A horrible start

Friday, February 7th, 2025

I woke up, ready for my virtual consultation with the fertility specialist. However, after following my telehealth link, I waited anxiously for the doctor to come online.

I waited... and waited some more. Frustratingly, the doctor didn’t join.

I called the office, and we discovered that something had been scheduled wrong—my appointment wasn’t showing up. I had waited several weeks for this appointment! It was how I coped with my last disappointment of still not being pregnant.

An instant wave of grief resurfaced. Now that we had decided to move forward, I couldn’t wait any longer. This was the right time, and I didn’t want a missed appointment to delay things.

My voice shook as I expressed my feelings to the receptionist with as much patience as I could manage.

"I’ve waited so long. Please. Please get me in."

To my great relief and gratitude, the doctor was kind enough to do our appointment during his lunch break. What a gem!

I could tell he was anxious to get to his break, so we jumped to the point.

"We want to move forward with IVF as soon as possible."

“Well,” he said, “Okay, let’s do this. We can try to get you into the February cycle. If not February, we’ll do next month. I’ll have someone reach out to schedule an ultrasound, and our finance team will contact you.” That was it! Yay!

Wow! This is really happening!

Less than ten minutes later, I got a message from the clinic:

"How soon can you come in for an ultrasound?"

I messaged back, "I can head up right now. Give me 30 minutes."

So, 30 minutes later, I was in the doctor’s office, looking at an ultrasound. The nurse told me that everything looked great and we could start preparations right away... starting with an immediate blood draw.

(Cue dramatic music) Dun dun duuuun!

Ahhh! I had no anxiety meds and no mental preparation for the needle. The scared cat inside me began to claw and wig out completely.

But I had signed up for this! I was ready! I needed to be ready. I scolded the wild cat inside of me and shifted into hyper-boss mode.

I can do this! I can! This is happening so fast, just like I wanted. I can handle this!

With a little self-pep talk, Zack and I made our way across the hall to LabCorp, where they would steal my blood for tests.

Boy, was I not prepared for the torture that would follow.

After taking our insurance information, the phlebotomist called Zack back for his blood draw. They wanted me in a separate room from him so we could get our blood drawn at the same time.

I panicked! "Whoa, sorry, but I need to have my husband with me when I get my blood drawn. I’m already freaking out. Can we be together for this?" I begged as calmly as I could in my fragile state.

A short-haired phlebotomist looked at me as though I was completely nuts for wanting to stay with my husband, but she agreed to let me go with him to the Room of Doom, where she instructed us to sit.

I smiled anxiously and tried to keep the mood upbeat as I began expressing my needs.

"Hey, I tend to pass out when it comes to needles. I need to be lying down." I smiled despite the dread building in my chest. "Sorry, I just have a really bad needle phobia, but it’s okay because I have a system that works for me. I’ll just put my headphones on, close my eyes, meditate, and zone out completely. You don’t have to talk to me or explain what you’re doing. Just do what you’ve got to do, and I’ll make sure to hold still for you."

Without missing a beat, she replied, "Well, I have my own system. I'm really good at this. You’ll be fine. Sit down."

"Okay? Um, I need to lie down. Is that okay?"

Hmph. I could almost hear her thoughts. So dramatic! Her facial expression screamed. However, despite her sour attitude, she did allow me to lie down instead of sit.

I put on the headphones Zack had grabbed from the car. I picked a song and prepared myself for a very uncomfortable minute, making sure to breath through it.

Well, the phlebotomist started rubbing, shaking, and smacking my arm like a magician trying to wake up a slab of ham. She tied a tourniquet around my upper arm and continued performing her “system” for a few irritating minutes, but my 'ham' just wouldn’t cooperate! So she just started stabbing it with a needle, over and over again, hoping to hit the right spot.

I tried my special meditation where I count down from 100, but how could I possibly focus on pretending my arm doesn’t exist when she’s smacking the life out of it?

At last, she removed the tourniquet—usually a sign that she had accomplished her mission. My hopeful eyes looked up at my husband, waiting for him to tell me, "Good job. You did it." But his furrowed brows and shaking head told me I had more torture to endure.

"Why is it taking so long?" I cried, pressing my hand into my sweaty forehead to stop the room from spinning.

The short-haired lady had the perfect answer at the ready.

"Your anxiety is sucking your veins in. You need to calm down."

Calm down? Yeah, awesome. It’s a good thing you told me that! Now I feel all sorts of relaxed.

I tried to stay calm. At least I managed to keep holding still, though my distress grew with every second, which turned into minutes.

Every time the tourniquet loosened, I thought I was done. I’d look up at my husband, and he’d shake his head sympathetically.

The lady just could not find a vein for the life of her. This had never happened to me before! The longest blood draw I’d ever endured lasted about a minute, and only because they were running a crazy number of tests.

At some point, I began to cry and hit my head with my other arm, but I still didn’t move my slab of stabbed meat.

Eventually—don’t ask me when—they got another phlebotomist. I hardly noticed; I was just trying not to pass out.

The new lady began poking me in other spots—my bicep, my forearm, not just my elbow pit. She found a vein, but apparently I wasn’t bleeding enough, so they tried slapping and tapping the blood out of me, causing me to grow even more lightheaded.

Finally, after fifteen full minutes of facing my needle nemesis, my husband nodded, relief written all over his face.

"You did it," he said, too quietly for me to hear through my music, but I knew what he said. I could finally relax.

However, the short-haired lady hadn’t finished delivering her wisdom. She told me it took so long because I didn't drink enough water, and caffeine made it worse.

I wanted to argue, "It’s not like I had any warning that I was going to be turned into a pincushion today!"
But I smiled and said, "Yep. I’ll remember that next time. Thanks."

Then she told me to go pee in a cup. Ha ha!

I sat up slowly, breathing deliberately, trying not to pass out. A wave of nausea rushed through me. I told her I needed to throw up.

She looked confused, then told me they didn’t have any throw-up bags. I pointed to the trash behind her and asked her to grab it for me, please.

She sighed like it was a huge burden, but she picked up the trash can and handed it to me. Then she left the room practically rolling her eyes.

I asked Zack to grab me some water while I hovered my face over the trash can.

He was so sweet taking care of me. I really don’t know what I would have done without him. Though bruised, with him I had faced my fear and survived.

It can’t get much worse than this, I thought as I left the nightmare lab, swearing never to return.