The long journey
3 years. Wow, it felt like such a long time ago when Bridgitte and myself decided that it was time to fulfil our destiny as a married couple to become parents. It was October of 2004 when she came off contraception and we had no idea that it would be so difficult.
But after 3 AI’s, 2 full ICSI cycles with the second one ending in an ectopic, it was time to do it all over again – for the third time. We had decided that we would start our 3rd cycle in January of 2008. Yep, a new year, fresh possibilities.
We arrived at the Centre for Reproductive Medicine at Vincent Pallotti Hospital at 8:15am for an appointment with Dr van der Merwe, our fertility specialist for a quick chat to plan our 3rd cycle. Traffic was hectic and yep, we were a bit late too. We were eventually ushered through to his office by the friendly nursing staff. We walked in with him paging through our file to refresh his memory on our case, looking up and greeting us with a friendly “good morning”. I must say, now that we have been there for … 2 1/2 years now? He had become more “relaxed” and less formal which was great and after telling us that the route we’d followed before was 100%, he decided to continue with the same treatment cycle as before.
He then indicated that he wanted to do an ultrasound scan to check if all was well as well as a blood test to make sure that Bridgitte’s hCG levels were back to zero. He ushered us into another room containing an ultrasound machine which was probably built in the 1980′s.
The probe went in, and there on the screen, was a follicle. We asked “Ok, now what does this mean?” He could not give us a proper answer and said something about a cyst, but wanted to do a blood test to confirm that her hCG levels were at zero.
The nurse took a blood sample and we were told to call at 3pm for the results. After a nice chat about the medication and all that jazz, we left
At 16:25, I get a call from the clinic. I was like, “Oh crap, I forgot to call you guys” and then it happened. “Her hCG levels are at 300+” the nurse said. I nearly fell off my chair. She said that Bridgitte would need to repeat the test on Monday to confirm pregnancy.
WHAT? She is pregnant? This cannot be! I mean, how did this happen? She is SURELY not the Virgin Mary who had a welcomed guest in the form of an angel? Ok, but then I remembered … “wait a minute”. Bridgitte did see Dr Christine van Heerden, her gynie, on the 6th who said how fertile she was and … yes, let me not go further than that !
I’m DA MAN! We did it ! But of course with all excitement, we had to keep a level head.
I called Bridgitte. “You’re talking crap” was her first response and of course, it took a bit of convincing that this was not a late April Fools joke. “Woooow”. Now this secret we were going to keep closely guarded since anything can happen. Don’t want to be caught with our pants down again?
