Once we knew we were ovulating, we went in for our first intrauterine insemination (IUI). The first order of business was obtaining a semen sample, which we were blessedly able to do at home. See Reluctant Spouse and Semen Samples for more on both my husband's and my reactions to semen samples.

The nurse let me watch her do the "sperm wash," which was fascinating to me. She let the semen sample sit for 30 minutes (from the time it was "obtained") while the specimen turned into a thinner liquid. Next, she poured the specimen into a test tube and then placed the test tube into a machine to spin the specimen.

Yes, you read right. The specimen went on a very fast merry-go-round ride for a few minutes. I kept thinking that my husband's swimmers must be getting very dizzy.

When the nurse took the specimen out of the spinning machine, there was a white pellet at the bottom of the tube. The nurse said that the pellet held all of the "good swimmers."

The nurse poured a pink solution into the test tube, shook the specimen, and then used a medicine dropper to remove the pink liquid. She said that the pink liquid was removing the "bad swimmers" so that they would not get in the way of the "good swimmers." Who thinks up this stuff?

The nurse added more solution to the test tube to finalize the specimen. She said that this liquid provided nourishment to the sperm and would enable them to "live longer" in my uterus than if they were implanted without the solution.

Somewhere in this process, the nurse used the medicine dropper to remove one drop of sperm and analyze it in a microscope. She could tell immediately that my husband's count was low - lower than the ideal 20+ million swimmers for which we were hoping.

I, personally, do not know how you can tell the number by viewing a sample in a microscope. The nurse was the expert, so I took her word for it, but I truly do not think I could tell the difference between 20 million and 50 million when looking through a microscope. In numbers that large, it would all look the same to me.

Even though the number was low, we proceeded with the IUI. The doctor reminded me that we only needed one sperm to make contact with my egg to conceive a baby. With numbers that large, it seemed impossible that so many sperm would miss.

Related Topics:

• Diagnostic Workup: Semen Analysis
• Obtaining a Semen Sample for Analysis
• Semen Analysis (SA)