“I guess thanks for not calling me a slut? Can we stop talking about my underwear now?”
Jeremy snickered. “Yeah, sure. Sorry. I just… man… if Asher saw those on you, he’d…”
He didn’t say more. Why wouldn’t he say more? “What?” I asked. “He’d what?”
“Well, you shouldn’t wear them around him. Also, why would he ever see you in your underwear? Strictly speaking, this will never happen, so this is all hypothetical, but I think he’d go crazy. In a good way, for you, except maybe not, since, you know, he’s married.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Right, of course. What time do we have to be at the doctor’s?”
“We should probably leave soon. Asher’s going to meet us there. You both have to sign paperwork or something. Anything else you need besides what we grabbed?”
“Yes, um. Can you grab the other boxes of cookies? I’m going to change quickly.”
Jeremy looked at me funny. “Sure, but I think Asher can afford to buy more cookies.”
“They’re expiring soon,” I lied. “I don’t want to waste them.”
Jeremy shrugged and left to go fetch my cookies. I grabbed the pink panties and rushed into the bathroom to change. Shimmying my current pair of underwear down my bare legs, I stepped out of them and then stepped into the new pair. I lifted them up, holding my skirt above my waist while I did, and fit them into place. And, they didn’t match my bra, but who cared? I had plans, delicious and devious plans, and they didn’t involve anything to do with a bra.
…
“Are you on birth control?” the doctor asked.
“Yes,” I told her. “Is that alright, or…?”
“It’s fine,” she said. “In a standard procedure, we would have you go on birth control for a month anyways. This insures that we’re dealing with a regular cycle. The long and short of it is that we need to know exactly when your period is so that we can plan for egg retrieval. There’s medication involved and various shots. You’ll have to self-administer those, but we’ll show you how. The shots are simple and mostly painless, but after awhile there can be slight bruising and discomfort. I assume you have an OB/GYN you regularly go to?”
“Yes.” I swallowed hard. The medication didn’t sound bad, but the shots worried me. I was always kind of a wimp when it came to needles.
“So, what we’ll do today is preliminary exams. Nothing intensive. I’ll need to speak with your OB/GYN about your history, but I assume we won’t find anything detrimental to IVF, so everything should be settled in a couple days. Depending on the type of birth control and where you are in your cycle, we might be able to start this sooner than regular. I can’t guarantee anything, though. Do you know when you usually have your period?”
“Yes,” I said, nodding. “In a few days. Three? What’s IVF?”
“In vitro fertilization. Sorry, I’m so used to abbreviating.” She hummed to herself, considering my answer. “As long as everything checks out, we might be able to begin in three days. That’s a rush, though. Basically, if we do that, you won’t have much time to back out. If you change your mind or reconsider, you’d have less of a window.”
“What I’d like to do,” she continued, “is start you on Gonal-f the day of your period. You’d stop taking birth control then. You’ll inject the Gonal-f with an RFF pen—which basically looks like a large ballpoint pen—and that’s about it. I’ll prescribe you enough refills to last for ten days. You’ll also need to take some other medications, but those are easier to handle. It’s a good idea to start taking pre-natal vitamins and oftentimes baby aspirin helps, too. On the ninth day you’ll come back in and…”
I listened to her, but it all kind of blurred together. Three days? And then what? If everything went as planned, I’d be pregnant in a couple of weeks, right? I didn’t really know what I was thinking before this, but it seemed like it’d take longer than that. Months, maybe? I had married friends who’d spent half a year before becoming pregnant, so a couple weeks seemed really quick in comparison. Though I don’t know why I thought it would take longer, either. Medicine, advances in technology, and whatever else; these doctors had it down to a science and knew exactly how to manage it.
“Please be aware that the surgery involved with egg retrieval and transplant can be painful and disorienting. We do everything we can to minimize that, though. I know it’s a lot to take in,” the doctor said. She smiled at me and handed me a pamphlet. “Here’s some more information and you’re always free to say no. This is kind of a strange case in that usually we perform IVF on either infertile women without other complications or egg donors. I discussed everything with Mr. Landseer on the phone a few days ago and I understand your situation, though. It shouldn’t be any different than a regular procedure in the end, so you don’t have anything to worry about with that.”