Never alone, not really.

On shared space.

Just when I thought I couldn’t enter any more unchartered territory, I find myself in an egg-collecting cycle. My husband and I are both carriers of our daughter’s rare and complex metabolic disease, and so to prevent any future children we might have from being affected by the condition, we are embarking on a pre-pregnancy testing route called PGD, that involves testing the embryos for Pmm2-CDG before they are then transferred into my womb. In order to create said embryos, we have to go through a cycle of IVF.

I’m not here to speak about the ins and outs of this route, nor do I cast any judgement on any family’s choices and ethical beliefs when it comes to managing genetically inherited conditions, but I do know that this route is right for our family, and that any more children as complex as my beautiful daughter that come along, would dilute the very specific kind of care I have dedicated and committed solely to her.

Anyway, back to my eggs.

It’s a weird one, because I can suddenly feel my ovaries. I’ve always known they were there, whirring away each month when it was time to release an egg downstream to my womb, but now, bolstered by a cocktail of regularly injected hormones, they feel plump and ripe and actually a bit too big for my body.

I feel not unlike I did when I was pregnant.

I walk slower, I tire quicker, and when I try to talk from my brain, not all that much comes out. Thinking is suspended and all my energy is flowing downwards. I was slightly dreading the hormonal upheaval that I was sure this would bring, coupled with the anxiety of having to manage a litany of time-sensitive injections, but instead I find myself in a familiar state of surrender, and a deep sense that, once again, I am not alone.