I didn’t wash my hair, pick out a nice outfit or take a shower. The clinic called.
It was 10 minutes after 11 a.m. on a Sunday morning in February 2003.
“Your embryos are ready. Can you be here at noon?”
So much for the two-hour gap they told us we’d get between the phone call and our arrival at the clinic.
No matter. On this trip through infertility, Peter and I had come to learn that whatever you plan for, just don’t.
I’d been preparing my body for more than a month to receive these embryos. Technically speaking, I was more than ready. Peter, the fish biologist, might have said I was gravid.
Since December 2002, I’d been following a strict drug protocol spelled out in a gray binder. It was complicated and had to be followed like an orthodox religion. I carried the binder around with me all day, checking and rechecking it to make sure I wasn’t doing anything wrong. There were more shots, antibiotics, oral and vaginal hormone treatments, clinic visits for ultrasounds and blood tests.
We sped down rainy I-5 and were 13 minutes late to the Fertility and Endocrine Center at the University of Washington in Seattle.
An embryologist with a long braid down her back led us into a room with an ultrasound machine. The room was decorated with black-and-white photos of embryos in various stages of development. I disrobed from the waist down and lay down on the table.
Soon Dr. Mark Kahn came in to show us a picture of the two little guys he would put inside me.
Madame X had donated 10 eggs. Nine of those survived past the first day and were fertilized with Peter’s sperm. But they weren’t implanted in me immediately.
Peter and I earlier had agreed to let the embryos grow up a little.
That procedure added a risk that none of the eggs would make it past the first few days. But doctors explained to us that if the eggs didn’t make it, they more than likely wouldn’t have survived inside of me, either.
We wanted a baby. Right now, we wanted blastocysts — eggs that are developed beyond eight cells. Only about half of the eggs fertilized will become blastocysts in a petri dish.
By transferring blastocysts, the doctors said, there’s a greater chance they will successfully implant. And by using blastocysts, the embryos had a better chance of survival. So we only needed two embryos.
If we hadn’t opted for blastocysts, we might have had three eggs transferred to increase the chance of survival. But we’d also be increasing the chance of having triplets.
Did we really want to go from zero to crowded in one pregnancy?
So we waited. Our family of eggs divided. In five days, there they were — 5 days old and already blastocysts.
Kahn seemed very excited about them, saying they looked really healthy.
I looked at the black-and-white picture. To me, the round blobs looked, well, like blobs. Not like our potential baby.
My bladder had to be full before the transfer could happen. That was necessary so Kahn could get the best picture on the ultrasound to plant the embryos in my uterus.
Beer was not an option at that hour. So I slammed down eight glasses of water and waited 10 minutes. Peter and I made nervous chitchat and stared at the photo of our embryos. Would that count as our first baby picture?
“They’re so cute at that age,” I said.
The transfer began with the ultrasound wand being placed on my abdomen, which would help direct Kahn to the right spot in my uterus.
The embryos waited in the lab, eagerly lined up behind the curtained window. The embryologist opened the window as if she was going to hand over a double tall hazelnut latte.
Instead, she gave Kahn the catheter, loaded with two spheres of tiny dividing cells and a lot of hope. Those blobs were the building blocks for our growing family.
“All right. The eggs are going in now,” Kahn said.
I watched the ultrasound screen. Peter watched. I lay still as stone, so still that my right leg cramped. I swallowed hard, trying to ignore the pain. I was scared to move.
That thin catheter held $7,000 worth of eggs and a potential baby — half Peter, half from some woman we’d never met. I was afraid I’d lose it all with a twitch.
I stared at the screen. There were two white lights in the bull’s-eye of my uterus. Those were the air bubbles on either side of the two embryos. When those lights appeared, Kahn knew the eggs had left the catheter and landed.
Peter and I would return to the clinic for a pregnancy test in 10 days.
The whole embryo transfer took 20 minutes.
I’d been waiting four years for those 20 minutes.
In the car, I sat still.
I told Peter I wanted to have hope, but being an insane, infertile woman, I couldn’t help having doubts.
Peter said my doubts were understandable, because all I had known prior to this was failure and disappointment.
This was something new, he said. Something with a 55 percent success rate. Something that deserved a positive approach. Better than a coin toss.
He was right.
I needed to open my heart, which had been so tightly closed against any more dead-ends.
Something flashed through my head. It surprised me, because I hadn’t had this thought in a long time.
Did I dare think of baby names?
Next part: Phone call delivers good news
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