We kill time. We kill so much time. Of course you’d think having time to kill in Europe wouldn’t be the worst-case scenario, and you’d be sort of right, but rainy cold weather and hormones that have “depression” and “drowsiness” in the small print add up to more quiet reading in bed than anything else. I felt waves of guilt, both at leaving our daughter at home with grandma for the duration of the trip; for going to such great lengths to try and have another child when we already got lucky once and maybe shouldn’t press that luck; for being kind of a depressed crab with my husband. Still, we killed time and then killed some more of it, and eventually, it was The Day.
We boarded at the same tram stop as we did three years ago when we did IVF the first time, passed the same tiny chocolate shops looked up at the same dismal sky, walked down from the tram stop along the same old cobbled street, to the same nondescript peachy-tangerine building with the gate.
It was frozen embryo transfer day, and if I hadn’t been wearing wool gloves I would have been biting my nails to the quick with anxiety.
A frozen embryo transfer cycle is a bit different from a fresh IVF cycle, what we did last time. This go-around, we had one embryo frozen from our last fresh cycle, so the medications I’d been taking were a little different, the procedure a little less invasive by comparison. Still, we’d traveled across the ocean to be here, in this moment, on this day, to see if it would even be possible. There was no way of knowing until now. Embryos can get damaged when they’re thawed. There was a chance we’d have come all this way, for nothing; we only had the one shot.
The nurses call couples to the small consultation room to meet with the doctor two-by-two. Nobody looks at each other. Nobody wants to be here. There are so many hopes and prayers stuffed into this small waiting room, it’s a wonder any of us can breathe. I think some of us aren’t, preferring to hold our breaths as we’re perched on the edges of our seats.
They call our last name.
It’s our turn.
Breathe.
“Your embryo thawed wonderfully — perfect!” the doctor says after closing the door.
I let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding. It feels like I’ve been holding that breath for three years.
Of course, this doesn’t promise a successful transfer, a positive pregnancy test, a child. But we’ve made it through the gate, we’ve passed this test. We’ve managed to check off so many boxes to get to this point that it feels like a video game: Achievement Unlocked!
After the procedure, we let out quick sighs as we walk back down the cobblestones, back towards the tram. It’s an odd experience — both assisted reproductive-wise, and the experiencing of finding ourselves back out in the cold, walking along the sidewalk with other people brushing past, as though nothing just happened, none of them knowing what we just went through, the hopes and fears we just balled up in our fists and released. Out here on the cold grey streets of the Czech Republic, we’re nobodies. Of course, we always were. But now we’re nobodies with a secret (we just did a procedure that’s crazy weird and amazing in that nondescript building right there!) — now we’re nobodies with different hopes than we had an hour ago. All we can do now is wait the two weeks like everyone else (a strangely normal thing in the midst of an otherwise not-normal experience).
“Let’s get some cocoa,” I say, linking my gloved hand with his.
No matter the outcome, you can’t go wrong with some cocoa.
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