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1998, What I Wanted


by Linda Simoni-Wastila


What I wanted was my snarky reproductive endocrinologist to get a goddamn gray hair, who was he in his smooth Armani suit to tell me my FSH sat where my LH should,  higher than a cloud and incompatible with life?

What I wanted was long-in-the-sheets sex, not timed sex, rush home from work sex, turkey baster sex, clomid sex, no sex.

What I wanted was one more cycle, permission from my health insurance for a sixth and final go with the lupron and follistim, one more chance for that quarter-million dollar baby conceived in petri, fueled with micronutrients fed with a micro-pipette, some kind of shapeless, beakless bird.

What I wanted was two good quality embryos; hell, I wanted three or four, but that was greedy, and since in five tries I'd barely produced one...

What I wanted was ovaries the size of walnuts, freedom from clomid-induced hallucinations, skin without pock-marks from fat and skinny needles, to not want to hang myself when I shot up with progesterone.

What I wanted was to win the lottery, to pay back my debtors, to buy me a baby, a little china girl or twins from Guatemala, not a kid made in the usa -- what I did not want was bio-mom showing up two months, two years, two decades later to claim hers.

What I wanted was a miracle, jesus-style.

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