This is not professional medical advice!! Rather, it is a tutorial intended as a refresher or introduction for medically trained professionals moonlighting plunger-pushers for their partners, or possibly plunger-pushers who have been previously trained by their RE or other physician. An infection in your uterus is NO JOKE! Be careful ladies and gentlebois.
This continues from Nuts and Bolts - IUI: PART 1
Thaw the goods
We remove a vial, and set it on a coaster (still using gloves!! But I didn't have to say that again, right?). Set your timer for 20 minutes, and busy yourself with preparing your sterile items. Open your sterile drape/field, and place your items on it. Put on the sterile gloves, and then install the catheter on the syringe tip.
While you do this, and after the timer has gone off, give the vial to your partner to hold in her hand for 5-10 minutes. This will bring the specimen to body temperature (but won't be too hot, which you risk in hot water thawing baths).
Here you can see a package of sterile gloves, a catheter already installed on a syringe, and a speculum. It may not be clear in the photo, but we also marked 2" on the catheter, which I'll explain next. Although this is not necessary, it can be helpful.
Get your partner in place
I've heard a few suggestions around the interwebs, but what's worked best for us is for me (receiver) to place one foot on my nightstand, the other on the bed, and then scoot my butt cheeks up to the edge of the bed. Do whatever you need to do to allow convenient access.
Insert the speculum. You may feel comfortable doing this yourself, or want your partner to do it. You may also want to use lube (which in in the case of IUI is fine, but only use PreSeed lube if it's an ICI you're after). You can practice this before the big event - you don't want to be messing with specula you can't get right while your swimmers are thawing.
Swimmers - take your mark...
Once your partner is in place, and the speculum is in place, you're ready for the actual IUI procedure. First, put on your head lamp (is this romantic, or what?). Obtain the vial, turn it over a few times, and screw off the top. Insert the catheter into the vial, and start pulling the syringe plunger to pull the sperm into the catheter. Watch the catheter to make sure you don't introduce any air bubbles. Your partner will not thank you when her uterus freaks out when it's full of air. Now carefully (without touching the speculum or vaginal walls), try to insert the catheter into your partners cervix, ideally up to the 2" mark, indicating you've made it into the uterus. Push the plunger very slowly (like 2 minutes total) until you've expelled all the contents. Pull out the catheter.
Edit: Having gone through this process with an RE, I don't think the pluger needs to be depressed so slowly. They do it in 2 seconds flat.
You did it!
Now you're done! Make sure you throw away all the disposable tools (catheter, syringe, gloves, sterile field), because they are no longer sterile. Remove the speculum, and get comfortable. You might consider staying horizontal for 15 minutes up to an hour. It's not really necessary since you're doing an IUI, but can't hurt? Other romantic activities are also highly encouraged, because the muscle spasms in the uterus during orgasm can actually help those swimmers along.
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