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In July of 2000, after years of crying every month when the faint stain of blood on my underclothing told me my hopes were dashed once more, after years of spending so much money on pregnancy tests that I should have invested in the companies, after years of hoping against hope every month when my cycle ran long, I finally did an IVF procedure. I just about choked when I wrote out the check to the doctor’s office–I’ve never held that much money in my hand before. But I did it with perfect faith. I KNEW it was going to work. I never had the slightest, least, tiniest doubt that it would work.

And even when I cried upon coming out of anesthesia after the egg retrieval, learning they’d only gotten 3 viable eggs, I still had perfect faith that it would work. I knew, you see, that I was going to have twins. And all we needed was two embryos.

They did the ICSI fertilization. One egg died. But there were still two. My twins were still alive. And then came the day of the embryo transfer. I drank gallons of water, and my doctor finally concluded that my bladder was the size of a peanut, and performed the transfer. I watched, entranced, on the screen as the two tiny bundles of cells that were my children were shot up into my womb. And I rejoiced.

For the half an hour I remained in that small procedure room, it was a holy room. A temple. A sacred place where I felt the presence of my forebears and my progeny, all together in a circle of love.

Tad and Ellie lived in my womb for a week. I never got to see them grow, never got to hold them in my arms, never got to wipe up their tears, never got to be called Mama or Mother or Mommy or whatever they would have come up with. I never got to change their diapers or see their faces on Christmas morning or watch my husband hold them and exult in the joy of fatherhood.

In a few months now, they would have be 7 years old. They would have been in school, they’d have had sleepovers with their friends.

I will always miss them. I never ever will stop thinking about them.

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