One Good Egg: An Illustrated Memoir (21 page)

The brain book made the cover of Workman Publishing’s spring catalog. A promising development, it seemed, until I heard from the head of chain-store sales, “Suzy, I’ll be honest with you, I don’t get the book . . .

I was wondering if you would come down and have lunch with me.”

I accepted his invitation. Less than five minutes later,
ping!
I (and a long list of
Who’s Who
at Workman) received his e-mail:

Suzy Becker will share her new book with us on May 22nd at 1:00 p.m. Lunch will be served. Please RSVP!

Thanks, Jim

Presentation?
Now I would have to cram making slides into the next day’s schedule, which began with an 8:00 a.m. appointment at Boston IVF and concluded with an 8:30 p.m. Board of Selectmen’s meeting, followed by my 9:30 shot.

It was after 9:30 when I raced up my studio stairs to get the updated instructions for our nightly shot.

M
ESSAGE
#1:

“Your ovaries are responding very well to the hormones. With your permission, we’d like to convert the cycle from an IUI to an IVF. Otherwise, we’ll need to scrap this cycle. Please call back before five.”

M
ESSAGE
#2:

“Please continue the Gonal-f at 187 to keep our options open. You are scheduled for more blood work at 7:45 tomorrow morning, and we will confer again tomorrow afternoon.”

“IVF?” Lorene squawked. I had repeated the message in my most matter-of-fact tone.

“It doesn’t matter. We’ll just do the 187 and find out all about it tomorrow.”

“You don’t want to do IVF,” she reminded me.

“You don’t want to scrap the cycle . . . ” Lorene got in bed with her laptop, and I went back to my studio to make slides.

The next afternoon, I was home to receive the call. Instead of three or four follicles, I had busted out fourteen. Now I had to decide (they had less than an hour to get approval from my insurance) whether I wanted to do IVF or scrap the cycle.

Knowing nothing about IVF, I should’ve had a hundred questions. I came up with one: “Will I be able to resume IUIs next cycle?”
Like normal infertile people?
The answer was yes. If I gave my approval, my “egg retrieval” would be scheduled for Monday, the transfer for Thursday.
Cover Girl Presentation Day!

I called Lorene. Neither one of us could have imagined choosing IVF until it was pitted against scrapping the cycle. There was no discussion. “Go for it!” Lorene said.

I called my editor. No answer. I called the patient coordinator back: “What about a Friday transfer?”
An extra day in the test tube, petri dish, or whatever.
Not possible.

The editor called back and I briefed her on my baby project. “Are you crazy? Go for it! The book can wait!”

I dialed the patient coordinator with forty-eight minutes to go. “I’ll do it.”

“We’re on!” she was feeling the excitement. “Wait! We didn’t give you an anti-ovulatory—we’re on, as long as you don’t ovulate between now and then.”

“Can you give it to me now?”

“Can you get to the pharmacy before 5:30?” I was in the car at 4:32. Sitting in rush hour traffic a few miles from the pharmacy at 5:40. I ran in at 6:10, still hoping. There was a note: My prescription had been called in to the other branch, which was open until 7:00. At 7:15, I was back home, anti-ovulatory in hand.

Saturday’s blood work confirmed I hadn’t ovulated. And the technician was thrilled with my follicles— eighteen at least.

W
e spent the rest of the day getting ready for Meredith’s surprise shower—cooking, wrapping presents, cleaning and decorating the house, preparing the pin-the-hair-on-the-bald-baby-Meredith’s-head game.

Meredith arrived Sunday morning dressed for a day of driving, double-checking the Ride FAR route. She was one month away from her due date. She was telling me a story as we walked toward the living room, “We stopped at Starbucks on the way over. A complete stranger asked me if I was going to ‘have a vaginal birth’!”

“Did you say nasal?” I opened the living room door.

“SURPRISE!”

We were all exhausted by the end of the shower. Lorene and I napped in the hammock, then I got up to complete Workman’s publicity questionnaire, the consolation prize I planned to attach to my lunch cancellation notice. I hit “send” and immediately worried my efforts to provide sales hooks for the book were sinking it further.

I printed out the pre-op forms and admission information so I could take it all to bed. A nurse had called in the middle of Meredith’s shower to confirm my retrieval and to remind me to arrive preregistered.

Lorene and I had finished reading the ten-page consent form and signed at eleven, one hour before my fluids cutoff. “I don’t think I’ve ever been under general anesthesia before . . . maybe once, for my wisdom teeth.”

“Are you worried?”

“Should I be? I guess the aftereffects are worse, right?” That had been a selling point for my “awake” brain surgery. “I’m used to being awake . . . It’s weird, don’t you think, that we don’t know who the surgeon is until we walk in?”