As a rule, A* and I don’t exchange gifts on special occasions. Not for Christmas, not for birthdays, not on Valentine’s Day and not for anniversaries. On rare and random occasions, one of us may surprise the other with a bouquet of flowers, or a single pretty bloom. This year I was extremely glad that this is our custom: otherwise, how could I be expected to get A* a birthday gift that would top the embryo transfer that was scheduled for that day?!

There was no fasting required for the transfer, as A* would not be going under anaesthesia this time. We had a hearty breakfast of eggs (which we had become accustomed to doing before all of our appointments), not because of any twisted link between the food and the process but rather because they’re a great mix of fats and proteins, they’re quick and easy to make and they taste fantastic with nothing more than salt and pepper. After breakfast, A* showered up and we set off to the clinic clean and sans fragrances, deodorants and lotions.

It was finally day five, and we were both beyond excited and thus showed up to the clinic quite a bit early. Despite being super early eager-beavers, we were shown to another recovery room straight away. It was a different room this time, but looked exactly the same as the room we had been in for the egg retrieval. Before going into the transfer, we were handed the report on our embryos’ development: four of the five fertilized eggs had survived to become blastocysts on day five. Two were expanded blastocysts and were chosen for the transfer that day, and the other two would be held for observation until day six. One of the remaining two was classified as late morula, and one was an early blastocyst. All had zero fragmentation at this stage. We had already signed and passed in our consent forms prior to the egg retrieval, and we had decided that if the embryology report looked good, we would transfer two blastocysts that day. Dr. G confirmed that we were still transferring two embryos and gave us a folder containing pictures of the two of them. Our first baby pictures! I was ready to burst into happy tears (again) at that point but I managed to hold it together.

A* changed into her gown and booties ensemble for the second time this week and we waited for her to be swept away. The nerves got the best of her and she decided to go for another quick pee before the nurse came to get her. A* had just finished when the nurse came in with a bottle of water, saying: “Drink this and let me know when you have to pee.” Of course! I had read enough blogs and listened to podcasts, so I knew that her bladder had to be full for the procedure but my mind had gone completely blank in the excitement that morning. A* ended up chugging a litre of water in short order, and right around the time she started dancing, the nurse swept her out of the recovery room.

Thankfully the television connection in this room was working and a nurse was by quickly to explain to me what I would be seeing. The screen was divided into two sections: one side was zoomed in on the Petri dish and the two tiny embryos, the other side was the ultrasound. I would be able to watch the needle enter the Petri dish and suck up the embryos, followed shortly by it’s appearance in the ultrasound where the embryos were expertly placed into A*’s uterus. The nurse left me alone in the room again and I took a short amount of time to set up an iPhone on top of some wall mounted medical equipment to record the show, got out my voodoo doll and sat on the hospital bed to wait and cry. The whole procedure was less than 30 minutes and pretty uneventful on screen although the tears, the smiling and the bursting heart would have told another story. A* would relay the story from her side of the TV screen when she was returned to the recovery room.

She was wheeled a short distance to the operating room, and again made to put her knees up in the awkward stirrup type holders. Again, laying flat on her back, naked from the waist down, legs spread eagle and a crowd of strangers passing by. The embryologist introduced herself and confirmed A*’s name, and that we were planning to transfer two embryos that day. A* was now breaking out in a sweat, and it seemed like a very real possibility that she would pee herself in front of a room of medical professionals and have to flee the country à la Carmen Sandiego. Luckily, the doctor arrived shortly thereafter, and he had a translator explaining what was going to happen. In with the frigid speculum, which didn’t improve things. Then the nurse is pressing down hard with the ultrasound thing, which makes it worse still. The actual implantation passing through the cervix feels like a bad menstrual cramp, but mercifully it is very brief and afterwards everyone finally stops poking at her bladder.

When A* came back she was instructed to stay lying down for ten minutes before getting up to pee (torture) but was told to return to bed and remain lying down for another twenty or so minutes. In our research, we had come across an obscure study that found women who had a clown in the recovery room making them laugh immediately after the transfer had fifty percent better odds of the pregnancy sticking. FIFTY PERCENT. It sure couldn’t hurt, but since I had left my red nose and giant shoes back in Canada, we settled for some hilarious YouTube and Reddit videos instead. I’m sure the laughing didn’t help A*’s bladder, because as soon as that initial ten minutes was up she literally leapt out of bed and ran across to the bathroom. Some more entertaining videos carried us through the resting period, and following another visit from the nurse who provided us with more progesterone suppositories for the two week wait ahead, we were free to go. We were to continue the progesterone suppositories at night, take one baby aspirin daily, and no swimming for ten days.

We settled into the car for the drive home and put on an actual fake news podcast we thought we could get some laughs out of (This Is That, CBC Radio’s version of The Onion). Deploying the knowledge from everything we had acquired online, we planned to take things easy for the rest of the day (but not too easy). We would find something funny on Netflix and sit on the couch for a while eating pineapple (It’s what all the fertility forums insist you eat for implantation). We would go for a walk and get supper at a local restaurant in the evening, followed by an early night to bed. After this day, we had no further appointments or distractions and had to hunker down for the dreaded two week wait. In the back of our minds, we were both rolling over how drastically our lives have just been forever changed