One Egg, One Basket

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I was in line to get a smoothie when my phone rang. This is how every scene begins, right? Disheveled woman with messy hair, waiting in line for her green smoothie, in the midst of Midwestern suburbia, about to find out the status of two embryos.

My partner and I were apart from each other for the week. I was in Michigan visiting family while he stayed back in Pittsburgh to work. After waiting two weeks for the results, our doctor’s office let me know that the doctor would call us on Monday, anytime between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. After working from my parents’ home most of the day, I couldn’t wait any longer. I took a shower and left the house. Ten minutes later, while I was in line, the phone rang.

Days prior to the phone call were tough. My partner and I were scared that we might get bad news while we were apart and weren’t sure how we would navigate that. I’m the type of person who likes to think of every possible scenario and every possible way of handling it, to give myself a fake sense of control. “If _______ happens, I will ______.” It’s a skill that doesn’t help anyone, and, if anything, only feeds my anxiety. It’s my strongest coping skill, though, and changing one’s behavior is hard.

Part of me didn’t want to answer the phone. Not knowing the results meant that we could continue living in limbo without any real decisions to make. Up to this point, my partner and I had made so many decisions we weren’t prepared to make. While signing dozens of packets to start the IVF process, we came upon questions many people assume they won’t have to answer.

If you and your partner divorce, do you want the embryos to go to one partner? If so, does that partner have the right to transfer the embryo with their new partner? If no partner is chosen, would you like the embryos donated to science? Would you like them donated to another family? What type of life do you want your embryo to have? What kind of person are you? Are you even grown up enough to make these decisions? (The last few questions weren’t in the paperwork but hovered in my mind nonetheless.)

If your partner dies, what would you like to happen to the embryos? Do you want to keep the embryos indefinitely? Do you want the surviving partner to start a new family with the embryo, with a new partner?

If you and your partner both dies, would you like to leave the embryos to a family member? Who would you like to inherit your embryos? Have you really thought this through? Do you know anyone young enough to raise your embryo, if you die, and how do you determine who gets the embryo? If we all die, and the embryos remain frozen, what happens to them?

One question, led to another question, either from the fertility clinic or from our own confusion. So much of infertility is speculative. Every person who experiences infertility has a distinctly unique experience. No story is the same, but you are expected to make decisions, many times off-the-cuff, when you are tired, upset, and really need a minute to calm down.

Green smoothie in hand, I answer the phone and listen to the voice of my doctor, consciously gauging his attitude, his tone of voice, his demeanor. “One of the two embryos tested were normal. You and your partner have three options now.” More choices, more things to weigh and decide. More scenarios to run through and figure out what the best option is.

I honestly stopped listening after the doctor said we had one embryo that was healthy. I just wanted to call my partner and tell him that one was normal. We had one chance to get pregnant with our own child, one chance to start a family. Our fertility path has been full of detours and has led us to places, choices, and realities we could not have imagined. We would create a family no matter what. If not by getting pregnant, then by adopting a child. Either way, there would be a family. But for us, we had one embryo, and we would try this one time to have a biological child of our own. For now, that is our only choice. One egg, one basket.