Foreign Body by Robin Cook Read Free Book Online Page B

one of her fallopian tubes was nonfunctional from her ectopic pregnancy, but the remaining fallopian tube and its apparent function were entirely normal. Everyone felt one tube shouldn't have been a problem.
    At that point Laurie had tried the drug Clomid along with intrauterine insemination, whose old name, artificial insemination, had been changed to make it sound less unnatural. After the requisite Clomid cycle attempts, all of which were unsuccessful, they'd gone on to the follicular-stimulating hormone injections. Laurie had now begun her third cycle of injections, and if this was unsuccessful, as the two earlier ones had been, Laurie was scheduled for in vitro fertilization as the last hope. Consequently, she was understandably on edge and even a touch clinically depressed. She had never guessed how stressful infertility treatments were going to be or the emotional burden they were going to entail. She was frustrated, let down, angry, and exhausted. It was as if her body was toying with her after she had made so much effort over so many years not to get pregnant.
    "I don't know why you can't see them," Dr. Schoener said. "The follicles are very apparent, at least four of them, and they look terrific. They are a good size: not too big, not too small." Grabbing the ultrasound screen with her free hand, she turned it forcibly to make it more perpendicular to Laurie's line of sight. She then pointed to each follicle in turn. With her right hand under a modesty sheet, she was directing the ultrasound wand into the left vertex of Laurie's vagina.
    "Okay, I see them," Laurie said. She was propped up on the examining table with her feet in stirrups and her legs apart. The first time she'd experienced a fertility-style ultrasound she'd been mildly taken aback, since she'd expected the sensor to be placed externally on her abdomen. But now, having had the procedure every couple of days through the first half of five cycles, she took it in stride. It was mildly uncomfortable but certainly not painful. The biggest problem was that she found it humiliating, but then again, she found the whole infertility rigmarole humiliating.
    "Do they look any better than they have in earlier cycles?" Laurie asked. She needed encouragement.
    "Not remarkably," Dr. Schoener admitted. "But what I particularly like is that the majority in this cycle are in the left ovary rather than in the right. Remember, it's your left oviduct that is patent."
    "Do you think that's going to make a difference?"
    "Am I detecting some negativity here?" Dr. Schoener said, as she removed the wand and pushed the ultrasound screen out of Laurie's way.
    Laurie let out a short mocking laugh while she removed her feet from the stirrups, swung her legs over the side of the exam table, and sat up. She was clutching the sheet around her midsection.
    "You have to stay positive," Dr. Schoener went on. "Are you having some hormonal symptoms?"
    Laurie repeated her sham laugh with a touch more forceful-ness. She also rolled her eyes. "When I started all this, I promised myself I wouldn't let it get to me. Was I wrong!
    You should have heard me yesterday bawl out an octogenarian who tried to cut in front of me at the checkout line at Whole Foods. As the saying goes, it would have made a sailor blush."
    "How about headaches?"
    "Those, too."
    "Hot flashes?"
    "The whole shebang. And what bothers me the most is Jack. He acts like he's not even part of this. Every time I get my period and feel crushed that I'm not pregnant, he just blithely says, 'Well, maybe next month,' and goes about his business. I feel like hitting him over the head with a frying pan."
    "He does want children, doesn't he?" Dr. Schoener asked.
    "Well, to be truthful, he's probably going through this mostly on my behalf, although once we have them, if we have them, he'll be the world's greatest dad. I'm convinced.
    Jack's problem in this regard is that he had two lovely daughters with his late wife, but the wife and the