My HSG

Here's what I know: not much.

But I should start a little closer to the beginning. I got to the hospital, registered, and got called in pretty quickly. I got to wear two hospital gowns, so no embarrassing openings (bonus!). A very nice nurse walked me through the procedure before the radiologist came in and offered reassurance.

Then the radiologist came in, a pleasant enough man. He echoed much of what the nurse had already told me: this procedure was not going to be fun and there would be pain, but most people do okay with it. So now that I was totally excited about the HSG, he asked a bit about my history and why I was there. He also asked if I'd ever been told my uterus was abnormal before, and I casually mentioned that I had been told it was tipped during my first ultrasound. Then it was down to business!

Let me reiterate: absolutely nothing about an HSG is pleasant. First there was the dreaded speculum, then he cleaned my cervix, then the catheter went through my cervix and my uterus was flooded with an iodine solution. Sounds simple, but let me tell you: It. Hurt. But once everything was in place there was some relief.

The large x-ray machine hovered over my midsection and started taking pictures. Luckily, I could see the screen and watched it with apprehension. The radiologist removed the speculum (more pain relief, thank goodness) and had me move from one side to another and then all the way over on my right side then to my back again. It seemed like only one side filled up with the dye, and I could see only one tube. Could it be unicornuate? I wondered.

Afterwards the Dr. confirmed that the dye didn't go into my left tube, which he shrugged off as one of those things that happens sometimes. He asked me whether I was told to which side my uterus was tipped. I replied that I assumed it was tipped back, not to one side. He proceeded to tell me that it looked like it was tipped a bit to the right, and he was not ready to call it abnormal yet. He would look at the images more closely and then send a report to my doctor. He told me he would recommend some follow-up ultrasounds to get a better look at everything.

[In retrospect, that's pretty annoying: ultrasound can be done at any point in the cycle, and I wouldn't have had to wait this long to get going on diagnosis. It's been 8 weeks and 1 day since my m/c!]

Dr. Radiologist will send a report to my doctor, and I'll hear back in 3-5 days.