Adventures in Fertility - The Dye Test

Well on Friday I had my dye test or Hysterosalingogram (HSG) test. I have to say nothing on the Internet or the pamphlet really prepared me for it...

The first step was a pregnancy test. I needed to prove that I was not pregnant before they could proceed. As usual, the appearance of a cup in a bathroom immediately made all desire/need to pee to go completely away. After 15 -20 minutes, I finally emerged victorious and produce a negative test.

Down to X-ray I went... with someone else file. Fortunately, the person who had my file was curious enough to read it and we swapped out after a short read. Hers was WAY thinner than mine.

I'll skip the fantastic wait in the world tiniest waiting room with one magazine. Cory was the lucky man with the magazine and all the other husbands were clearly jealous.

***** Men might want to stop reading here ********

After our lengthy wait, I was finally called in. They asked me to pop up the table which was actually an xray machine. They explain that this will be alot like a REALLY long pap test. First they painted my girl parts with an iodine paint to prevent infection. Then came the speculum... this was pretty familiar. Next they used the paint again to paint my cervix... then came the pinch. I'm not 100% sure what the pinch was but my best guess it was to open my cervix. It's hard to explain the pinch except it was a pinch that felt like it was deep inside my stomach... it sorta hurt but only for a split second. Honestly it was hardly mentionable...

Now I'm all set to proceed, they pop out to grab the radiologist and we are ready to rumble. Once she entered the room, we proceeded. The Xray machine turned on and the dye was injected. This was the most uncomfortable part... as the dye hit my uterus, I felt a wicked menstrual cramp. It was only one cramp but it was a doozie. I breathed through that... it wasn't anything worse than mother nature had already subjected me in the past and it was only 1 cramp. We watched the dye proceed up my Fallopian tubes, I had to turn my hips a little and voila... all done.

Tubes are clear and unblocked.

They sent me off to the bathroom with a little clean up kit... wash cloth, towel, maxi pad. After washing off the paint (sticky yellow stuff), I got dressed and headed home. Due to the pinch, I had some spotting that lasted a day. I had some super minor cramping for the rest of the day but nothing noteworthy... mostly a just feeling that someone had messed with my innards.

I decided to share the details after I didn't find a satisfactory description online and went it without any preconceived notions of what to expect. I'm not saying I would want to have one everyday, but in the world of medical tests I have endured, this one was a breeze.