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By Mark Nethercote, September 6, 2011 10:00 am

Saturday 4th September 2010

One year ago.

“The phone’s ringing, honey!”

I run into the lounge room, where I find Suse holding the phone like it’s a bomb.  After a moment, she depresses the trigger.

“Hello, Susan speaking.”

“Hi, it’s Shelley here.  From Monash IVF,” she qualifies, like we haven’t been waiting for two hours for this very call.

“Hi Shelley,” we say together, the tension pluckable.

“Well, I’ve got some great news.”  Suse and I look at each other.  “All three of your eggs have fertilised.”

“Really?” Suse asks, grabbing my arm tightly.

“So, now you just need to come back at 2.10pm on Monday, and the implant will happen at three.  You’ll need a full bladder, but not too full.  So I advise that you go to the loo before coming in, and take a bottle of water and start drinking it here.  And then you’ll start the progesterone gel on Monday night.”

She stops.

There is a void.

We’re both mute.  Suse continues to grip my arm.  “Hello?”

“All three fertilised?” I hear myself asking.

“Correct.”

“That’s a pretty good result overall, isn’t it?”

“That’s a great result overall,” she corrects.  It’s the first time I’ve heard her genuinely animated.  Ever.  “To put it into perspective, I’ve just come off a call to another woman who had sixteen eggs collected and only two of them fertilised.  Three out of three is a fantastic result.”

Suse’s hand grips ever tighter.

“And so, I guess, from here, what should we expect on Monday?” I ask, my head swimming.

“Sorry?”

“I mean I don’t want to be pessimistic, but I want to be realistic.  Should we expect one of them left?  Or two?”

“Well, I’d be hoping there’d be at least two on Monday,” she says.

“Okay, okay, that’s good.  I mean…we’re just…we’ve just had a bit of a rough road, and this is all just a bit surreal.  There’s been a few set backs along the way.”

“That’s IVF,” she says plainly.

“Yes.”

“And this is a great result.”

“It’s quality, not quantity,” I chime, as cheesy as a box of Twisties.

“Exactly.  And then on Monday, after the implantation, we can talk about what to do with the spare ones with refreezing.”

Spare ones?

Two hours ago, I’d been considering that there might be none.  And now we’re talking about spares.

“Of course.  Of course.  We’ll talk about that with them on Monday,” says Suse, keeping it together.  “Thank you so much, Shelley.”

“Yes, well,” Shelley says, a little uneasy in this emotionally-charged territory.  “Good luck with the transfer on Monday.”

We hang up the phone, and it drops to the floor with a clack.  We rise in embrace, hugging each other, jumping up and down, in an adult version of ring-a-ring-a-rosy.

We bounce, and we bounce, and we bounce.

“Oh my God!” Suse says, grabbing my face.

“I know!”

“One hundred per cent!”

“I know!”

All morning I’d been imagining three fertilised eggs.  I knew that there might be none, but I’d just kept closing my eyes, and seeing the dish, and seeing all three.

“Do you think they’ll let us visit them?”

“Not yet, honey,” Suse says, “you’ve got to wait till they’re Day Three before they make it to the nursery.”

We both laugh, like dizzy little kids, so hopeful, yet still hardly daring to wish.

Three embryos.

One hundred percent.

Wow.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, July 14, 2011 10:00 am

Wednesday 7th July 2010

One year ago.

I’ve been meditating.

For the last few nights, I’ve been sitting in a room, with my eyes closed.

Trying to go blank.

I don’t really know what I’m doing, but that’s okay.  I’ll just keep going.

* * * * *

I started last week.  Suse has been meditating intermittently for years.  And then with increasing frequency over the last few weeks.  I’ve noticed a considerable improvement in her mood;  more relaxed, less easily upset.

So I figured I’d give it a go.  I’ve been blessed with something Buddhists describe as Monkey Mind – a restlessness and, at times, indecisive nature.  I feel most comfortable when in lost in my thoughts, when I’m buried in busyness.  It wasn’t until a few weeks back that I even understood that my consciousness is separate from what I think.

“There are people out there,” my coach said to me, laughing slightly, “who don’t even realise that they are more than their thoughts.”

“What do you mean?” I replied.

I wasn’t even trying to be funny.

If you don’t get it, that’s okay.  Just quietly, I think I may have forgotten by now too.  Just go and buy a copy of ‘The Power of Now’.  It may make you more earth-aware, and if not, it’ll send you to sleep in under a minute.

* * * * *

Letting go of my ego, of the belief that I am what I think, is a huge leap.  Consequently, the concept of stilling my mind until there are no thoughts left pretty damn confronting.

What will be there if there aren’t thoughts?  Do I even want to find out?

The answer is yes.  It always is.  If I have resistance to something, then undoubtedly I should try it.  It mightn’t be for everyone, but for me, if I don’t want to do something, it’s the first sign that I should.

Just like the time I shot up heroin and killed those forty innocent goats.

Did I just say that?

I must be tired.

* * * * *

“I think I should meditate with you tonight,” I said, sighing as I looked at Suse.

Her face filled with joy.

So we retired to the bedroom.  She sat on her buckwheat pillow, legs folded in Lotus position.

I sat on a chair.

I’ve never been any good at crossing my legs.  I vividly remember being in Grade One, sitting on the floor, looking around at all of the other kids and thinking, “Why are you all doing this to yourselves?  How can you even concentrate on the story while your legs are folded in this excruciating way?”

So I shot up heroin and killed those goats.

This time, I just sat on a chair.

“You just have to keep your back straight, for a free flow of energy,” Suse said.  “Any time you notice a thought, just return to your breathing.”

I looked across, not really understanding.

“How long do we do it for?”

“Twenty minutes.”

“How do we know when we’re done?”

“You just know.”

“Do you set an alarm?”

She laughed, before stopping herself.  “No, you don’t set an alarm.”

She closed her eyes, and turned away.  So I did the same.  I sat there, and I kept my back straight, and I concentrated on my breathing.  Each time a thought came into my head, I returned to my breathing.  I got restless legs, and an itch on my arm, but I tried to ignore them.  And I returned to my breathing.  I noticed myself thinking about the washing, and the next-door neighbour’s gate, and I returned to my breathing.

At about the fifteen-minute mark, I felt a strange heaviness behind my eyes.  I noticed my breathing rate rise, and I felt a buzzing in my torso.  It kind of ascended, gradually entering my head.  And then I started wondering what it was, and it disappeared in an instant.  As if swatted away by thought.  It disappeared much quicker than it came, my Monkey Mind acting like DDT.

The following night, we did the same.  This time, my legs ached.  My feet wanted to move.  I found that I was focusing so much on not moving my right leg that I felt like, well, shooting up heroin and killing some goats.  My leg was there, just there, attached to my body, screaming out to me:  “Move, me!  Move me, just a little bit!  Just fucking move me a skerrick!”

There was no buzz.

There was no rising up.

There was nothing.

* * * * *

Same thing the next night.  This time, when it was over, I was mighty relieved.  Like it was the end of a long sentence.

In the days since that first time, I’ve not got the buzz back.  But I just keep going.  Most of the time it sucks, and I don’t want to do it.  But that’s okay.

I don’t want to eats my greens either, but I do.

And that’s the main thing.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, July 12, 2011 10:00 am

Sunday 4th July 2010

One year ago.

My wounds are healing.

I’d never realised it until Friday, but my thumb ring – something that I bought overseas ten years ago, and have worn every day since – doubles as a weapon.

It probably works as a bottle opener too.

I’ve been applying paw paw cream and antiseptic lotion to my bruised, abraded skin.  At least it gives us the chance to begin antibiotics for the ureaplasma.  As ropable as I was when were told to use condoms for fourteen days, the state I’m in right now, I don’t know that I’ll even be healed by then.

I’ve told just about everyone I’ve met in the last forty-eight hours about the horros of Friday.  I’ve got mileage out of this event.  If my pain can cause someone else’s laughter, I’m all for it.

About half the guys that I’ve told have been horrified by the whole banned lube thing – like it’s an infringement on a man’s very civil rights.  The other half don’t understand what all the fuss is about.  One friend laughingly asked why I didn’t just resort to a rolled up T shirt, smiling like it was an in-joke, only to realise that he is the only person in the conversation who uses this method.

Seems I’m not the only one to keep my techniques to myself.

And it seems that I’m not so shy about being a wanker after all.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, June 27, 2011 10:00 am

Friday 25th June 2010

Gestation: 39 weeks

One year ago.

Tonight is a full moon.

Well, that’s not entirely true.  Technically, the moon is full between 8.10am and 3.30pm tomorrow.   But unless we want to perform our ‘Ritual for Fertility’ under the searing sun in the middle of the day, we need to do it tonight or tomorrow.  And tonight is our last night on the island.

So we decide to do it tonight.

After dinner, we head back to our beachfront bure and get the things ready.  The ritual came packed in a cardboard box with a curved lid;  like a disposable coffin for a rat.  Inside it sit two candles, a small bottle of oil, a sewing needle, a bell, some horsetail herb, some stallion hair, and a piece of rose quartz.  All on a cushion of hay bale.

There is no way this little baby is getting back in through customs.

Suse picks up the box and turns to me.

“Do you think I’m crazy for bringing this?”

“Not for bringing this,” I reply, by now my standard answer.  She smiles.  “Honestly, I’m happy to give it a go, honey.  After everything that’s happened, I’m happy to give anything a go.”

* * * * *

We prepare in silence.  Suse finds a plate for the oil, setting everything out just right, while I visit reception for a lighter.  We take our little rat coffin, and a sarong, and we head out into the evening air.

Malolo Lalai is the closest of a chain of islands known as the Mamanucas, which sit to the east of Viti Levu, the main island of Fiji.  A number of films have been made in the area, including ‘Castaway’ and ‘The Blue Lagoon’.  It is the epitome of a tropical oasis.  As we walk along the beach tonight, I can’t help but feel like we are in a sound stage.  There air utterly still, the water laps quietly at our feet as if the ocean motor has been turned down to low, and the lone palm tree – the one from my runs – leans out at an impossibly sweeping angle, appearing to be too perfect, too flawless, as if made of papier-mâché.  This evening it is very warm;  the heater has been left on high.  As I look up, I realise that there is a thick cloud covering the entire sky, blanketing us in.

“I can’t see the moon, honey.”

“That’s okay,” Suse says, slinging an arm over my shoulder, “it’ll arrive just in time for the ceremony.”

I keep looking up.

“It’s dense,” I say frowning, “there’s no break in sight.

She grabs me by the hands, swinging me so I face her.

“There will be,” she says.

And I believe her.

* * * * *

We sit in the sand, just beneath the palm.  Its leaves sway softly, a hint of air now beginning to move.  We plant the candles in the sand, and sit cross-legged, opposite each other.

I take the piece of paper and unfold it, happy to be in charge of the instructions, feeling comfortable in this role.

I can do instructions.  They’ve never freaked me out.

So I take my place, looking down at the piece of paper.  I squint hard.

“It’s too dark under that thick cloud,” I say frustratedly.

“Have you got your phone?”

“Yep.”

“Use it as a torch.”

As I fish around in my pocket, suddenly the words light up.  I look above to see realise that the moon has crept out into a clearing;  the only clearing in the entire sky.

I just nod, as I clear my throat.

I no longer question my wife’s intuition.

“Circle of divine light be around me,” I say.

“Circle of divine light be around me,” Suse repeats.

“Spirits of the air whisper to the sky.”

“Spirits of the air whisper to the sky,” she repeats.

“And to all that bears fruit.”

“And to all that bears fruit.”

“Ask Mother Earth to hear me.”

“Ask Mother Earth to hear me.”

We take the oil and pour it into the bowl.  In turn, we inhale the aroma.  We strip off our top halves.  I take the bowl, dipping my fingers in the oil, anointing Suse below her belly button, over her heart, on her throat, across her forehead, and on her crown.  She repeats the process with me.

She then takes the green candle, carving a star into it, symbolising surrender to the spiritual realm.  She draws a ring of oil around its centre, and then she replants it in the sand.  She goes to light it, but as she does, a gust of breeze comes up, blowing out the flame.  She closes her eyes for a moment, and tries again.  From this point on, the air is still.

Just like that, the sound stage fans are off.

* * * * *

Suse rings the bell.  The overhead lights are dialled up, as the moon emerges into full view, illuminating all below.

She then takes the orange candle.  Into it, she carves the symbol of Ceres, the Greek Goddess of harvest.  She also covers this in oil, and lights it, before again planting it in the sand.

The wind remains off.

I hand her the horsetail hair and the stallion hair. She takes the first in one hand, and the second in the other.

And then we complete the incantation.

Call me superstitious, call me weird, call me whatever you want – but it feels to me like transcribing what we said in the final part of the incantation ain’t that smart.  I’m not sure exactly what we’re dealing with here.   And, as we’re not pregnant as I write this, I’m simply not going to jinx it.

Suffice to say that we both said that we’re ready and waiting.

Which we are.

And like I said, call me weird all you want.

I just want a kid.

* * * * *

As we finish, at the exact moment that we are complete, the wind picks up, blowing both candles out.  And just a few second later, the moon falls back in behind the clouds, completely blanketed once more.

“Look at that,” I say.

“Just like I said,” says my bride.

She strips off her bottom half, and walks slowly towards the water.  I follow her, taking her hand as we walk happily into the shallows.

And there we ablute, in the bath-warm water, on this perfect sound stage in the South Pacific.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, June 20, 2011 10:00 am

Sunday 20th June 2010

Gestation: 38 weeks, 2 days

One year ago.

“Do you like them?”

I look up.  There Suse stands, wearing only a bikini.  The comment is ripe for misinterpretation, if it wasn’t for her solemn expression and the origami in her outstretched hands.  In each palm sits a paper boat;  folded crescents, like upside-down party hats.  They have been painted with watercolours, pink for one, blue for the other.  The paint lines trace along the folds, making them look like international envelopes, each with a large heart in their middle.  And each of the boats holds a flower as its cargo.

“They’re boats.  For the spirits.  One for the boy, and one for the girl.”

I look up at her to see a content expression on her face.

And my chest fills up, with all of those things that you don’t realise are missing until they return.

* * * * *

We pack a bag, both wearing swimmers.  We close the door behind us, taking in the perfect day outside. Where the unblemished sky hits the water is hard to tell;  the palm trees dot the manicured grass like a game of tic-tac-toe.

We walk across the plush lawn carpet and onto the soft sand, heading down to the water’s edge, where our feet sink into the waterlogged sand puddles, the lukewarm shallows splashing up the backs of our legs as we go.

“We’re heading for those rocks,” Suse says, pointing.  Wordlessly she hands me the blue boat, small orange flowers its cargo.  In her hand, she holds the paper vessel with pink pin-striping, a rose-coloured heart painted on its hull.  In it sits a pink bougainvillea.  “It makes sense that you hold the boy boat,” she says.

We walk on further, our feet slapping along the water’s edge, in the quicksand;  in the most-fun part.  I look ahead at the rocky outcrop to which we are heading.  From it springs a solitary palm.  It reaches out over the water, which spreads beneath it as a turquoise blanket;  there as a soft landing, should it ever decide to fall.

“It came to me when I was meditating,” Suse says finally, “that those spirits from my previous pregnancies – the ones that didn’t complete – are still with me.  I need to let those spirits go.”  We walk on some more.  I look across at her face, her beautiful face;  at the first few freckles that already beginning to emerge in the sun.  “I need to let them go, to really let them go, ceremonially, so that they can return to me – to us – now that their real father is here.”  She looks at me and smiles.  “And we need to do it in those waters up there.”  She points, again, at the teal waters over by the edge of the dark rocks.

As we stroll we link our free hands.  The paper boats remain in our other hand, held out ahead;  guiding us forward, in perfect symmetry.

“When we went to see that clairvoyant,” Suse continues, “she told me that there would be something.  That a little ritual would come to me.  And that it would come to me while we were here, in the love waters.  And that I would know when it came.”

She looks across at me, her eyes smiling along with her mouth, a contentment in her face that I haven’t seen for a very long time.  We walk on in silence through the water.  As we get closer, we can see a group of snorkelers rounding the corner, right at the point.

“Oh, no.”

“It’s okay,” I say, “they’ll move on.  It will be perfect.”

As we get closer, the snorkelers get caught in a rip.  They wash along, ever towards us.  They remain oblivious to our presence, sliding right on by, never even aware.

By the time we reach the rocks, we are again alone.

* * * * *

Suse looks at me, taking the boat from my hand.

“I need to do this,” she says.  “I’m the one who needs to let them go.  When that is done, they can return.”

As she finishes saying this, her head falls slightly, a self-deprecation, a solemnity;  a reverence for this moment.  She turns, and walks slowly out into the shallows of the Pacific, a folded piece of paper in each hand, delicately painted with a heart, each housing a flower.

I watch my wife as she gracefully wades, riding the small waves out, further and further.  And then she stops.  She remains still for almost a minute, looking down.  And she first lets go of the pink boat, watching it as it goes.  It floats off to the left, falling on its side.   Her whole body turns towards it as she quietly watches it float away.  She repeats the act with the second, the boy boat.  It repeats the act, yet disappears from view more quickly.

She stands for a moment watching them, the mother of these spirits, as she lets them free.  And I stand for that moment watching her.

And all the time, something else watches us.

Then she turns, and my mermaid swims back to me.  As she gets closer, she smiles.

“The boy sank,” she says, her nose wrinkling up.  Then she lets out a light giggle.

“Bloody boys,” I say.  We both laugh.  “That’s okay.  He’s not coming first anyway.  He’s just mucking around on the bottom of the pool, waiting his turn.”

I take my wife in my arms, her slender arms looping over my shoulders.

“Do you want to say anything?” she asks.

I stop for a moment, waiting for self-consciousness to kick in.  But it never comes.

“In letting the spirits of this boy and girl go,” I start, “these spirits that have been with Suse since they were last in bodily form are now free.  And with that, they are finally free to return, when they are ready, to us, so that they can be ours, to share as ours, two halves of us, our spirits that are already there.”

She hugs me tightly.

“We’re ready when you are,” she whispers.  “We’re ready.”

Suse keeps her arms slung around my neck, but makes a quarter turn, so we can both watch the little pink boat and its flower, bobbing up and down on the lapping waves;  the spirit of this little girl that we are now ready to receive.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, June 17, 2011 10:00 am

Friday 18th June 2010

Gestation: 38 weeks

One year ago.

“You’ve got the tickets?”

“Of course I have, love.  Did you get the power in every room?” she asks.  The question comes out in a frosty plume, like a cartoon balloon.  Suse rubs her hands, standing by the car in the dull morning light.  “Then do it quickly!”

I jog back into the house one more time.  I check the laundry door, one last time.  The house is warm against my cheeks, as I stooping to flick off power points room by room.  I head into the study and crawl under the desk.  Flick.  Flick.  Flick.  Flick.  I walk into the bedroom.

As I do, I notice that the candle is out.

* * * * *

For two nights, its pink glow has left me sleeping sporadically at best.  Despite a face mask, I’ve woken every hour or so, looking across at my wife, slumbering deeply to candlelight, like she was in a Bronte novel.

I always thought she’d be better suited to a Bronte novel than me.

Of all the candles to buy for a ritual, Suse chose the longest lasting, highest quality, most incandescent rose candle she could find.

The fucking thing just kept burning.  It was like the Energiser of candles.

Last night, I turned to her.

“Couldn’t it just burn out like the cheap things we got the first time around?”

“Move it into the other room if it’s bothering you,” she’d said.

“Can you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Can you move a candle after you’ve made an intention?  After you’ve made passionate, baby-making love?  And after I said that the candle was for us to receive our kid, only once it had burnt out?”

“Well, on that logic, you need to have supersperm, buddy, because this thing has been burning for twenty-four hours now, and looks like it’ll go another twenty-four.  So are your boys going to hang around for two days before fertilising my eggs?”

We both looked at it, burning away.

“Okay, I’ll move it,” I said.

“I don’t know that you should,” she said sheepishly, “now that you’ve said that.”

We stared at it again.

“I won’t then.  I don’t want to affect it.”

“I never knew you were so superstitious, Dr. Nethercote.”

“I didn’t know that I was either.  That is, until we lost a baby on the day we moved into this house, you’ve had no end of back luck since then, and then a woman popped up out of nowhere to tell us that the reason we’d lost our child was because we hadn’t yet cleansed our house.  Oh, that, and that I’m a sensitive.”

“You are very sensitive, aren’t you?” she said, patting my face jokingly.

* * * * *

We’d decided to leave it here.  To let it burn to the quick.  This, despite the fact that this morning we are heading overseas for nine days.  We’d resolved to leave a burning object in our untended house.  Shit, we hadn’t even resolved it.   It had gone unspoken.  As if we wouldn’t?  My Dad would have apoplexy at the thought.  And yet, there was no other choice.

This is the level to which my superstition has risen.

But now, as I stand here, on my last check of the house, the candle has gone out.

I flick off the bedroom power points and head back out.  I lock the door, turning to Suse.  Her face is white, frozen in Melbourne’s winter morning.

“Did you blow out the candle?” I ask.

“No.  Is it out?”

“Yeah.  It was still going five minutes ago.  Are you sure you didn’t blow it out?”

Suse looks at me and rolls her eyes.  “No, Mark.  I’m here to fuck with your mind,” she says sarcastically.  “Of course I didn’t.  It must have gone out just now.”

“After burning for thirty-six hours, it goes out the minute we leave for Fiji.”

“The exact minute.”

I frown and jump into the car, reversing back, feeling the hairs stand on end.

* * * * *

We skim across the water, a dazzling sky above.  All around us it is dark, a blank canvas against which to see the Southern Cross and the Milky Way.

“Do you know how to tell which way is south?”  Suse shakes her head.  I point over her shoulder up at the sky above.  As I do, I cuddle into her, continuing my explanation.  She leans into me, her head resting on my shoulder, her face pressing up against mine, and she whispers into my ear.

“I don’t really care, honey.  You can always be in charge of directions.”  She kisses my cheek softly, before letting out a little mew, snuggling further into my crook.

* * * * *

We pull into dock, jump off the boat, and watch as our bags are transferred onto the golf buggy.

“Will they still have food available when we arrive?” I ask.

“I think they will, sir,” says the driver.

I look across at Suse.  The two flights, the boat ride, and five transfers are beginning to wear tiredly on her face.

As we pull into our resort, I see a group of people waiting.  The drivers flicks his lights switch.  Off, then on;  off, then on.  And with that, as we wind around in a circle towards the front entrance, the singing begins.

“Oh, my God,” says Suse with delight.

As we come around the corner, the palm trees clear.  And then we see a troupe of Fijians wearing traditional garb, there to welcome us.  One is playing guitar, one the ukelele, and all ten of them harmonise in a beautiful Fijian welcome song.

“Is this for us?” I ask, stupidly.

“Oh, my God!” Suse repeats.

We bundle out of the buggie, like instant celebrities in a wonderland.

“Bula!” one says.

“Bula!” says the next.

We shakes hands, all ten of them, there for us at 10.30pm at night.  A group of singers have welcomed us, all there to say hello, honouring us like family.  I see Suse hugging one.  It’s as if we’ve returned after a long trip away.

“That is the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen,” she says excitedly.

And here we are together.

It’s like we’ve come home.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, June 10, 2011 10:00 am

Friday 11th June 2010

Gestation: 37 weeks, 1 day

One year ago.

I hear the back door open, but then silence.  I continue typing away for another minute, waiting for Suse to come in.

“Is that you, hon?” I shout out.

“Yes,” she says.  I get up from my desk, and walk out of the office.  The house is cold and dark, winter’s night having closed in quickly.  There on the couch sits Suse, her shoulders still slumped.  She stares at the unlit television screen.

“Are you all right?” I ask.

“No,” she says, her face screwing up.  I sit.  “I thought I was doing okay,” she says, breaking into tears. She burrows herself into my shoulder.  Her head bobs up and down against my arm.  Her sobs multiply, and multiply, a release of feelings, a torrent of emotion.  I take her deeper into my arms, cradling her as I do.

“I thought I was doing good,” she manages, gasping out the words between breaths.  “I really thought I was doing well.  Until this today,” she says.  She bursts once more, tears spilling over.  “I’m on edge, Mark.  I was so good this morning, and then, now…”  she trails off once again.  “I just can’t take anything more right now.  I just can’t have anything else get in the way of…”  She falls even further into my shoulder.

I feel my anxiety building, that thing that happens anytime I see Suse cry.  I want to fix it, to change it, to stop it from happening.  I notice this thing, welling up, threatening to break over in me as anger, or resentment, or a diversion tactic.  Anything to deflect from feeling.  Anything to stop from having to witness her in pain.

But I don’t.  I notice it, and I feel it well up.  And I let it go.

And I hold her.

I hold my wife, and stroke her hair.  She sobs, and sobs, and I hold her, and I stroke her hair.

“Nothing’s changed, honey,” I say.  “Nothing’s changed.  We’re going to be okay.”

“I’m just so scared of anything else happening,” she says.  I look at her, and see the fear in her eyes.

“I know,” I say.  “I see you, honey.  I see you.  I understand.”

“I can’t have anything else happen, Mark.  I just can’t.”

I stroke her hair again, damp from the sweat of the shakes from the tears.  I run my fingers through it.  “It’s going to be okay.  We’re going to be okay.”

“I want to burn another candle,” she manages to say.

“We can do that,” I say.  “We can do that.  We can do whatever you want.  Now let’s run you a bath.”

* * * * *

Suse lies in the bath, still.  She floats her hands at her sides, washing the water up over herself, like a kid welling water over sand.  I sit on a chair, my laptop on my knees.  And I read.  I read out diary entries from this story.

I read her the entry I wrote about visiting Dr. Fleischer.  I read her the entry about the ringing the sperm lab.  I read the story about the psychic.  And I even read her the story about misfiring on withdrawal.

Each story I tell, I get some of my wife back.  Each tale I tell, a bit more of her returns.

“You’ve never let me read it till now,” she says finally.

“Well, it wasn’t ready yet,” I say.  “Or I didn’t think it was ready.”  I stop for a second.  “But now was the time for you to hear it.”

“It’s a really good story,” she says finally.

“It’s healing,” I say.  “It’s my therapy.”

“I want to read it.  All of it.”

“You will.”

“No,” she says deliberately, “I want to know what happens.”

* * * * *

We sit in front of the TV.  Suse sits there, calm and still; yet clearly drained.  In through the wringer, and out the other side.

An emotionally flat pancake.

I take my hands, and I scoop one under her right shoulder from behind.  I put one on the front of it.

And for what it’s worth, I treat it.

I sit there, with one hand at its front, and one at it’s back, feeling it.  And I suction it.  In exactly the way that the psychic had told me on my birthday, I treat it.

‘You’re a sensitive,’ she had said, ‘and you can heal Susan.’

‘How?’ I’d asked.

‘Imagine the layers of the body, and imagine going through them, and pulling out the blackness.’

So I do.

I feel stupid, and self-conscious, and kind of weird.  But I do.  I imagine her shoulder, I imagine the tendinopathy, and I imagine it healing.  I feel a gradual stickiness in my hands, as I do, after a time, and then I flick it away.

And I do the same thing over her fallopian tubes.  I imagine the blocked right tube, and I imagine it unblocking.  I imagine the tortuous left one, and I imagine it tightening up.  Again, after a time, I feel a stickiness in my hands, and I flick it away.

We sit again, watching TV.

Neither of us says anything.

There’s no need.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, June 9, 2011 10:00 am

Friday 11th June 2010

Gestation: 37 weeks, 1 day

One year ago.

“Hello,” I say, answering the phone.  I look across at my friend, Libby, her newborn daughter, Lana, in her arms.

“Hey, hon, it’s me.”   The phone drops in and then out, reception hazy in the house.  I point at the phone and Libby nods, understanding the black hole of reception that her home is.

“Just trying to get better reception,” I say, walking towards the front door.  Even though I can only hear crackles, I get the mood.

Something’s not right.

I walk outside a look at the screen, until magically three bars of reception flash up.

“All right, I’ve got you,” I say.

“I’ve just had the ultrasound scan, and they reckon it’s torn.”

I close my eyes, tightly, in that way you do when you don’t know what else to do.  So tight that it causes a headache.

“Really?”

“I think so.”

“Why what did they say?

“Nothing.”  She takes a breath.  “I mean, she was looking at it for forty-five minutes, and then another woman came in, and then the radiologist.  And they were all murmuring and pointing at this one white bit.”

“So did they say that it was torn?”

“They didn’t say anything.  They never say anything.  But I think so.”

I close my eyes again.

* * * * *

I walk back into the lounge to Libby.

“So how’s Suse going?” she asks.

“She’s just had an ultrasound on the left shoulder.”

“And?”

“Sounds like it might be torn.  Just like the right one was.”

Lisa looks at me.

“Oh my God.  When are things going to ease up for her?”

“I don’t know, Libby.  I don’t know.”  I look at Lana in her arms.  “A torn supraspinatus muscle means more surgery, more rehab.  Last time it was three months before she could mobilise properly.  What this means about getting pregnant, I just don’t know.”

“I thought you’d cleansed the house?” she says.

“We did.  But the shoulder pain has been there for weeks.  From before burning the candle.”

Lisa continues to rock Lana, who sleeps peacefully in her arms.

* * * * *

“Hello, I was hoping to follow up some results on Susan Brock,” I say.  “Just putting you through.”

I wait, looking at Suse, as she sits at her desk.  Her face is flat.  I pick up a post-it note, expectantly.

“Results?” announces the girl on the end of the phone.

“Hi there, I was hoping that a report may be through on a patient.”

“She’s your patient?”

I look across at Suse.  “Yes, I ordered the ultrasound.

“How do you spell it?”

“B. R. O. C. K.”

“And it was done today?”

“Yes.”

I hear typing at the other end.  “The result is through.  Would you like me to fax it?”

“That would be great,” I say.  Suse hands me a business card, and I read out the number.  “Can you read the result to me, before you go?”

“Sure,” she says with hesitation.

The girl on the other end trips over terms like she’s drunk, mispronouncing every word that is bigger than five letters long.  But in amongst it all, I hear her say ‘tendinopathy’, and there is no mention of a tear.

“Great,” I say, looking at Suse.  Her face is ashen.  But with this, she raises her eyebrows.  I hang up the phone.  “No tear, honey.  Just inflammation.”  She just stares, unable to say anything.

The fax machine burps into action.  We both stand and walk to it.  I take the sheet, and read.  Suse looks over my shoulder.  “ ‘No evidence of supraspinatus tear’ ”, I paraphrase, pointing as I read, “ ‘similar findings to last study.’ ”

I look across at Suse.  Her expression has changed to anger.
“Well why couldn’t they tell me that when I was in there?  Why did they have to put me through all of that?”

“Because they’re the radiographers…”

“But the radiologist came in at the end.  And she was looking very concerned.”

I look at the fax.  “A little Asian lady?’

“Yep.”

“Well, Dr Sally Yim reported it, and she’s happy that it’s just tendinopathy.  Whatever they were pointing at, it wasn’t at a tear.  No surgery, hon.”

Suse sits back down.  Her shoulders drop.

“It’s great news, honey,” I say.  “It’s not going to stop us from getting pregnant.”

She nods plastering a smile on her face.

Yet she still looks defeated.

To be continued…

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, May 31, 2011 10:00 am

Thursday 3rd June 2010

Gestation: 35 weeks, 6 days

One year ago.

“I had a dream about having a baby,” Suse says.  My eyes leave the traffic as I turn to look at her.  She looks back.  Her face is filled with hope.  Her eyes are light, and she is smiling.  “And every time I breast fed her, she got bigger.”

“How old was she by the time you woke up?”

“She was still a baby.   Just a really big one.”

“Okay.  You didn’t end up with a grandpa baby?”

“Nup.  A normal baby.  Just a big one.  And she was a girl, not a boy.”

“Great.”

“This is a big thing for me,” she says, touching my hand.  “You get that I’ve never actually had a dream like that before?  We’re actually going to have a baby.”

“I know, honey,” I say.   I put my foot on the pedal, catching an amber light.

“I know you’ve known for ever,” she says, sighing.  “But this is a big thing for me.  A really big thing.  It’s a big break – that I actually believe this will happen.   That we’re actually going to get pregnant.”

The traffic slows to a halt, as someone reverses directly in front of us.  We stop, while an elderly lady, her hair still flat from sleep and hairspray, tries to see over the dash.  I can just make out the top of her head above the seat.

“You know that we’ve still got a two in three chance of not having an ectopic?” she says.  I reach across, taking her hand in a squeeze.

“You’ve become my glass half-full wife, have you?”

“Two-thirds full.”

“I’ve only ever heard you tell me how it’s one-third empty.”

“And, what’s more… We might even get pregnant naturally.  I get a feeling that it’s going to happen before we need to start IVF.”

The car in front stops dead.  The old woman fiddles with the gearstick, trying to wrestle it into first.  She fails.

“What prompted all of this?”

“Dunno.  I’ve just had a change in my outlook, I guess,” she says simply.

Someone toots.  The car remains stuck.  Another person hits their horn in frustration.  I hear someone yell.

And all I can do is smile.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, May 24, 2011 10:00 am

Tuesday 25th May 2010

Gestation: 34 weeks, 4 days

One year ago.

We walk into the room, and as we do, I hold my breath.

Suse has finally had an improvement in her chicken pox rash, more than two weeks after it initially began.  Fifteen days of scratching like a mangy dog, in return for trying to do the right thing by an as-yet-unconceived child.

She hasn’t seen either of my brother’s new babies yet.  And I know how hard it has been for her, how emotionally challenging, to have both of her sisters-in-law pop out a second child this May.

“Hello!” my Mum says, welcoming us in.  Everyone stands.  We enter the hotel room, filled with grandparents, parents, a sister, and, now – an uncle and an aunt.  My Mum takes Suse in a hug, and then does my Dad.  Both unspeaking in their love;  both understanding how hard this is for her.

“Come on over and have a look,” says my sister-in-law excitedly, directing the comment straight at Suse.

I pause for the reaction.

“I’d love to,” Suse says.

I take a breath.

“Nice digs,” I say to my brother.

“Yeah, they like to ship you out of hospital as soon as possible.  Don’t know that this is the hotel I’d choose, but it does all right.”

“It’s nothing on the Sofitel,” yells out my sister-in-law.

“Well, the room is smaller, sure, but the meals are okay…”

“…Yeah, but they make you pay for the movies,” she says in her Texan twang.

“It’s the little things, isn’t it?”

“I know!” she says.

I look across at my Mum, as she sits perched on the edge of the bed.  She has a broad smile across her face, her head cocked, as she looks over at her youngest grandchild.  I follow her eyes, to see what he is doing that is so cute.

And then I see it.  There is Suse, already in the chair, holding Zach.  She has him in the crook of her arm, her finger in his mouth, sucking, and stroking his soft brown hair.

And then she looks up at me and smiles.

* * * * *

I look out the window at the neon world beyond.  We sit in Chinatown, around the corner in the CBD, chewing away on lemon chicken.  Neither of us says anything for a couple of minutes;  silence the indication of the quality of the food.  It really is that good.

Suse looks up, licking her fingers.

“You were okay in there, hon?” I ask.  “It wasn’t too close to the bone?”

“No,” she says, simply.  “Something happened in there with Zach.  I had a little moment with him.  I spoke to him, and he spoke back.”

I look at Suse, curiously, knowing that this is something that my rational mind is never going to get.  But that it is true.  “And he told me that there was a little girl waiting, waiting to come down.”  She takes another bite of her food.  “And so I told him that I was ready.”

She looks up at me, like it’s the darndest thing.

Like it happens every day.

“I think it’s over, Mark.  I’m over it.  I’m done.  The wound is healed.”  She nods, confirming the fact to herself.  “Something profound happened in there.  And I really am done.  I’m ready to move on.”

I look at my wife, not quite understanding.  Never fully understanding.  Never really comprehending this marvellously complex, beautiful, exquisitely frustrating, lovable soul that I’ve found to match my own bizarre, eccentric, inexplicable ways.

I guess that’s what we call marriage.

* * * * *