Monday was transfer day! We spent the morning relaxing and had brunch together. Akiva kept reassuring me about the cycle, telling me that the fact we had gotten this far meant that it was going to work. It was the most positive I had ever seen my husband. We got to the hospital a little early and they had me change and get ready. A few of the other ladies from retrieval day were there as well. We had spent hours looking at each other, and the familiar faces were oddly comforting.
They called three of us back and we sat and chatted before being brought into the procedure room. We all had varying diagnosis and experience in the world of infertility. They both commented on how young I was at 25 years old. Looking back, I now realize how young I was to have been going through such intense treatment. The other two ladies were called in one after the other. I was then sitting alone. Waiting. As usual.
I was called in. The operating room was vastly different than it had been for the egg retrieval. The lights were low, there was just the doctor, the nurse, and an Embryologist in the room. The doctor didn’t say a word to me. The nurse instructed me what to do, the Embryologist came and checked all my info to ensure it was my embryo they were transferring into my uterus.
Once I was lying on my back, feet up in stirrups, fully exposed, the doctor came up to me and said, “well you have three embryos, two just died this morning. I don’t have a lot of hope for the last one, but we will transfer it anyhow and see what happens.”
I almost burst into tears. I had been so Zen, relaxed, and positive and I lost it all in an instant. The lack of care or compassion this physician had still shocks me to this day. I held it together until I got into the recovery room and Akiva was brought back to me. He asked me what was wrong and I told him I didn’t think it was going to work. He told me not to talk like that, but after what the doctor said, how could I possibly hold it together.
I left the hospital and took the next few days to myself. I went back to work later that week and tried my best to just be positive and happy. Thanksgiving was a week later, Akiva and I decided to spend the holiday alone. We went out for a nice dinner, but we were still thinking about what the doctor had said to me before. The next day I went in for my pregnancy test and I spent the day at work worrying about when the phone call would come and what they were going to tell me.
At 1:09 PM right after lunch, I got the phone call. Akiva and I spoke about how we were going to let it go to voicemail and listen to it together. But I had to answer it. I couldn’t let it go. My nurse was on the other end and said, I am so sorry, but you are not pregnant. I burst into tears. What I had been feeling up to that point all came crashing down around me.
I drove home hysterically crying. I did not know what to do with myself. The entire experience culminating in this awful feeling was just too much to handle. I truly did not expect this not to work. If we found sperm I thought it was a definite success. Now we had to start over from the beginning. It was devastating. All the emotions and hormones were crashing down all around me. I just wanted this one thing, and yet it was being pulled even farther away once again. I did not know how I would ever be able to smile and be happy again. How do people move forward from things like this?
