Vindication.

When you're experiencing medical problems - particularly ones that bring pain along with anxiety - often, just getting an official diagnosis is a step forward.

By the time I began regularly seeing a Reproductive Endocrinologist at "BABIES GUARANTEED FERTILITY CLINIC" I had already started a new relationship with the amazing women on the Asherman's Syndrome (AS) Support Group.  The more I read about the diagnosis and treatment of AS, the more I felt in my gut two problems:  1) He wasn't experienced in treating Asherman's yet he seemed to brush the surgery off as if it was easy-peasy, a 2) He was dicking me around in even coming up with a diagnostic plan quickly.  "You're not one of our usual kinds of patients," said a nice nurse at the clinic, meaning that I didn't need their assistance to start a normal ovulation cycle, to join an egg with sperm, or to implant an embryo.  Dr. X, to his credit, did realize after some blood work that even more blood work would probably get us nowhere, but couldn't decide whether to schedule me for an HSG at the hospital or a sonohysterogram (same thing basically, but in office and using saline solution). 

Finally, an HSG was scheduled.  Despite the fact that this test is reportedly painful as all fuck, I was excited.  I messaged women in my new AS support group with lame but important, anxiety-easing questions, like "Will I be able to teach a zumba class the same day?" Because after being told that it was my Svengali-like anxiety and neuroses keeping my period away, maybe I would get a more "medical" kind of answer.

Around Thanksgiving, about 4 months after the D&C that caused me so much pain, I show up at the hospital, take 800 mg of ibuprofen to steel myself to the prospect of a giant catheter filling my uterus up with fluid, and eventually lie on a cold table. And a nice woman tries to ram a tube up my cervix.  And I mean RAM.  I mean, the painful part of the procedure hasn't even begun yet!  And after a few more pushes, the kind woman stops and looks at me:  "I can't get the catheter in at all," she says, "it's like a brick wall is completely blocking me."  And she couldn't believe it when instead of bursting into tears, I actually managed a slight smile at her words.

And THAT, friends, is what I call the glory of vindication.  Because for FOUR MONTHS I have been saying I am getting a period, really, only it's trapped inside of me, building up each month and my body is literally contracting with LABOR PAINS to eliminate it.  And now a doctor will FINALLY believe me.

HUZZAH!