Avalanche by Julia Leigh

Islander adoption is that giving birth to a child is not necessarily a reason for raising the child.” A clinic on the island would almost certainly go bankrupt.
    The results of my second Natural Killer cell test came back. Both my levels—amount and activity—were now normal. I was relieved—and dismayed. Dismayed to realize that I had so narrowly escaped such an aggressive treatment. I asked Dr. Nell to bring my results to the attention of the in-house lead researcher and she lateradvised that the clinic would in future refine its advice about when to take the test.
    To prepare for the abyss I tried to kill my baby. I defaced the little darling, removed its eyes, eye sockets too (pity the poor mother in Chernobyl whose baby was born with no eye sockets). I shrank and gnarled its limbs. I laid my umbilical cord around its neck like a noose. But it never worked. The childling was always resurrected, smiling, perfect.
    Whenever people asked “How are you?” by way of social nicety I lied through my teeth. “Not too bad,” I’d say. Or “Swings and roundabouts.” At least I didn’t say “Fine, thanks.” Or “A livid scar cuts across my very being.”
    One morning I got up early to watch the World Cup final. Germany vs. Argentina. Looking out of my window, high on the hill, I saw that the entire valley of houses and apartments ringing the beach had vanished in a whitish fog, a sea mist. That happened sometimes, maybe twice a year. Germany beat Argentina in the dying minutes of extra time. I liked how Lionel Messi conductedhimself. He didn’t pretend. He wasn’t thinking, We played well, we did our best. You could see the snub blade of defeat, under his ribs. Even when he went up on the dais to accept a trophy for best player of the tournament he didn’t crack a smile. Something deeply meaningful to him had been lost. He—and his team—were truly defeated.
    A friend very gently asked, “How’s the other going?,” discreetly referring to my IVF. I told her I was about to begin another cycle, “probably my last.” She reached under the table and pulled a present from a large bag. It was an Aboriginal painting in a muslin wrap. “I’m glad to hear that. Here—you can have this on loan for as long as you like. It’s a fertility painting, it has magical powers.” I was so touched by this kind gesture. “I conceived my children with it in the room and I’d love you to have it.” I tried not to cry. She tried not to cry. We smiled through our tears. Unspoken: her first child had died in utero at five months.
    I asked the doctor if for this last cycle we could increase my Gonal-f dosage from 300 to 350 IU. A last hurrah. She agreed. But on the night I was due for my first injection I got cold feet. I’d read somewhere about high doses affecting egg quality—and I also got nervous about over-stimulation.So I only took 300 IU. The next day Dr. Nell assured me 350 IU wasn’t considered especially high and I should be fine at that dose if I wanted. Snow fell in the night, it stormed. At my first scan I had nine large follicles and the nurse commented, “You’re responding well this cycle.” Nine eggs were collected. Six were injected with sperm and showed signs of fertilization. This time, by Day 5 I had two blastocysts. One Grade A blastocyst and a “very early blastocyst.” The “very early blastocyst” was looked at by two scientists and judged to be on the wrong side of the borderline for freezing. The doctor asked if I’d like to transfer both embryos. I dreaded twins—highly unlikely—but couldn’t face discarding a blastocyst so agreed to transfer both. When the image of the first magnified blastocyst came up on the monitor the doctor said, “There’s the baby, see that clump of cells at nine o’clock?” After the transfer I went to