I walk to the circle and take a seat next to Hannah in one of the rusty folding chairs. Brook comes and sits across from me.
“Perfect,” says Carly, I look at her and try not to picture her naked. Why did Brook have to mention those photos? Brook grins at me like she knows what I’m trying not to think of.
“Since we’re all here, I’ll call to order the weekly meeting of the Fertility Support Group,” Carly says. “The first item on the agenda is welcoming our new member. It’s good to have you, Gemma.”
Brook unzips her bulky canvas briefcase. “No. The first item on the agenda is wine.” She pulls out two bottles of screw cap wine and a sleeve of plastic cups. “I had a helluva week. Hannah, I brought you organic pomegranate juice harvested on the light of the full moon or some crap like that. So stop looking at me all disapprovingly.”
“Wow. Thanks, that’s really nice of you,” Hannah says.
Brook opens the drinks and starts to pour. She hands Carly some white wine and Hannah a glass of juice.
“White or red?” she asks me.
“Um…red?”
She shakes her head. “You’re not on cycle right?”
“Not for three weeks.”
“Red it is.” She hands me a clear plastic glass full to the brim with fruity-smelling wine.
Brook holds up her glass. “Cheers, ladies. To old eggs, blocked tubes, and bum sperm. May bad wine, okay-ish company, and the pink uterus room lift our spirits.”
“Cheers,” Hannah says, and she knocks back her juice.
“Salut,” Carly says.
I hold up my glass and take a small sip. Maybe…maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. I thought I’d be coming to a meeting of like-minded people, a supportive group of friends, but this isn’t that.
Like Ian says, tell me who you associate with and I’ll tell you who you are. Or was that Confucius? Huh.
Regardless, maybe it’s time to go. I set my wine glass on the empty chair next to me and stand. “It was nice meeting you all, but I think I’ll be going. I, um, have somewhere to be.” I smile at them.
Carly tsks. “Brook, shame, you scared her off. I told you after the last one to stop doing that.”
Last one? Have others left after the first meeting too?
“Don’t go,” Hannah says. “Really. Please don’t. You have great, positive energy. Your aura is a nice canary yellow—”
“Not helping, Hannah. She’s freaked out by us,” Brook says.
“That’s not it,” I say. “I just realized that I don’t actually need a support group. I’ll be done with this whole process in a month and that’s that. Easy peasy. It’s better if I don’t waste your time, or wine.” I’m rambling, as usual. I start walking toward the door.
Brook blows out a long breath. “Stay. Please.”
I stop and look at her. Instead of the cynical expression that she’s worn since I met her she has a different look on her face. Embarrassment, maybe?
“Well…I…” I pause in the middle of the room.
Carly clears her throat. “We aren’t bad once you get to know us. The problem is, we’ve all been doing this for a long time. I’m on cycle number seven.”
I stare at her and try to compute what that means. She’s gone through seven IVF cycles? Jeez.
Brook holds up her hand. “Number four.”
Hannah says, “I’m on two.”
I don’t know what to say. When I said that I’d be finished with IVF in a month, I meant it. I didn’t think that it might take seven tries. Or more.
“It’s nice to have friends going through it with you, whether you get pregnant on your first cycle or not. You should stay,” Carly says.
“You should,” Hannah says. “If you do, I’ll bring you some of my husband’s honey. He’s a beekeeper. And Carly gives really nice presents. Last Christmas she gave us Cartier tennis bracelets. And Brook, well, she’s not always this annoying, so there’s that.”
Brook snorts.
I look at them all, at the rusty folding chairs, at the uterus-pink room. Then I walk back to my chair and sit down. “Okay. Sure. I mean, every journey is made easier with someone to share the load.”
Brook laughs again and rolls her eyes. “Glad you’re staying, but honestly, what’s with the quotes?”
An hour later the wine and the pomegranate juice are gone and I’m glad that I stayed. I got a rundown of all the fertility acronyms I need to know—CB is a cycle buddy, DI is donor husband aka Josh, then there’s others like 2WW or two-week wait, BD which is baby dance （aka sex）， and gross ones like CM for cervical mucus, or EWCM for egg white cervical mucus. Hannah literally pulled a stapled document out of her bag with all the acronyms on it.