn't expecting) and "beautiful" according to the doctor. After it was all over, I felt very relieved to know that I still have a "beautiful uterus" and hope that it will go to good use again next month, but for 40 weeks this time around :)

Oh....and as for the bloated feeling that I've been so crabby about. Now that I can't blame it on my uterus, I have to take responsibility for behaving badly during the holidays and will work harder to drop the pounds. I'm up 6 lbs. from my normal weight. Not too bad, but man is it STUBBORN!