Hysterosal-What??

Fast forward about 3 months into the diagnostic testing process and working through this crazy waiting game to finally be able to have one last diagnostic test, a hysterosalpingogram (say that 5 times fast) or HSG, which by the way was the WORST of all the tests - wouldn't wish it upon anyone. Problem was, random things kept happening that were out of my control and that kept postponing the test. Typically, most if not all of the diagnostic testing is done within the first month or so (at least within my doctor's practice), as every test is time-sensitive and very dependent upon which day of your cycle it is. However, here we were almost 4 months in and had every other test done and complete, except this one. The first month the doctor's office had a glitch and didn't transfer my file over to the correct scheduling nurse, so when I was scheduled for another test and supposed to have the HSG done at the same time, no one realized that (including me) until I was at the appointment and at that point it was too late. The office genuinely apologized, which I understandingly accepted, but it was still frustrating because this meant I had to wait another month to be able to schedule the HSG, since it had to be done at a very specific (yet very limited) time frame within my cycle, and since the doctor typically only performed the test on Mondays, as it needed to be done at the hospital.

So, let me digress a moment: The purpose of an HSG is to look for any abnormalities and/or blockages within a woman's fallopian tubes and uterus. Without getting too graphic, a dye is injected and then viewed to see if it's able to travel freely through both tubes, or to determine if there are any blockages, scarring, or abnormal structures, which ultimately could be preventing the egg from making contact with the sperm. The HSG is typically done sometime between days 6-12 of your cycle (after your cycle starts, but before ovulation).

Now, back to my scheduling conflicts... Since you typically have to wait to actually start your cycle to even schedule the test, the next month when I called to let the office know that I had started and to try and schedule the HSG, I was told that the doctor was unfortunately going to be out of the office that following Monday so I had two choices: 1) wait until next month or 2) start on birth control for a number of days in order to prolong my cycle and prevent ovulation. Umm, WHAT? You seriously want me to go on birth control for a week and screw up my cycle which is apparently already broken? No thanks. So, I guess that meant we were waiting for yet another month. So the next month came and wait for it... same story. The doc. was out of town at a conference and it would be too late in my cycle by the next week to perform the test (again, unless I went on birth control). Come on, this is just ridiculous torture at this point. I mean, I truly love my doctor and he's one of the best in the region, if not the country, so it wasn't that I was dealing with an imprudent office, it was just the uncanny timing of everything that happened to be interfering. Month after month came without being able to schedule this stupid HSG, and with the secret hope that maybe it would be "the month" when we got pregnant on our own and could simply stop all this foolish chaos. I couldn't help but wonder if this was maybe God's way of prolonging something that He knew wouldn't be necessary? Maybe the test would come back normal and it was only a matter of another month before we'd be pregnant, so perhaps it was His way of preventing me from going through unnecessary poking and prodding? That had to be it, right? Hold on to the hope that this would be the month, Tiff...