As I mentioned earlier, if the doctor had called off the In Vitro, it would have been devastating for several reasons. The obvious would be the heartache of another failed/delayed In Vitro attempt. Another would be because we had already bought the VERY expensive medicines for the duration of the cycle. Did I mention that the medicines are pretty expensive? The medicines for In Vitro (injections, hormones, etc) cannot be purchased at just a regular pharmacy. They have to be ordered from a specialty pharmacy from a larger city, sometimes another state. We order it all at once at the beginning of the cycle and have it shipped to us (which is an act of Congress in itself) , and it's all there as you are ready for it along the way.
As retrieval day approached, everything was falling into place...especially the nerves. It had already been a roller coaster and we weren't even to the procedures yet. Retrieval was scheduled for Friday morning. The all important (and ever so painful) HCG shot has to given EXACTLY 36 hours before the scheduled retrieval. Thankfully, I had several sweet nurse friends to help me out with important injections, because there are just so many times a wife can allow the husband, who has promised to love, honor, and cherish her in sickness and health, to come at her rear end with a sharp needle (sorry for the visual). Since the retrieval was scheduled for 8:00 Friday morning, the HCG shot had to given at 8:00 Wednesday night. That would work out perfectly. I would take the shot with me to choir practice and my sweet friend would give it to me afterwards. Simple, right?
As the time to go to church neared, I went to the box of medicines I had received in the mail weeks earlier. I looked for the HCG injection and it was nowhere to be found. I thought SURELY I had overlooked it somehow, so I searched the box again, to no avail. As I am quickly approaching the panic stricken state, I decide to check the packing slip to make sure it was sent. The HCG was not on the packing slip, which means it was never sent. If it was never sent, that means I did NOT have it. If I didn't have it, this was NOT good. As I said, you just can't make this stuff up.
In my now way-beyond-panic-stricken state, I told Jason of the situation. The doctor's office was closed. There was no local pharmacy that had the shot, and the time to given the injection was quickly approaching. What in the world were we going to do? Over my dead body was this cycle going to end because someone had forgotten to send the shot to me (although checking my delivered box of medicines to make sure everything was there would have been a bright idea on my part). We hurriedly called the doctor's office answering service to get someone who could tell us what to do. If you've ever had to call an answering service before, a speedy callback is not what you normally get (God love them). This case was no different. As 7:00 neared, the nurse called me back unsure of what to tell me to do. She thought she could find a pharmacy in the Birmingham area that had it. Well, great! She would have consult with someone and call me back. I made sure that I informed her (in the nicest way possible) that calling off the retrieval was NOT an option! She called back and told me (through my ugly cry tears) that the only option was to drive to a single pharmacy in Birmingham to pick it up. Jason immediately left for the pharmacy at 7:45 to get the medicine. That is 15 minutes before the all-important shot had to be given. They told me that, although this was definitely not the best case scenario, that it should be okay. That didn't settle very well. I didn't like the "should" be okay part, but nothing was going to stop me! Jason got home around 10:30 and we immediately went to my friend's house across town for the injection. (That's going way above and beyond the call of friendship...thank you, Debra). The injection was given a few minutes before 11:00, and that was going to have to work. We would see....
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