CATHERINE
London, United Kingdom （England and Wales）
Day 1,568
It’s one of the great blind spots of the medical establishment that the waiting rooms for fertility clinics are so often shared with maternity outpatient clinics. Who thought it would be a good idea to put the heavily pregnant women, with their swollen lips and ankles and tired, happy, anxious faces among the fragile, infertile, hopeful masses?
Before the Plague it was ill-judged. After the Plague, it makes me feel murderous. The sight of all these couples makes me want to bark, “Stop looking so happy.”
But that would be rude and quite possibly get me chucked off the waiting list and I don’t need to deal with any additional stress as I’m meeting Phoebe after this. So, no wailing in the waiting room. There’s a delay, of course. I remember this well from my months of treatment when Anthony and I attempted to have a second child—fertility drug after fertility drug with lists of side effects longer than I could bear to read. The clinics were always running late; they told me the appointment and testing would take an hour but I’ve scheduled two and a half in my diary. I forgot to bring a book this time, a rookie error. I have to ration the amount of daydreaming I allow myself. It’s precious but dangerous. From the moment I received the letter three weeks ago informing me that, subject to passing a medical assessment and interview with a consultant, I have a place on the program, my imagination has been in overdrive. I can almost reach out and feel the joy of a positive pregnancy test, of shopping for a new onesie to bring the baby home from the hospital in, of a baby.
The best way to bring myself down to earth from these dreams is to think about the practicalities. How will I do everything I did before, alone? Looking after a newborn, working full-time, raising a child, being the only breadwinner, being the only parent. It sends a cold dread into the pit of my stomach. I think, with longing, of the Dutch Matron system that is working so well in the Netherlands. There was a documentary about it on the BBC. They interviewed the Dutch prime minister. Single women with children, if they wanted, were placed in zones, grouping the women together to create formal support networks. Each ward is made up of between four and six families. The women take turns staying home to take care of the children; a few months of the year at home, the rest of the year working full-time.
The reporter had asked, “But what if the women don’t want to go to work?” The prime minister had smiled ruefully and said, “What we want and what we can do don’t always match up.” There aren’t enough humans in the world anymore. It sounds amazing in theory, although the thought of not doing my job for months at a time doesn’t appeal. Maybe I could see if there are any women in Crystal Palace who work different times from me who could share childcare, it could work if I really like her and—
“Catherine Lawrence?”
The nurse’s voice jolts me out of my planning. She shows me into a room where I’m poked （blood test）， prodded （ultrasound of my ovaries）， weighed and measured until I feel more like a specimen than a person. I peer at the screen as she does the ultrasound praying there aren’t any spots of endometriosis or cysts rudely squatting on my ovaries that would render me ineligible.
I’ve only just gotten my jeans back on when I’m being whisked into the office of Dr. Carlton, a young-ish, handsome-ish, tall-ish, brown-haired man whose face I know I will forget the moment I leave the room.
“Thank you for coming in, Mrs. Lawrence,” he says, flicking through what I imagine is my file on his computer.
“Thank you for having me,” I reply awkwardly, sounding like I’m at a tea party, not a medical appointment. “Also, please call me Catherine.”
“Catherine, I can see here that you had one child, Theodore, in 2022. I’m sorry to hear about—”
“Yes, thank you,” I say, hurrying this painful part along.
“Then you tried for another child but had unsuccessful treatment here. Two rounds of Clomid?”