Just like that

This afternoon, I picked up the telephone, dialled a number that was long unfamiliar to me and hesitated for a brief moment before I punched the last digit into the phone. What am I doing, what am I even going to say?

And then I just pressed 'Talk' and waited for an answer, promising myself to gauge whether or not to back out once I heard the response from the receptionist.

"Monash IVF, good afternoon, you're speaking with Anne," she said.

Ok, ok. Don't nobody go sitting more upright in their chairs, now, y'hear? I wasn't calling for that. I was calling to speak to the geneticist who handled our fragile little embies in 2005 and ask her for another favour. We built up quite a rapport with Lyn, she seemed to innately know that hers was not merely a business of science. She was a special lady.

I use past tense because, unfortunately, she retired last year. I'll never get to speak to Lyn and tell her we did it. We finally did it. On our own. I wished now that I had done what an online acquaintance (who was integral in our beginning our first PGD cycle) had suggested over eighteen months ago and called her to update her. "She'd be so pleased for you," she had probably quite rightly predicted.

Oh well. Not to be, I guess.

But I did get through to her successor. A much younger, yet just as lovely, sounding woman who was readily able to answer and fulfil my request. Before I even knew what I was saying, I asked her for the results of the mapping they used to compare our biopsied embryonic cells. It would show the 16 most common markers in Steve's swimmers that are abnormal.

"I need it for a book I'm writing," I explained. "I want to be accurate as possible about what I'm writing in it. "
"Wow, good on you," she replied.
"Well, that and... it would sort of help us integrate the information we receive when we get pathology results on babies we lose. It'd just... help. I guess."

And then after a moment's more thought, she kindly said, "That must be very difficult for you."

Yes. It is.