The white ceiling looks like heaven, I say to no one, to my phone, to the nurse who hands me a paper cup of water and asks again, maybe for the third time, to rate my pain on a scale of one to ten. Three, I say, which is true. For once the hurt is minimal.
Nine is the number I don’t know I hate until the doctor comes in. Out of nineteen follicles, only nine eggs are retrieved during our first but not only round of IVF—because we’ll need more rounds of IVF. When we find out the next day that our unlucky nine is sliced into thirds, leaving us with only three mature eggs to fertilize, something slices me open too. First my ovaries, my body. Then my heart, my breath. I look around my kitchen for the nurse to ask me again about my pain scale, but she isn’t there.
It only takes one. This is what everyone tells us when we learn we only have a single embryo after our first round of IVF. We try to believe them, try to hold hope. A candle is purchased at T…
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