Chapter 2 - THE EMBRYO THEY TOLD ME DIDN'T EXIST
Five years earlier, Hawthorne Fertility told me our last cycle had failed completely.
Six eggs retrieved.
Four fertilized.
Three stopped developing.
One was transferred.
Negative pregnancy test.
Nothing left to freeze.
I remembered every number.
Women going through fertility treatment remember numbers the way soldiers remember coordinates.
Follicles.
Hormone levels.
Days.
Embryos.
Bills.
Losses.
Mike remembered differently.
He remembered inconvenience.
Appointments.
Money.
My crying.
Then Tiffany said:
“There was another embryo.”
The wedding garden seemed to tilt.
“No.”
Her eyes filled.
“There was.”
Mike looked at her.
“What are you talking about?”
Tiffany ignored him.
“The lab graded it late. It developed after the initial report.”
My throat tightened.
“Then why wasn’t I told?”
She looked down.
“I don’t know everything.”
“Stop saying things like that.”
Rachel quietly moved guests away from us.
Within minutes, we were standing inside a private bridal suite.
Lily sat with Rachel’s sister eating chocolate cake.
I wanted her nowhere near this conversation.
I locked the door.
“Tiffany. Start again.”
She swallowed.
“One embryo developed to blastocyst on day six.”
My hands began shaking.
“It was frozen.”
“Yes.”
“Mine?”
“Genetically, yes.”
“Mike’s?”
Her eyes flicked toward him.
“Yes.”
Mike grabbed the back of a chair.
“No.”
Tiffany looked at him.
“You knew an embryo was retained.”
His face changed.
There.
Tiny.
But enough.
I stared at him.
“You knew?”
“No.”
“You just reacted.”
“I knew there was a lab question.”
“What question?”
He rubbed his face.
“Jessica, it was five years ago.”
I laughed.
“You told me I wasn’t built for motherhood five years ago. I remember it very clearly.”
Silence.
Then Tiffany said:
“Mike signed a disposition amendment.”
My heart stopped.
“What amendment?”
At Hawthorne, couples signed forms deciding what should happen to frozen embryos under different circumstances.
Divorce.
Death.
Nonpayment.
Storage termination.
I remembered ours.
We agreed unused viable embryos would remain frozen unless both of us consented otherwise.
“He couldn’t change that without me.”
“He shouldn’t have been able to.”
Shouldn’t.
Terrifying word.
Tiffany continued.
“Someone processed his authorization as though yours was already on file.”
I stared.
“Was it?”
“No.”
Mike stood.
“I did not forge her signature.”
Tiffany replied quietly:
“I didn’t say you did.”
Then she looked at me.
“The embryo was moved out of active storage four months after your divorce.”
“Moved where?”
Her face changed again.
“I don’t know.”
“That is your job.”
“It was.”
“Then tell me.”
She whispered:
“The transfer destination was sealed under a legal hold.”
“Why?”
“Because Hawthorne was already being investigated.”
I felt cold.
“For what?”
Tiffany finally looked directly at me.
May you like
“For transferring reproductive material without complete consent documentation.”
And Lily had been born almost exactly nine months after that embryo disappeared.
