We were having fertility problems and I had an appointment with my GYN. The appointment was while my husband was away in San Francisco for a week. So I come home from my appointment with a cup and instructions for him. I asked very specifically what he needed to do and where and where he had to take it and how long he had to transport it and the best temp to keep the sample at.
So my hubby calls me to see how things go and we have this conversation:
Him - How was your appointment?
Me - Good - I had some tests done and it is your turn when you get home. Uh - have you masturbated while you’ve been out there?
Him - Um - yeah - why?
Me - well you have to refrain for three days and then do so into a cup and take it blah blah.
So he comes home and does the job and takes his sample to the place indicated. They look at him like a moron and tell him to take it to the other lab a couple miles up the road. So he says fine and leaves. The other lab tells him they don’t take that either and he has to take it to the hospital up the street. The hospital then tells him he should have called first. Finally they begrudgingly take his little cup for the tests. By that point he was practically begging people to take the damn thing
I had a long discussion with my doctor for giving erroneous information. They had just moved to the new building and this seemed to be the source of the confusion but considering the time sensitive nature of the test I wasn’t amused.
I feel your pain; I had to provide two samples (with an interval of a couple of weeks) after my vasectomy op - I couldn’t take it from home as it took more than an hour to get to the hospital and park. The only available facility at the hospital was a cubicle in the toilets down the corridoor from the path lab and the lock on the door was broken. It was nerve-wracking and unpleasant in every way.
Hysterosalpingogram, or HSG. Trust me, your test is less painful than hers is. I’ve had one, and it feels like the worse cramps I’ve ever had in my life. But it only lasts a few minutes.
Speaking as a lab tech I thought this bore repeating, particular emphasis on that second sentence. I’ve done this kind of analysis (I’m a female if it matters) and pretty much that’s all I’m thinking-how to get it done properly within the specified time frame so I can go on to all the other tests that are waiting for me. The method of collection doesn’t enter my mind, there’s too much else to concentrate on to worry about that.
At the hospital I went to, the receptionist was female. But at least I didn’t know her, or anyone else at the hospital. But if I had, it wouldn’t have made a difference. YMMV.
The problem, in my case, was that the nearest hospital to home that did fertility tests was ~45 minutes away, and IIRC, that was pushing the limit of how soon they wanted the sample afterwards. So I went there and had the most unerotic masturbatory experience of my life in a tiny one-person cinderblock restroom. Nowhere to sit comfortably, let alone lie down, so standing was the only possible position. (Not a position I’m normally in when I do this sort of thing.) So I’m standing up, and of course guess what points up when it’s hard? So this makes it somewhat of a challenge to, um, collect the sample when the time comes. And of course, there’s just the toilet and a sink in there - nowhere to put clothes if I’d removed any - so my pants and underwear are partway down, and I’d rather not have them fall too far, which is distracting as hell.
And there’s people walking by and talking in the hall just outside, and occasionally trying the bathroom door, which fortunately locked solidly. To say that it was difficult to get into, let alone sustain, a frame of mind leading to arousal, is a huge understatement. Eventually I managed, but it wasn’t easy, and believe me, despite the physical evidence, I didn’t get any joy out of it.
The solution is simple. On the cup, check “Other” and write in “Supermodel cheerleader triplets.” Manly, eh? If questioned, just say “You got a problem with that?” That way it’ll never go on record that you masturbated. But the transcriptionist might be more likely to remember it.
Honestly, you should just swallow your pride and do it. Or, as suggested, get your wife to help. As long as it’s not oral, 'cause then your wife might swallow your pride instead.
As for CrazyCatLady’s suggestion, if you have trouble checking “masturbation” how in the world are you going to write “Had sex wearing a condom and then squeezed the semen out into the cup”? Seems much worse.
Best of luck, both with doing the deed and getting the results you want.
To the OP: Get over it. You’re seeking medical treatment from medical professionals who don’t care whether you masturbate or not. No one cares. Grow up, and should you successfully conceive try to teach your offspring to be less of an idiot about sex than his old man.
Now, look. That was uncalled for. You have 99 posts? You should have learned that the Pit is the place to attack people, and the Pit alone.
You owe the O.P.'er an apology, please.
Now. I’ve been in his shoes. Had to give a sample a few times. The last time I did so, I had the singular experience of being asked to come and watch them on the video tap off the microscope…where I saw to my significant dismay just how badly things were going inside my testicles.
What made me stop feeling sorry for me? Seeing the look on my wife’s face as she lay there, feeling the awful agony of having fluid shot directly up through the cervix, into the uterus.
Babymaking was about us both. The raw pain? That was on her. Kept my head in the right place. The entire Infertility disaster was about violations of body, energy, intimacy, and beliefs in our own destiny.
I support anyone of either gender who endure this rollercoaster, and also support those who chose to adopt. The choice has to come from within the marriage. I wish you the very best of luck with all of this.
You know, as a woman who has gone through the full torture of protracted fertility evaluations, examinations and procedures, I’m rather galled to read a man complaining about having to masturbate into a cup because oh, it’s oh so terribly embarrassing. Boo frickin hoo, someone get me a tissue.
As the fertility dance proceeds, your wife will be left to spread her nether regions for multiple pelvic exams, ultrasounds performed via vaginal probes, and much, much worse. (I’m not going to get into daily injections of drugs that have a hellish effect on the body and the emotions, pipettes threaded through the cervix for inseminations, the proper timing of ovulation triggers or egg retrievals.) Hell, the nifty little procedure she gets to have right off the bat, the hysterosalpinogram, in which radiosensitive dye is shot through her reproductive system for x-ray examination isn’t any stroll in the park. It’s uncomfortable, at best, and decidedly invasive.
When you have to have your genitals manipulated and probes and dye and other implements inserted into your tender, private places, then you can whine. Unless you end up needing surgery to correct some anatomical defect, your portion of the assisted reproduction process is quite truly nothing at all worthy of repeated complaint. You need to get over yourself, and do it fast.
TeaElle you expressed that very eloquently.
And duffer get over the “shame” of having to masturbate. Let’s suppose the next time you went for a blood test they said you had a choice - you could either get a needle stuck in your arm OR they could get the data they needed from your sperm.
I don’t know about you but I sure as Hell know which one I’d choose. Heck, it would make doctor’s visits so much more fun.
If it makes you feel any better, at least it’s not winter.
The clinic I went to recommended that during the winter months, you place the sample under your shirt so that it is kept warm during transport.
I always made sure to drive carefully because I could only imagine what the scenario would be like if I got pulled over.
Cop: Hey there missy, what do you have under your shirt (fearing a gun).
me: um, a sperm sample?
Cop:Don’t get smart with me!
me: no, really!
Also, I over heard a lady on a cell phone telling her husband that she needed a new sample because she went to check the lid and saw that it was not on right. As she snapped the lid, the contents were spilled all over the hood of her car. How that happened, I don’t know, but still!
I believe I once read–in a Med Surg nursing book–that the “other” would generally refer to when masturbation is somehow prohibited for the individual, most often for religious reasons. I believe the alternative given was sex, followed by collection of the sample from the vagina.
Seems to me that it’d just be easier to masturbate into a cup.
I was totally the opposite, BNB! I had to drive samples to the hospital twice, and I was thrilled, because it was the only time I would have a valid excuse to be speeding if I was pulled over (well, except for when I was in labor, but there are no speed traps at 5 am). I live in a town with about 7 police officers total, and I run into them all the time at town stuff. Can you see them giving me a ticket when I whipped out the sperm cup from my cleavage?! I think not!
