The Queens Necklace on Marine Drive
We arrived at Lilivati Hospital at 11am and met a number of other couples. There was D&B from the US, Dan & Randy from Houston and us from Australia. We all met in the café on level 2, just outside the IVF area of the hospital, and pulled up a few chairs around a table with Dr Sudhir. At the same time our EDs were in surgery undergoing egg pickup.
When we arrived we noticed Olga, the lady who is acting as our Egg Donor Agent, by a bed in the corner. She politely waved us off in the opposite direction and gave us a little look that said “you’re not allowed to meet the woman on this bed”. It was clearly our Egg Donor.
They were both wheeled off into the bowels of the hospital, and returned about 20 mins later. We could see them in the corner as they waited for the lift to arrive. All we could see was a cheek, an eye and some dishevelled tuffs of hair, but it looked like the woman from the pictures. She was calmly chatting to Olga, smiling every now and then. When we spoke to Olga afterwards she said that the ED is never told that the IP’s are in the building because there’s no need. She said that the ED was very happy with how it went, that the procedure was very straight forward, and that she wished us all best for our families. Thankyou anonymous lady on the hospital bed, for the incredible gift you have given us.
This is where the story gets as surreal as you could imagine. We all sat and talked around the tiny café table as one by one, we were called to ‘produce our samples’. As we waited we talked and laughed openly, but underneath I’m sure we were all a little nervous. Everyone drank way too much water and took multiple trips to the toilet for a ‘nervous wee’. One by one, all the guys left for a few minutes and would return, slightly more flushed and red in the face then when they left. We’d high five, have a laugh, and the next person would go.
The romantic stylings of the Sample Collection Room
Moments later, the doctors were fertilising our eggs. Now we wait 48 hours before we see how many embryos were successfully created.
Yep, Conception Day alright. How do you celebrate that? “So, we just made a baby, wanna go shopping?”
The IPs went out to lunch and we toasted our impending families. At night, my partner and I went to a local restaurant, drank a Kingfisher beer and took a video to mark the auspicious occasion. It nervously went something like “Dear future child, well … so … isn’t this a spicy meal …”. We spent the meal mostly in stunned silence, still in awe of the whole process we had gone through.
We finished the night talking a walk along Marine Drive, a curved path along beach which at night is lit up with so many street lights that the locals call it the Queens Necklace.
All up, a beautiful day.
