The return of the prodigal period

My stupid period, having shown itself briefly last weekend and then retreated, came properly on Wednesday night.

I therefore presented myself at the clinic at 8am yesterday morning for my day 2-5 blood test. This is the fourth or fifth time I've had this test now, and my results have always shown a good egg reserve, so I'm not sure why I need to have it again except that maybe the clinic prefers to do its own series of tests rather than relying on my GP's results.

This might be wise - the last time I visited the doctor for bloods, the nurse took about 10 minutes to work out which coloured tube my blood needed to go in, all the while musing aloud "I should really know this by now" whilst I sat silently seething and thinking "Yes, you bloody should."

Their finest hour was when the doctor gave me the assorted baggie of pot and paperwork for the sperm test. After I arrived at the clinic and fished said pot out of my cleavage to present it to the receptionist, it turned out we'd been given the brown paperwork that's designed for drug testing of athletes' spunk, rather than the green documentation for infertility!

Getting my period also meant that I thought I'd have to book in next week for the dreaded pingu-whatsit. However, I chatted with the nurse who relieved me of some nine vials of blood yesterday morning and she reckoned it would take at least a month for my referral to come through from the hospital's X-ray department. Apparently they need the results of the smear and swabs I had last week - to make sure all is well with the cervix before they break it, I assume!

I admitted to the nurse how scared I am and she said that she wouldn't lie, the procedure is unpleasant and can be very painful. But she also said it's better to be prepared for that, as often it's the women who go in expecting nothing worse than a smear who panic when they experience the pain and end up having a truly traumatic time.

Anyway, the upshot is I have to await a letter, and then when I get my next period (so some time this decade, then) I'll need to ring up and book in. This means I have a reprieve for this cycle. I mean to pray very hard to a God I'm not sure I believe in for me to fall pregnant this month so I can avoid the HSG altogether. (I love that phrase, "fall" pregnant - like it's easy, like it's something that you just trip into unexpectedly. A better description for me would be "claw my way desperately" pregnant.)

So, the cards are dealt, the "dye" is cast - or soon will be, right up where the sun don't shine. I'm frightened, Aunty Em, I'm frightened! Catheters and speculums and cramps, oh my!