The upper room

Before the Church did anything, it waited. Nine days between the Ascension and Pentecost, in a borrowed room, with the doors shut and nobody entirely sure what they were waiting for. Luke records what they did with the time: they prayed, and Mary was with them.

That is the whole shape of a novena, and it is worth noticing that the first one was not a technique for getting something. It was a group of frightened people staying in one place until God arrived. You are doing the older thing here, not the newer one.