Crisis averted

I had resigned myself to cancelling this cycle, with the smallest glimmer of hope that maybe tomorrow wouldn't be too late to trigger for a Tuesday retrieval to at least get the smallest of my growing eggs. In tears, I sat in my husband's arms and said over and over again, "I'm so sorry."

A whole cycle wasted.

Worse: I would have to call Ye Olde Fertility Clinic tomorrow and admit to my stupidity. They have signs EVERYWHERE asking if you have your trigger shot. Are you SURE you have your trigger shot? ABSOLUTELY sure? Check with your nurse if you need it, they admonish. Their paperwork reminds you constantly to ensure ahead of time that you HAVE YOUR TRIGGER SHOT because the doctor on call can't guarantee that you'll be able to find a pharmacy that has it in stock if you call them in a panic in the middle of the night. On Thursday the nurse who went over my trigger instructions asked if I had the trigger shot. "Oh yes," I said. "I'm sure I do."

"You might want to check," she said.
"Oh, I'll definitely check. I wouldn't want to be THAT patient," I said. "You know, the one who calls in the middle of the night in a panic because she doesn't have it?"

Right. And I did have every intention of checking to see if I had it. Really. But, well, life got away from me.

We called all the 24 hour pharmacies around and, sure enough, no one had it in stock, so calling the doctor on call wasn't going to help me anyway. So, as I said, I had resigned myself to having completely wasted an entire cycle.

But then - my brilliant, handsome, perfect, amazing, wondermous husband came downstairs and said to me as I wallowed in my misery: "Hey, dumb question... does M have hCG?"

"M's out of town."
"Right. So does M have any?"
"Probably, but she's out of town and I don't have a key to her house."
"So... does anyone locally HAVE a key to her house?"

Duh.

Well, it was worth a shot, despite the late hour. The clock was ticking on how long I could push my luck anyway. Last time I got this far, I took my trigger shot half an hour late and my nurse said that was no problem at all. She even said an hour late was no problem at all. Any more than that and it starts to become a problem.

So at 11:38, I called M on her cell phone. She didn't answer, but I left a message asking her to please call me if she got the message. And then, just for good measure, I tried calling her one more time, just in case she hadn't heard it the first time. It still went to voice mail, but it turned out that calling her the second time was the thing that clued her in to the fact that the phone ringing was actually something she needed to check.

She called me back moments later.

She did, indeed, have hCG at her house. Her neighbor across the street has a key. She was willing to call her neighbor to see if she wouldn't mind meeting me with the key. Miraculously, her neighbor was still awake and didn't mind meeting me with the key.

M gave me instructions for how to deal with the alarm and how to find the medication, and I dashed off to her house (she's only a couple blocks from me).

hCG in hand, I dashed home to take the trigger shot.

Tomorrow I will pick up MY hCG and return it to M. Along with some kind of super special treat. Because although there is really no repaying this kindness, I really must find a way. She said she was so glad that my husband thought to call her.

"I'm so glad we're in this together," she said.

Me too, M, me too.

I'm not sure she'll ever know how much this kindness means to me. I'm not sure I can ever articulate how huge her tiny sacrifice (of an hour's sleep to talk me through getting into her house) was for me. I don't know how things will work out this cycle, but I do know that without her help, I wouldn't have had an opportunity to find out. I also know that without my husband's quick thinking (WHY DIDN'T YOU THINK OF IT HALF AN HOUR EARLIER???), I wouldn't have had a chance to find out how this cycle will work out. I love you, sweetie. I'm so glad we're in this together.

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P.S. At monitoring today, they thought I'm probably looking at getting 10 eggs at retrieval. Just so we're clear, the doctor more than doubled my medications this time around in hopes of getting at least a 50% increase in response this time. I got 10 eggs at retrieval last time. I know that it only takes one, but I'm not in the least bit amused that more than doubling my medications didn't really change the overall outcome. I *did* ask the sonographer how big my ovaries are and she measured them: they are over twice the size of an average, non-stimulated, ovary. I asked if I was exaggerating to call them baseballs and she said definitely not. My left side, she said, might be closer to the size of a softball.

Gah!