Her Sentinel

Chapter 8: Passing

Kay...

Sitting here in the doctor's office with Nate, I feel a sense of excitement knowing he's agreed to do this with me. My husband and I are going to try to have a baby. As it turns out, I have polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) which means my eggs do not mature enough to be fertilized, my testosterone levels are too high and that makes me horny all the time.

Fun stuff!

This fertility clinic came highly recommended by a few of my co-workers. They got pregnant, so I am going to believe this will work for me too.

Nate seems ambivalent about doing this, but I'm determined.

"Kaylee, the doctor will see you now." The nurse says.

As we stand up, I look around at all the young couples here with us today and know their pain of wanting a family.

Nate takes my hand, and together we walk through the door. My heart is racing and I can't wait to start.

Why does my husband look anxious? I know he's not thrilled about tossing his junk in a cup, but after all, I've been through, with everyone up in my business, he can get over it.

Taking a seat in his office, the doctor introduces himself and I can't get over the fact that he looks like Richard Gere.

Great, he couldn't be ugly?

"Hello Kaylee and Nathan, I'm Dr. Robert Kline and we are going to figure out why you are having trouble making a baby."

Okay, here we go!

Walking out of the office, I feel a surge of optimism, and I'm filled with excitement that soon, I'll have a baby of my own.

Looking at Nate, I ask, "Well, what do you think?"

He smiles and answers, "He definitely seems to know his shit. Are you ready for all of this? The shots and medication, plus all the testing and so on?"

"Yup, I'm ready!" I exclaim as he takes my hand and kisses it.

He adds, "Then I'm with you, babe."

Working at the local health center, you get to know the patients and they know all about you. With Nate getting a job at the elementary school down the street, several of them found out quite a bit about me and my husband. It was nice sometimes, but then there were days when it was not so great. Especially when the pregnancy tests came back negative, and I was feeling low.

Of course, working with families, we would often have girls come in crying because of an unplanned pregnancy and that would hurt the worst. That part of the job was horrible, but it reminded me that someday it could happen to me.

My friends at the health center would try to cheer me up. The doctors and nurses would give me a smile or a pat on the back. Then the girls in our area would say, next time it will work. But they were wrong.

At this point, I started to give up on my dream of ever being a mother. We had been trying for 7 years and I was at my wits' end. We were broke from all the treatments, medications, and the in-vitro was not covered by our insurance. It was all out of pocket and a sizeable chunk of change. I knew Nate was ready to stop, but I had to give it just one more try. He gave in to me, as always, and I would return to the fertility clinic across town.

I had gone through everything under the sun. From ovarian drilling, hormone injections, egg donation, and being seen every three days. Every other month it was the same, injections, an internal ultrasound, in-vitro fertilization. Wait and then the phone call saying that it did not work. Seven years of hearing. We will just try again, sweetheart, if you want...