Free Avalanche by Julia Leigh Page A

or astronaut. He is working at the forefront of miracle and wonder.
    I bought my nephews a crazy number of presents for Christmas.
    One day I was babysitting and after I’d nagged the boys to put away their LEGO the youngest commented, “You don’t have kids so you don’t know how we work.”
    By Day 31 I still hadn’t got my period. Never before in my life had this happened to me. I worried that because I’d done yoga in a heated room for a week I might have inadvertently messed things up; I worried that something dire had happened when I’d been slammed in my belly, bang on my right ovary, while playing tennis; I worried, I worried. I had a blood test on Day 33, which also happened to be my 44th birthday. “Happy Birthday,” said the nurse as she read out my birthdate. Welaughed. She thought it a pity I had to come in that day; I told her it was auspicious. When I left the clinic I noticed a man, a grandfather, leading a toddler across the street. Toddling. I felt a flush of heartwarmth at the sight of that little girl. Could she be enough for me? Did I need to place my own child at the center of the world? Was it enough that other beautiful children existed? If I could make the revolutionary shift from I to We , from I to This , perhaps that would be possible.
    At last my transfer was scheduled. I woke at 6 a.m. and took a cab to an acupuncture clinic in the city that a friend had recommended. It was a public holiday, ghostly, no one else was around. Bend the rules of nature, bend the rules of time. The acupuncturist had kindly made a special trip to meet me. I liked her because she called me “darling.” I was there because I’d heard that acupuncture on the day of transfer could aid implantation, potentially aid implantation—the evidence itself was limited. Half an hour of lying on the table was about all I could take. When the session was finished I took a second cab from the city to the facility and considered the cab driver’s Hare Krishna music a good omen. At reception I noticed Paul’s name was typed on the consent form as my next ofkin so I drew a line through that, pressed down hard with the pen. I was directed to an airlocked changing room, known as the “Clean Room.” I felt like Charlie when he first enters the chocolate factory with Willy Wonka, wide-eyed. I removed half of my clothing and put on a hair cap, overshoes, and a blue papery gown. I then pressed a button to release the airlock and passed through to the pristine all-white surgery. A lab adjoined the surgery. I took a seat on what looked like a dentist’s chair, spread my legs. There was a lot of identity checking and I had to repeat my name and birthdate in a loud voice because it was all being recorded. The doctor and the lab technician also had to loudly confirm details, which I guessed was part of the protocol for avoiding an embryo mix-up. On Dr. Nell’s instruction I held the ultrasound wand over my belly, revealing my inner moonscape on a small screen. There was another screen perched high in the corner of the room that relayed from the lab an image of my embryo, greatly magnified. “It looks good,” said the doctor. “It looks just like the one in the book, doesn’t it?” Since I didn’t remember the images in the info booklet I didn’t answer. “Yes,” she said loudly, “it looks like the one in the book.” The lab technician disappeared the embryo into a fine bendy plastic catheter.She brought this tube to Dr. Nell, who tried to insert it into my cervix, but she had trouble and the lab technician was sent to find a stiffer tube. I know now that the more difficult the actual physical transfer the worse it is for the fragile embryo. On the moonscape screen I saw a minuscule white speck being released from the tube onto my doughnut-shaped uterus. I asked if I was OK to fly, do yoga, go swimming. Yes to all three, with the