After approximately two weeks of monitoring, I finally saw my own doctor for the first time. He did the scan and said, I think we are going to trigger tonight, TESE tomorrow, egg retrieval will be on Friday. All of a sudden I got so nervous. I was finally getting into a routine and now we were changing things up again. The nurse told me she would be in touch with me later that day about dosages and times. We quickly called my mom who had to change her plane ticket and come in that night to help us out.
The day went so slowly. As I would meet with each of my patients, I attempted to will my phone not to ring. Praying the nurse did not call me when I couldn’t answer because it would be impossible to get back in touch with her. Sure enough she called me and I missed the call. She told me the dosage and told me to use a 1.5 inch needle. I got home and set everything up, I was freaking out, I only had 1 inch needles. What was I going to do? I called Akiva and told him to start going to different pharmacies to find the needles.
Our close friends had invited us over for dinner that night so we would not have to worry about things. I went over, freaking out that something was going to be wrong because we couldn’t find the needle we needed. The nurse never called me back. Akiva was running all over Manhattan looking for this needle. Just as he got the needle we were told to use from a small pharmacy in the Upper West Side, he got a phone call from someone at the clinic saying, oh no you could have used the one inch needle!
After dinner, we went home and prepped for my shot. A friend who knew how to give injections came over and did the injection. The next morning we woke up super early and went to the hospital. My mom had come in late the night before and came with us. She sat next to me knitting a scarf, trying to make conversation, but I was too tense for that. She finally decided she was going to go for a walk and went walking from bakery to another buying us comfort food to last the next few days.
Hours past and my nurse came out and told me to come back. I could not read her face, was it good news or bad news? She told me to have a seat. The doctor walked in and said ok, good news, we found sperm. I think this cycle is going to be quite successful. I was so happy! Finally I had something positive to go on! This was not all just a terrible experience. We were going to have a baby that summer!
The next day I came back for my egg retrieval. I was the last person on the list, so I watched everyone else come in and go out. Slowly all the people disappeared except for myself and one other Orthodox Jewish woman. The called my name and I went back. She was also called and we found ourselves talking. She was on her 10th round of IVF. I was on my first round of IVF. Part of me was so happy we had found sperm the day before so that I didn’t fully panic when I heard this woman share her story. The other part of me started getting so nervous that she had been through ten rounds! What if that was me?
They called me back, I laid down on the table, the next thing I know I was being woken up by two of the sweetest nurses I have ever come in contact with. Angel and Geraldine held my hand, walked with me, and reassured me that the 18 eggs they got was a fantastic result. I couldn’t stop crying so they called my doctor who talked to both myself and Akiva and let us know what to expect over the next few days. He told us they would see us on Monday and we would then find out what our results were.
So we waited again. This time felt even longer. Over the weekend there was no one in the office we could call about results. It was so frustrating not having anyone we could check in with. But that is the world of fertility treatments. Nothing is in your hands and you are forever at the mercy of your clinic, doctor, and nurse.