The Very Discreet Specimen (pt. 2)

The specimen kit turned out to be a swab, a plastic cup with a lid, and a sheet of instructions.
Are you thinking that that sounds like the same kit they give you to see if you've been smoking weed or using illegal steroids?
That's what I thought.
I'm not sure what I expected, but it wasn't that. I was kind of expecting something more, I don't know, provocative. Maybe I've seen to many of the American Pie films. I've only seen two of them, but a case could be made that that's too many.
The instructions essentially said what the nurse said, with the additional step of avoiding producing any specimens whatsoever for three days prior to gathering the one intended for testing. I can't imagine how the very discreet nurse missed explaining that detail to me. Also, keeping it at body temperature was emphasized as particularly important.
I made an appointment to drop the thing off four days after picking up the kit, and wouldn't you know it, we entered a cold snap that very morning.
We can always rely on getting a couple of weeks total of sub-zero weather in Madison during the winter, but over-all it's not that bad. I figured that if the temperature was hovering around freezing, as it had been, this would be okay.
The morning of my appointment to deliver the specimen (and then deliver the specimen) it was well below zero.
If I'd been entirely on the ball, I'd have gone out and started my car up before anything else, so it would be good and warm when I went out to it. Unfortunately, I wasn't that on the ball.
I also, had I thought about it further, might have refrained from putting the specimen cup back into the paper bag until after I got to the clinic.
Didn't do that either.
For the record, a brown paper bag containing anything the size and shape of a specimen cup tucked under a t-shirt, flannel shirt, fleece vest, and then parka, is pretty uncomfortable. Especially when it's bulk, while minimal for most purposes, is just enough to prevent tucking in the t-shirt, thus creating space for the thirty-five below zero windchill to run unimpeded right up your torso.
Just to be pissy about it, I kept the thing tucked under all those layers until presenting myself at the Ob-Gyn counter, so that I could produce it for the nurse with appropriate drama.
She very discreetly took it and put it somewhere without saying a word.
The specimen incident is when I decided that the whole getting pregnant thing was beginning to get a little weird.
A few weeks later Kate got the results. I'm not certain why Kate got them, I'd have thought that was illegal. In any case, she told me what they were:
"Normal, except for borderline low motility."
Kate asked about that low motility thing. Evidently whoever she was talking to said it was probably due to the record low temperatures.
So, the bottom line was that my internal gear is working just fine, with the possible qualifier that my, um, specimen, reacts to record cold in the way that pretty much everything else does.

Two big milestones in the next two days.
Tomorrow we go to meet with our first prospective day-care provider. This is so that we can finalize our application to fill the one opening that she will have come July of 2010.
It's our child's first waiting list.
Friday morning we have the second ultrasound. If I have time I'll explain the mistake I made during the first one. My main focus right now is not to do that again.