“Raise your hand if you?ve made it through the pandemic without baking bread, getting a pet, or getting pregnant.? 
It?s meant to be an innocuous meme, but seeing it the first time was like a slap in the face. Not only did I not become pregnant during lockdown, but the effects of COVID on the healthcare system were causing my fertility appointments to be bumped or canceled altogether. 
Like so many other millennial women, I chose to wait until I was well-established in my career and had seen some of the world before I ventured into parenthood. 
But about four months into trying for a family without success, I decided to head to my doctor to see if something was up. Right away, he referred us to a fertility clinic. “You’re over 35,” he said. “Time is of the essence.? We had our first appointment in April 2020, during the first lockdown. I hoped a blood test or two would confirm that all was well, that we just had to keep at it.  Anyone who goes through infertility knows that one of the first things your reproductive endocrinologist (RE) will do is test your AMH levels. AMH stands for anti-mullerian hormone, a marker of how many eggs you have left. At birth, a woman is born with roughly 1.2 million eggs, and by her early 40s, she has anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000.
As a 35-year-old, my AMH was supposed to be around 25. Mine was 2.14.
We had our first meeting with the RE over the phone. It was now May 2020 and COVID protocols were in full forc...