6dp5dt: Cosmic Coincidence

I was born exactly on my due date: October 20th. On October 19th, my parents went out for Chinese food. I should probably state that I was born in Berkeley, California, not here in Utah, so going out for Chinese is a good idea, as opposed to a mediocre, MSG-filled idea, like it is here. My mother's fortune from her cookie, which is taped in my baby book, read: "A very good thing will shortly enter your life". My mother went into labor, not more than an hour later, while watching Kramer vs. Kramer. I was her second child, and she'd taken a bunch of hippy childbirth classes, so she stuck it out and finished the movie, then went to the hospital, and delivered me, "all naturally", in the wee hours of the morning.

According to many people, I should not have been born. When my mother was about 2 months pregnant with me, my older sister got German measles. My family had just moved to California, and my mom hadn't even found a pediatrician yet. She took her toddler (my sister was about 16 months, I'd guess) to the hospital. They confirmed rubella, and my mother confided her pregnancy. They asked her if she'd had titers done after the birth of my older sister. She didn't know, and said she would contact her doctor "back home" in Utah. The hospital meanwhile drew my mothers blood.

My mother tested positive. Her doctor back home had never tested her. It was impossible to say when she was exposed. But if it was recent, if she hadn't had immunity before being pregnant with me, chances were about 90% that I would be affected. Mental retardation or heart defects, most likely. Maybe deafness. Maybe still birth.

My mother was horrified. She called her parents. They were all devout Mormons. I think my mother was surprised when they recommended abortion. My mother prayed and prayed. She flew back home to Salt Lake City, where she had one of the Apostles give her a Blessing. (My grandfather himself was very powerful in the LDS religion, and had all sorts of contacts, so getting one of the 13 holiest men in the world, according to their faith, to bless his daughter, was something he was able to do.) This same Apostle also counseled abortion, telling my mother that, in cases like this, God would agree and would support her decision.

My mother flew back to California, very uncertain. She went to an obstetrician. This was before ultrasound technology, as hard as that is to believe. Before amniocentesis. Before almost anything, really. But not before stethoscopes. My mother heard my heartbeat, and decided to keep me.

Her pregnancy must have been riddled with fear, doubt, who know what. She was new in town, and in a very different town than she was used to. The apartment was horrible. My father was in law school, and he rarely had much time for her. (He never really did, and they ultimately divorced when I was 6.) Her religion had pushed for termination, but she kept attending church, probably because, as a stay-at-home mom with a daughter under 2 and pregnant with a second child, she had absolutely nowhere else to turn.

When I was born, she knew I was perfect. I was not blind or deaf. I had no noticeable heart defect. They could not, obviously, assess the state of my mind, but my mother knew, just as she'd known she should carry me, that I would be just fine.

She describes that night as the happiest night of her life. Every year, until I was 15 or so, on the night of the 19-20, my mother would open my door, stare at me sleeping, and just cry.

(Despite this melodramatic--though true--story, my mother and I are both pro-choice. Also, neither of us are LDS anymore, although we have not actually been excommunicated, so we're still on the rolls.)

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My mother gave birth to four children, and step-parented three more. Three of her own children and one of her step-children were born in October, ranging from the 9th to the 24th. If I am pregnant, my due-date is October 10th. I think about this child, or children, and how they would fit right in, yet another October baby, a busier-than-Christmas baby, what with all the birthdays, Halloween, and school still being relatively new. And I think of my mother and I walking the same path, through the same months, though years apart.

There are many people, as was made disgustingly clear by the reaction to the years-overdue rewarding of the Noble Prize in Medicine to Robert Edwards, for his work in the development of IVF, who do not think my embryos should exist. The amount of judgement placed on my reproductive choices is probably what makes so many women--and not just celebrities--conceal the fact that their babies are a work of ART. People who think my embryos are a lesser life, an unholy life, or a selfish choice, a waste of money, should-have-adopted, couched in "well aren't there risks" sort of language or else just flat-out stated.

But I want these babies, just as my mother wanted me. My mother fell in love with me when she heard my heartbeat. I fell in love with them when I saw their picture. I still sometimes tear up when I look at it. I know it is not "life", but oh my god, what potential. I want those babies so badly.

My eggs were retrieved on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. King had a dream, a dream that his four little children would be judged by the content of their character. I have a dream of children. My husband and I are both bland European mutts. The mixing of our DNA on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is not an interracial mix. But there are many elements of diversity, and the celebration thereof. We come from very different backgrounds, my husband and I. Religious ones, educational ones, socioeconomic ones, political ones, family dynamics....it is amazing that we met at all, but here we are, holding hands, dreaming a dream.

Our embryos were transferred on the day before my husband's birthday. He called it his best gift ever. My husband was married once before, for four years. He and his ex actively tried to conceive for about two years, and did not prevent for the final year. She had two children from previous marriages. I think part of him knew all along what his semen analysis would reveal. But, through love, patience, and let's not forget science, he was able to create embryos with me, and to have two of them inside of me. He placed his hand on my lower abdomen on his birthday and said, "You carry my child".

I know our embryos don't know how to tell time, much less days of the week, months of the year. Much much less pick out the symbolic ones, point to them and say: these matter. Martin Luther King Jr Day, a father-to-be's 39th birthday, a mother-to-be's 32nd birthday shortly after due-date. A path of diversity, challenge, doubt, triumph, love.

My uterus, with its functional lining, is equally deaf to my pleas.

This has to be fate, I've felt. But I am not so naive. And I've seen Lost. I know the perils of mistaking coincidence for fate.

But oh my god I want these babies. These ones. I've gone from "any baby, any way, any time" to "these specific embryos, right now". I want them so badly.

Please let this work. Please, please, please.