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I scoff. Yeah, I got that message sixteen years ago. But it still hurt to hear him say it. Also maybe because it was the first time he said the words to my face as opposed to hiding behind a humiliating—
“Are you uncomfortable?” Dr. Townsend asks, cutting into my thoughts while performing the ultrasound.
“No, no, sorry, I was in my head.”
“Stress and fertility are not good companions,” he reprimands me. “From a physical point of view, everything is proceeding in the best way. You have twelve follicles growing to optimal size. Two others that might catch up.”
“Is that a good number?”
“Should be enough to give you one to three viable embryos.” The doctor turns off the machine and tells me to get dressed.
After I’m fully clothed, I sit at the desk opposite him. “What are the next steps?”
“I want to see you again in three days and if everything proceeds according to plan, we can move ahead with the trigger shot.”
“The trigger shot?”
“Yes, it’s an hCG injection similar to the shots you’ve been giving yourself in the past weeks, but this one will signal to the follicles to rupture and release an egg. The only difference is that with the trigger shot, you must be even more precise with the schedule. It needs to be taken exactly thirty-six hours before the egg harvesting appointment. You can’t be early and you can’t be late.” He gives me a pointed look, and I feel like an unruly student about to be sent to detention. “The success of the entire process depends on the timing of this shot.”
I nod.
Happy to have driven his point home, Dr. Townsend continues, “We’ll have to take the next ultrasound on Sunday. The clinic is only half operational on weekends. When you arrive, please come straight to this room. If I’m not already here, I will be soon enough. You’re my only patient of the day.”
That actually makes me sigh in relief, but I need to be sure. “Other doctors won’t be at work?”
Dr. Townsend gives me a questioning look. “Not unless they have a visit like ours that can’t be postponed.”
Not an iron-clad reassurance, but at least my chances of not running into Dr. You-Were-Not-A-Factor-In-My-Decision-Making-Process will be far greater.
In fact, my visit with Dr. Townsend the following Sunday proceeds without hiccups. No last-minute doctor switches. No lobby rundowns with my ex. I simply sit in my gynecological chair listening to my follicles being praised.
Dr. Townsend tasks me with taking the trigger shot on Monday night at 6p.m. and sends me on my merry way.
Normally, with a few free hours on a sunny Sunday, I’d drop by my parents’ house for a brief visit. But like hell am I ever going to spontaneously visit them while they share a street with the devil and his spawn.
Blake is on a work retreat because she’s getting ready to take her company public tomorrow at market opening. The IPO is a big deal, and she’s super stressed about it. Venting to her isn’t an option. My only other alternative is to work. And just as well. With everything that’s been going on, I’ve fallen behind on the software update revisions for The Ex Files. A ten-hour coding distraction is exactly what I need to get my mind off everything that’s been happening.
Monday evening, at the office, I read the patient information leaflet about the trigger shot and scoff.
Do not attempt self-injection until you are sure how to do it.
I’ve been self-injecting for the past two weeks. I can manage. The setting is slightly different, seeing how I’m at the office and not at home. But the procedure is similar. Only the syringe is some kind of weird pen-like stick that I have to click multiple times to get the correct dosage of my shot.
I count the clicks, disinfect my belly with a cotton ball, and I’m about to give myself the injection when an inhuman scream out the door makes me jump. In one of those movie-like, slow-motion moments, I watch the pen syringe fly out of my hands in an arc and land with a smashing crash onto the floor in a puddle of wasted hormones and broken glass.
My brain only half-registers the gravity of what just happened as I rush out the door to find my secretary staring at the floor with an equally forlorn expression. I follow her gaze to what looks like a square of poo on the sustainable terrazzo flooring.
“What happened?” I ask.
Edna looks up at me. “I dropped my triple chocolate brownie.”
A square of chocolate makes more sense than a square of poo.
“You screamed for a pastry?”
“I’d been saving it all day.”
And as much as I might understand the pain of wasted chocolate, the reality of the far more important mess that’s now adorning my office floor makes my brain reboot.
