Three years ago right now I was in the throes of IVF round #1. Our attitudes toward the process were full of excitement because we knew no different. Ignorance is bliss, I suppose.
Fast forward to today and we are starting IVF round #3. Obviously that means that round #2 didn't work and true to form it was nothing short of dramatic. You see, the last time I blogged, I was waiting for the call that would tell me if we were going to expand our family or not. At 12:38pm on that day, the call came and on the phone were two of our favorite nurses...Jessica and Marie....who were both overflowing with excitement for us. Our numbers had come back and were off the chart...a whopping 836. Please keep in mind that with Maggie my first HCG levels came back at 22, so 836 was mindblowing. They told us on the phone that they were very sure it was twins and that possibly one embryo had even split. While Marie and Jess were celebrating, I was dying inside. I flashbacked to March 2011 when after the first HCG my numbers came back high, we had the same celebration, and then I miscarried. I refused to let myself feel that way again, so I remained cautious.
As always, I was instructed to make the drive to that non-descript building in New Haven two days later for more bloodwork. Once December 1 I followed my instructions, worrying of course that the numbers might double which would only solidify the idea of multiples or worse yet the number might decrease which would mean another miscarriage.
Never in a million years could I have prepared myself for what happened next.
A little after 1pm that afternoon a nurse called...I think her name was Linda. As soon as I heard her voice I knew something was not right. She asked if I could come back in that afternoon for some follow up bloodwork because they thought that the machine had not been calibrated accurately. I asked if my number had dropped. She said yes. I asked what it dropped to. Reluctantly she told me zero. Having been through a miscarriage I knew that you don't go from pregnant at 836 to 0 in 48 hours. Something was wrong.
I raced to New Haven and when I walked in, you could cut the tension in the office with a knife. I saw Joanie...a wonderful young nurse who admitted to me that noone else wanted to have to face me. I asked what that meant. She told me that they think there could have been a mistake on their part. At the end of all of it, there was. Two hours after blood draw #2 the nurse manager called to tell me that I was not, in fact, pregnant at all and never was.
We were devastated, angry, confused, disappointed, etc...
For three years I had trusted this facility and on one of the most basic procedures they made a major mistake that left us emotionally raw. Once again we were grieving. Not at the loss of the pregnancy, but at the let down of a "friend" which was how we viewed the clinic.
We scheduled a follow up with Dr. Seli for the next day and he acknowledged that a mistake had been made and my blood had been swapped with another woman's blood and she was in fact pregnant and I was not. He shared with us that this had never happened...although I don't know if that made me feel better or worse. We talked about what kinds of changes could be implemented to prevent this from happening again. We talked about our options. We talked about whether or not we would want to find another clinic because the relationship had been so damaged. We talked and talked and talked and I sobbed the entire time.
We agreed that we would get through the holidays before making any decisions and take some time to recover and enjoy Maggie. And that is exactly what we did.
And so, it is now a new year and we are so very thankful to have put 2011 behind us. And three years after our first (and only) successful round of IVF we are back for round #3.
Stay tuned...say prayers...wish us luck...and believe.
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