Avalanche by Julia Leigh Read Free Book Online Page A

follicles on the ultrasound I might not end up with nine eggs. This was because not all follicles contain eggs and it was possible there could be “technical problems” with the doctor’s retrieval. Please doctor, have a steady hand. I stripped off my clothes and put on a disposable gown. Laid on the cold trestle table. “I’m going to need your help,” said the anesthetist and he asked me to lift my legs into the padded stirrups. A lab scientist or technician read something outfor me to confirm. So sci-fi, I couldn’t quite believe I was doing it. A cannula went into the top of my hand. And then I was unconscious. When I revived I had a piece of masking tape stuck to my palm with the number six written on it in black felt-tip pen. My teeth would not stop chattering. The number six, what did that mean? A nurse told me six eggs had been collected for freezing. I asked for some Endone to relieve my cramps: made the most of the facility. After a period of observation I was allowed to go home. I called a taxi.
    An aside: the day I was instructed to use the Ovidrel trigger I was also given another pen of Gonal-f 900 IU. Each pen cost AU$572 (US$598). The reason for this anomaly was because the treatment is heavily reliant on the results of the morning’s blood test and sometimes the body—essentially mysterious—reacts in ways that are not anticipated. When I returned the unopened pen to the clinic the receptionist asked me if I had kept it cold. I told her she shouldn’t think about reissuing it. No problem: the pen wasn’t reissued, nor was I charged. I got the feeling that $500 was loose change that had slipped behind the sofa.
    I didn’t ask my sisters or a friend to pick me up from the facility. I wanted to minimize the whole experience, get it over with. I felt foolish. Pathetic. The fact that this had been a spermless dry run with no chance of an embryo was unbearable. On the way back I couldn’t have cared less if I died in a car crash. Imagine: the car tumbling off the side of the bridge. How soothing. All the rats came out to play. My anger at Paul was icy cold. Imagine: his car tumbling off the side of the bridge, along with his new family. And midair, struck by a laser beam, totally evaporated. Even my spiteful fantasies were hollow and impotent—that too made me sad. I planned a greeting for the next time I bumped into him—“What makes you think I don’t hate you?”
    At the same time as I was freezing my eggs I put feelers out about getting some sperm. I asked a dear friend whom I respected a great deal, ten years younger, a single father, living on the far side of the world. He was planning to visit Australia and I hoped that when he was here he could make a donation. It was a flawed plan from the outset because I was unaware the clinic could not turn around a sperm donation in a week, the length ofhis visit. I’d mistakenly thought the process would be simple: a few papers to sign, the deed itself, and Bob’s your father. On the phone I said, “I have a big ask I would have liked to do in person but it’s not possible. Would you consider being a sperm donor? No financial responsibility, no custody.” Wow: he asked for time to think about it. We spoke again a couple of weeks later. “It’s been on my mind every day but I just can’t do it. Not for the reason you probably think but because I can’t imagine that amazing kid being out there and me not being the father. I couldn’t handle knowing you might meet someone and another man would bring up the child. You’d be an amazing mother, it would be an amazing kid, but I can’t. I’m so sorry it’s not what you want to hear.”
    Very stupidly, I asked an ex-lover who was married. The idea appealed to him. He wanted to know if he would have to tell his wife. Yes. That fell over.
    I was talking to my sister as she was driving down the