Fertile Ground by Rochelle Krich Page A

drank more coffee and watched Gina write.
    “So each egg is aspirated into a separate test tube?” “Usually. Sometimes the needle punctures two follicles at once. In that case, both eggs will be aspirated into one tube.”
    Gina nodded again and nipped a page of her pad.
    “How many eggs do you typically aspirate during a retrieval process?”
    Lisa shrugged. “There is no’ typical Harvesting can yield from one to thirty eggs.”
    Gina raised her brows. “Thirty eggs! That’s a tribe. Imagine Thanksgiving dinner.” She shuddered.
    “Thirty eggs is a lot.” Lisa smiled. “We’re pleased with twelve to fourteen.”
    “What happens next?”
    “A lab technician checks the contents of each test tube through a microscope. The tech tells me whether an egg is present or not and rates the egg as mature or immature.”
    “I guess it’s true what they say, that society labels its young early, huh?” The reporter’s laugh was low and throaty.
    Lisa laughed, too. “I guess.” She lifted her cup and drained its contents. “The lab tech labels each test tube, of course. We’re scrupulous about proper labeling. It’s imperative that the records are complete and accurate.”
    “But mistakes are possible, aren’t they?”
    Here it comes. Lisa felt her stomach muscles tensing. “I don’t see how. The labels for each patient are typed the night before the egg retrieval. The lab tech makes sure the labels correspond with the patient’s name.”
    “Okay. So the test tubes are labeled. Then what?”
    Lisa relaxed in her chair. “They’re stored in a lab incubator at womb temperature. Meanwhile, the partner’s sperm has been collected, prepared, and labeled. The ratio is one egg to about two hundred thousand sperm, by the way.”
    “Talk about overkill.” Gina smiled and shook her head.
    “Uh-huh. Sometimes, if the sperm is sluggish, a caffeine like booster is added.”
    Another lift of the finely arched brows. “No kidding! A little espresso to get them going?” She inclined her head toward Lisa’s cup.
    “Something like that.” Lisa was beginning to like Gina Franco. She reminded herself not to mistake charm
    and humor for sincerity. “Two to three hours after the retrieval, the eggs are fertilized with the sperm in labeled petri dishes and incubated.”
    “How many eggs are successfully fertilized?”
    “The national statistic is eighty-six percent. We do somewhat better. Three days later the fertilized eggs are transferred into a catheter, which is inserted into the patient. The eggs float into the uterus. This time there’s no anesthesia.”
    Gina crossed her legs. “How many eggs?” “We do a maximum of four. Some clinics implant five or six, sometimes more. That’s because the chances for conception increase with the number of implanted embryos.”
    Gina frowned. “So why does your clinic do only four?”
    “More embryos can result in multiple gestations. Multiples are more difficult to sustain than singletons, especially when you’re talking triplets and higher. Prenatal and postnatal care is far more expensive. The mother faces greater risks, and there are often serious birth defects and complications—blindness, brain damage, learning disorders. There’s also a high incidence of cerebral palsy. Sometimes the complications are fatal.”
    She hoped the reporter would include that in her piece;
    she’d seen heartbreaking examples of permanently handicapped newborns. The images still haunted her. “Some specialists prefer to increase the chance of conception by using more eggs. Then, if there are three or more embryos, they encourage selective reduction.” That was what Ted wanted to do. “We have to be competitive,” he’d insisted angrily at the last staff meeting. Lisa and Sam had voted him down.
    “That’s a euphemism for abortion, isn’t it?” Gina tapped her pen against her pad. “I’ll bet the pro-lifers aren’t happy.”
    “They aren’t. And many patients refuse to