Infertility
They were looking away from their partner, who was slumped over his phone, and secretly feeling relief. They didn’t really want one of the potato-looking snot-nosed babies their friends were constantly posting on social media and they honestly could do without pregnancy. They were open to the experience, but mostly the idea of having a child involved specific imagined conversations with that person, explanations of what they saw in the world. They had always squirmed when a toddler threw a tantrum in public, the specific frequency of baby screams making them grit their teeth to powder. They wouldn’t mind fast-forwarding through the first one or maybe five years of that. It wasn’t a secret, really, but their partner being more unequivocal did make it more difficult.
Still, this had been expensive and miserable and uncertain, and it seemed like robbery to be told they weren’t being allowed to go through with it, and that their ovaries were altered. They had previously felt indifferent about their march to infertility treatment, but being told they couldn’t, definitively, was something of a slap, and they thought about the real finality of not having a potato-looking baby. They struggled to find their stony face and to assemble a coherent argument in their head, something that would make these beautiful doctors explain what was happening and why and how to get back and get on with things.
A different doctor than before entered the room and brusquely took the chair slightly further from the bedside. It took them a moment to realize she was a different person than the previous doctor because they looked alike, but then they realized she was wearing a different jacket and was taller, her hair was a little different color. She would do well in any indoor space in the capitol.
“How are you feeling? Any discomfort?” she asked. Her eyes crinkled agreeably above her mask.
“I feel fine. But I don’t understand what happened, why my treatment was denied, or where we are. I need an explanation, I want you to reverse what you did and I want us to be released, to go home,” they responded, slowly to avoid stumbling, hopefully with weight. They knew they did not have a natural authority, but they hoped that was forceful enough. They sent a sharp look at their partner before he could say anything and he actually complied, he didn’t say anything.
The doctor made a conciliatory gesture. They relaxed a bit, thinking their message had gone through. “I will explain what we do here and we will release you as soon as we’re sure you’re stable enough to do so. I know this must be very confusing, and I’m sorry. I hope everything will be clearer shortly.”
The doctor paused and adjusted her posture without seeming to do so. “First, I think I should explain a little about who we are.”
“We thought you were fertility doctors. We thought you were helping us have a baby. This is illegal, what you’re doing,” said their partner, his pitch raising as he tried to control himself. The doctor turned slowly and looked at him carefully, silencing him. She turned her attention back to them. “We are, in fact, fertility doctors. Well, we were, until recently. The full explanation is very complex, so I will give you the basic idea, and if you have questions, let me know.”
“Oh, we can handle the ‘full explanation,’” said their partner with the beginning of a sneer. It wasn’t very good if he followed this mood, he’d just fight with the doctor and they’d never find out what was happening. The doctor was, however, a pro. “Absolutely. I’ll start by saying that we were the most successful fertility clinic in the area. We loved helping with the babies. We were proud of helping many, many people become parents.”
“Yeah, that’s why we came to you,” said their partner. “So why are you stopping us from that?” he had definitely lost his edge. This doctor was good. “That’s a good question,” she said, and she seemed to actually mean it. “You know that the climate is changing, there are more storms, hotter summers, that sort of thing.” They waited for her to continue. “Well, we’re going to make sure the worst outcomes are never witnessed by our patients, by their descendants.”
“How would our one kid, if we had one, make any kind of difference?” asked their partner.
“Well, no, one person wouldn’t. But we’re going to make sure no one does,” she said with perfect surety.
“That’s not possible,” they said. “Most people don’t need to go to a fertility clinic. What will you do with them?”
“Getting back to the first thing they told us. Did you make them” and he gestured towards his partner, “permanently sterile?”
“No, we don’t do that,” she said reflectively.
“I don’t understand,” they said. “How are you going to stop everyone from having children that way?”
“Well, we won’t,” she said.
