Part 5 Family Growing Pains: Locked In & Covid
By: Dr. Mary Nochimson
Round 2: The Second Retrieval & The COVID Body Breakdown
Exactly FIVE years ago, I underwent my second IVF retrieval.
At that point, IVF had become my life. Every decision revolved around medications, appointments, ultrasounds, bloodwork, and protocols. I was exhausted physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
The excitement I felt during the first retrieval was gone. I was simply trying to get through the process…. and so was the staff. You could tell the energy was different. No one says much the longer you are in the IVF system… A completely different vibe of lost hope and I was treated as such… like I was just a number… care-less care. The second retrieval was different from the first. Different dosing and dosing frequency. Worst Results: 8 mature eggs, 4 fertilized, 2 made it to blastocyst… BOTH not genetically viable and lacking the correct number of chromosomes.
The FINAL RETRIEVAL. The doctors went straight back to the drawing board. One of the changes my doctors made was adding Metformin to my protocol. They say it helps improve egg quality. Well, I disagree. And then you’ll say, “Well, everyone responds differently.”
Maybe…But every single time I took Metformin, I got sick. A cold. A flu. Something. I can’t prove there was a connection, but after years of paying attention to my body, I noticed a pattern. So I did the patient compliance thing… And once again, I found myself getting sick.
It only took one night of sweats & fatigue for my mom to determine a COVID diagnosis. I tested positive for COVID-19 2 days later, specifically the Delta variant, my first reaction was basically, “SEE!” Of course, the doctors would always say it was a coincidence.
A coincidence every single time.
The funny thing is, I wasn’t devastated. I wasn’t terrified. I was relieved.
If you remember those days, COVID was the one reason that could stop the world. Appointments were canceled. Schedules disappeared. People stayed home….And for the first time in a very long time, I had permission to stop. No fertility appointments. No injections. No monitoring. No wondering what came next.
COVID gave me something IVF hadn’t given me in years… A BREAK-ation! A reprieve. A reason to step off the roller coaster.
At first, my symptoms seemed mild. For nearly a week, I had night sweats. That was it. Every morning I woke up drenched…. thinking to myself, “I got THIS! I’m the 99% who survive!”
Fortunately, growing up in a family full of doctors meant I had every gadget imaginable. I had a thermometer, a pulse oximeter, and anything else I needed to monitor my condition… I even had access to portable oxygen.
Now, let’s be honest. I was a stubborn holistic girl. Very stubborn. I wasn’t sitting around waiting for COVID to run its course. I was taking peppermint and oregano Epsom salt baths, taking all the vitamins I could think of—Vitamin C, Vitamin D, Zinc—and taking ivermectin. I was resting, hydrating, monitoring everything, and just keep thinking to myself “I got this!”. My doctor family was helping too. “In SICKNESS & in health,”…. you don’t really know the truth of that… OR the weight of that until you are in that scenario…. He fed me, He hand delivered my supplements and medications (antibiotic and an anti-viral), he bathed me. He delivered on that vow.
We exhausted every holistic and supportive option we could think of. Looking back, I don’t see it as a failure that I couldn’t heal it on my own. It was actually one of the greatest lessons of my life. There is a place for natural medicine, and there is a place for emergency medicine.
There is a place for supporting the body’s wisdom, and there is a place for accepting help when your body needs more than you can give it. One does not invalidate the other. Sometimes healing requires both.
And in my case, it did. About ten days after my diagnosis, I clipped the pulse oximeter onto my finger and stared at the number: 82%. I checked again. Still 82%. Just days earlier, it had been 98%. I called my mom to give her that update. My parents and brother immediately knew what that number meant. They came to a vote.
It was time to go to the hospital….Imagine being my family in that moment. Everyone sitting in a room, solemn, wondering what came next. Everyone trying to stay calm. Everyone hoping this would somehow turn around. After getting off the phone, I looked at my husband and said, “It’s time. We have to go.”
Now if you know my husband, you know one thing. He is quick. I mean QUICK. The moment I said it, he was moving wondering why I didn’t go the week before. Meanwhile, all I brought was my purse. Inside was my wallet. That was it. No overnight bag. No change of clothes. No toiletries. Nothing. I wasn’t preparing for a hospital stay. I was simply trying to make it there alive.
It was a hot, humid Florida evening. The kind of night that feels heavy even when you’re healthy… but I wasn’t healthy. I could barely breathe. The shortness of breath had become significant, and every breath felt like work. I was losing consciousness without oxygen attached. It was hard having a BM without slipping out of consciousness. I didn’t even have enough energy to pass a poop. I didn’t know it required that much energy…
I stood outside our second-floor apartment leaning against the hallway railing, waiting for the elevator. I was trying to breathe, trying not to panic, and waiting…and waiting.
Then, a thought crossed my mind: I’m not going to make this elevator. It’s not getting here fast enough. I’m going to be dead before it arrives. To be fair, we’ve all had dramatic thoughts while waiting for an elevator. Mine just felt unusually realistic.
My husband was still inside gathering a few things, and the elevator still wasn’t coming. So I did something that makes absolutely no sense to me even now….I attempted the stairs. How? Honestly, I can’t tell you. I can only describe it as strength that wasn’t my own. An Act of God.
Step by step, grasping the railing hand by hand…somehow I made it down. When I finally reached the car with my portable oxygen tank, I remember thinking, “I made it. But what in the world were you thinking? If I had fallen down those stairs, I’m not sure what that recovery—or death—would have looked like.”
Then came what can only be described as a family parade. My husband and I were in one vehicle, my brother followed behind in his car, and my parents were behind us in their truck.
The hospital was literally two minutes away, yet somehow we managed to create an entire motorcade. Everyone wanted to help. Everyone wanted to be close. Everyone was scared. Nobody wanted to say it out loud.
When we arrived at the ER, things happened fast. Very fast. They put me into a wheelchair and immediately started moving. My husband and brother paused briefly to check me in, and meanwhile, I kept rolling.
My brother pushed so quickly that I drifted halfway across the room while my brother went to check me in.
The hospital wasn’t equipped for COVID patients, so they isolated me while waiting for a bed to open elsewhere….Maybe Tampa, Florida, which would have been my first helicopter ride. Once they separated me from my family, things got real.
No husband. No parents. No brother. Just me. That first night, laying there by myself, I did what I always do when life becomes overwhelming. I closed my eyes and meditated.
Now, you can believe whatever you want about what happened next. I’m simply telling you exactly what I experienced.
As I relaxed, I felt myself rise into the clouds. There I saw my grandmother, my grandfather, and my little cousin who had drowned in a swimming pool more than thirty-five years earlier. It felt completely real. Not dream-like. Not imagined. Real.
I remember feeling like I was being welcomed. Then my cousin looked directly at me and said, “You aren’t supposed to be here. You have to go back.” That was it. No long conversation. No great revelation. Just that.
Oddly enough, after that experience, I wasn’t scared anymore. Nothing had changed physically. My oxygen was still low. I was still in the hospital. But I felt different. I knew I was going to make it.
A day later, a bed opened up at a hospital in Margate, and I was transferred by fire rescue. One thing I remember clearly was a firefighter holding onto me during the ride. God bless that man. People were terrified of COVID back then, and here he was holding me. We were in each other’s faces. I never got his name, but I’ve never forgotten him. I wasn’t just a gurney. I was being held, hugged tight, almost cradled. I felt completely supported.
I don’t remember anything after that. When I woke up in the ICU, I had no idea where I was. Honestly, I could have been in another country. I was alone in a room looking out a window.
And for the first time in a very long time, I wasn’t thinking about embryos. I wasn’t thinking about IVF. I wasn’t thinking about becoming a mother. I was thinking about living. One breath at a time.
I remember there were countless people during COVID who got off the phone with their spouse, mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, or children believing they would speak again tomorrow. Many never got that chance. Many went to sleep alone and never woke up. I think about those families often. I think about the people who never got another conversation. Never got another hug. Never got another opportunity to say goodbye. I could have been one of those stories. I was sick enough. I was close enough.
But somehow, by the Grace of God, I wasn’t. As I look back now, I realize how blessed I truly was.
In the next part of my story, I’ll share what happened during my hospital experience & what I learned, how COVID forced a complete mind-body reset, and what it was like to come out of that season changed in every possible way. I’ll also share how I continued with the third retrieval, resulting transfers and what ultimately led to The Surrogacy Experience.
