Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Dirty, Pervy Purchases (to some people!)

If any normal person were to see what S. and I purchased over the past few days, he or she would probably be wicked grossed out. We decided to get serious about doing a home insem, so in preparation we've just bought a fertility monitor (these things sell like hot cakes on e-bay--it's a vicious auction to buy one of these babies) and a metal speculum from a medical supply store on-line. Luckily we found that site, because the only other sites that S. found selling speculums were ones involving pee play. Um, eww.

I guess now we have to decide whether we're going to go all the way with the IUI at home or just do an IVI--I'm not sure. Seeing how neither of us can find S.'s cervix, I think we might have some trouble. So I'm hoping that speculum will arrive any day now! We found some great instructions on-line for how to use it, in case it wasn't self-explanatory enough, through the Feminist Health Center in Chico, CA. They also sell speculums on-line and self-examination kits. Very cool!



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

too funny that we're following pretty much the same path.

i'm not sure if i wrote this in my other comment, but depending on where she is in her cycle, S's cervix might be too high. did you get the spec to check the opening of the cervix? that's what we got it for, and for the iui. if you do ivi/ici, don't use the spec b/c when you take it out, you might bring some sperm along with it.

i bought my spec from the feminist health center as well. their instructions were great, huh? but yeah, it's pretty self-explanatory :)

Estelle said...

Put in the speculum, find her cervix, put the catheter tip just outside her cervix. Then pull the speculum out before you insem.
ICI is much more likely to work for a normal healthy person than IUI. Reason being that washed sperm lives inside the uterus for a VERY short amount of time, so your timing has to be 100% perfect. Unwashed sperm can live in the vagina much longer, so you have a bit of a grace period.
Even more if you use a chicken egg.