Chapter 2 Dr. Donkey Dick Cara
“IT’S CALLED DIMINISHED OVARIAN RESERVE. Essentially, based on your levels, you have the egg quantity of a woman in her late forties or early fifties. Which is to say, not much at all.”
Diminished ovarian reserve. Feels like a fancy way of calling me old as fuck, which can’t possibly be right. Not me, a spritely, determined twenty-seven-year-old CEO of a thriving company, wife of a professional hockey player whose stamina is otherworldly.
But that’s what he said, isn’t it?
I swallow, and the feeling is thick and dry, impossible almost. I wring my hands, clammy and shaking.
My knee won’t stop bouncing, but then again, it hasn’t stopped since we walked in here an hour ago and were made to sit in the lobby for forty-five minutes until Dr. Brenling remembered he had patients to see.
I feel like I haven’t taken a single breath this entire time, and it’s not until a large, beautiful hand slides on top of mine that my chest inflates.
My gaze lifts to Emmett’s, and the love, empathy, and patience shining there is the only thing that brings my racing heart back to a steady thump.
That’s my husband. At my side every step of the way.
Fingers tangled in mine. Eyes that see it all.
I knew myself before him. Knew who I was, what I was worth.
But when he walked into my life three and a half years ago, my fate was sealed.
There would never be a me again without Emmett Brodie.
There was Cara Hunter, the woman who was happy and capable of doing it all on her own.
And then there was Cara Brodie, the woman who’d never need to do anything alone again, but with the man who reminded her day in and day out that she could.
I was unstoppable before Emmett. With him, I’m indestructible.
His hand slides along my jaw, pulling my mouth to his for a soft kiss that soothes the nearly imperceptible quiver in my chin.
Two years. Two years, we’ve been trying, and we sure as shit weren’t careful in the year before that.
Two years, and endless negative pregnancy tests. Two years, and too fucking many cracks in my foundation. Too many steps out to sea when I don’t know how to swim. Too many treks without daylight when I’m terrified of the dark.
Emmett’s hand slips to the nape of my neck, a heavy weight reminding me I’m not alone. “So where do we go from here? What do we need to do?”
“Well, you have a—”
“I’m sorry,” I cut off Dr. Brenling. “How could this happen? I’m young.
I’m healthy. Sure, I throw back Skittles and M&M’s like nobody’s business, but that’s neither here nor there.
” Emmett smiles, but there’s hesitation behind it, a lackluster force, and for some reason, that sends my heart into overdrive.
My voice lowers. “I don’t understand. I’m young. Healthy. I… I… I don’t understand.”
Dr. Brenling’s eyes bounce between us as he twirls his pen between his fingers. He shrugs, chuckling. “You sure you didn’t grow up in another country?”
“What?”
“Somewhere with extreme pollution levels.”
I blink. “Born and raised in Canada.”
“Smoke a pack a day?”
“Pardon?”
“The background information you provided the clinic says you’ve never smoked, but people tend to lie on those things.”
My jaw tics, because if there’s one thing I am, it’s pathologically honest. And when it comes to something as serious and life-altering as parenthood? “The information we provided to the clinic is totally accurate.”
A gentle squeeze from Emmett, and the tension stacked in my jaw eases.
“Ah, well, you never know. Things like pollution and heavy smoking have been found to lower ovarian reserve.” He pops his pen between his teeth, leans back in his chair, and twists side to side as he watches me.
I want to pull that pen out and stab him in the eye, or his dick, which is sure to be as useless as my fucking ovaries, apparently.
“Anyway, you’ve got some options. We can start you on intrauterine insemination, or an IUI protocol, as we call it.
You take daily injections to stimulate your ovaries and encourage egg release, and we monitor you so we can catch those eggs at the perfect time.
Then you take a shot that initiates ovulation, and your husband would provide a sperm sample the morning of your procedure.
We’d clean the sperm, get rid of the weak ones, and insert them as close to your eggs as possible to increase the likelihood of fertilization.
Intrauterine insemination. We’d also prescribe progesterone for afterward, which helps the fertilized egg implant in the uterus, if there is indeed a fertilized egg.
Basically, we create as optimal an environment as possible for pregnancy to occur. ”
“Well, hey.” Emmett’s grip on my neck relaxes, and when he inhales sharply, I realize he’d been holding his breath. His brilliant, sky-blue eyes shine with hope as he smiles down at me. “That sounds really positive, and like a great first ste—”
“Now, in my professional opinion,” Dr. Brenling interrupts, rocking forward in his chair.
He taps his hands on his desk and clicks out a beat on his tongue, like he isn’t talking about the likelihood of me and the love of my life reproducing.
“I’d skip the IUI. Go straight to IVF. In vitro fertilization.
Given the diminished ovarian reserve, I think we can safely assume that the quality of Cara’s eggs is severely compromised as well.
And getting the sperm to the eggs will only do so much if they aren’t quality eggs. ”
“I—” A tight, painful feeling stretches across my chest, one I’ve never felt before, and a weight drops to my belly. I place a hand over it, whether to protect it or quell the sickness brewing there, I’m not sure. “I don’t have good eggs?”
“Not likely. So with IVF, we’d stimulate your ovaries to get as many mature eggs as possible.
Then we’d do what we call an egg retrieval, and we’d use Emmett’s sperm to fertilize your eggs.
Afterward, we’d perform something called embryo grading, which is where we monitor the embryos, and blah blah blah, it’s all very boring stuff.
Basically, we’re looking for the best embryos, because that gives us a higher chance of success.
It’s much more costly than IUIs, but it’s typically quite successful.
In fact, we have a sixty-seven percent success rate within three rounds here. ”
Emmett opens his mouth, I presume to tell Dr. Brenling that money is no object, that we can jump right to IVF if that’s what he suggests. But the good doctor holds up his hand, silencing Emmett before he can start.
“Now, the God’s honest truth? I think, due to Cara’s condition, you’re extremely unlikely to have a baby with your own eggs.”
A cold sweat breaks on my temple, and my stomach somersaults as the fist around my lungs takes my heart hostage too.
Due to Cara’s condition.
I swipe at my forehead, lick my lips. Swallow, or try to. “What?”
“Like I said before, we can safely assume that since you have such a low quantity of eggs, similar to that of a woman nearly twice your age, you most likely have the same quality. I don’t see you being able to successfully conceive a baby with your condition. I know it’s hard to hear.”
Do you? I spit out in my head. Has somebody told you, a man, that your eggs are reminiscent of a fifty-year-old woman’s in both quantity and quality?
But I don’t say that. Instead, I replay his words. Over and over, each time a little bit louder, drowning out the voice that wants to argue with him, tell him he’s wrong, and also, that he’s a fucking donkey dick with zero compassion.
I don’t see you being able to successfully conceive a baby with your condition.
With your condition.
“So you’re telling us not to even try?” Emmett shakes his head, bringing his hands together between his knees. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why not try everything we can? I mean, there’s a chance, right?”
“Oh, no, that’s not what I’m saying at all.
No, no. I’m simply suggesting, for the sake of your mental health—and time—that it might be best to bypass the procedures that aren’t likely to work and go right to those that hold the best success rates for someone with Cara’s condition.
” Dr. Donkey Dick pulls open a drawer beneath his desk, rifling through it.
He slides a pamphlet across the wood toward us, smiling widely as he taps on the photo: a newborn baby in the arms of Mom and Dad, and a smiling woman behind them.
Embryo donation and surrogacy: because some pregnancies require real-life angels.
The fist squeezing my heart releases without warning, and that vital organ free-falls from my chest, shattering at my feet.
“Embryo donation could be a great option. We take good-quality embryos from families who aren’t going to use them.
Usually, they’ve already completed their families, and instead of destroying their remaining embryos, they donate them.
In this scenario, the baby wouldn’t share any biological relation to either of you. ”
There goes that fucking pen again, between his teeth. I’m about five seconds away from launching myself over this desk and nailing his dick to his chair with it.
Unfortunately, any fight I had left in me evaporates at his next suggestion.
“And of course, there’s surrogacy. Emmett’s sperm is in excellent condition, so there’s no reason why your baby can’t share his DNA.
In this case, you’d choose a woman to be a surrogate, and we’d use Emmett’s sperm to fertilize her eggs through a round of IVF.
Then, we’d implant an embryo—or two—into her uterus, and if successful, she’d carry your baby through pregnancy and bring it into this world.
Imagine that? You’d get the baby without having to do any of the hard work. ”