Page 25 - 2017 WTP Special Edition

“I know.” Peter looks the doctor directly in the eye. “If Helen hadn’t died, we’d have a baby girl right now.”
“She would be a year old,” the doctor says, not even looking at the folder.
“Yes,” Peter says, swallows. “I’m here because I want to have a child, Helen’s child.”
Murr, who has aged in the interim despite the gorgeous head of hair, the lines around his mouth and eyes having become more deeply ingrained, remains silent for a good while.
“There are days when his eyes
And Peter, who’s been so keyed up about this meeting since he arrived at the decision, takes some comfort in the space between them, for it lets him breathe.
icker over her face and body, not with desire, though there is hunger there, and sorrow so deep Agnes believes that if she looked too long, she could get lost in it.”
A few minutes later, Dr. Murr quotes the cost of using a surrogate, explaining that the legal documents will be more elaborate and therefore significantly more expensive. “Each prospective surrogate is subject to significant psychologi-
cal screening, but we must take precautions. We need to ensure that there is no way a surrogate could try to keep the child at the time of the birth. There have been incidents, though very few, elsewhere of course. You see the reason for the safeguards.”
Peter nods, rests his large hands on his knees, Agnes’s lovely face swimming up into his mem- ory. It’s been nearly two weeks. More than likely, she will have had the baby by now. “And the pro- cedure?”
“It will be like the last time. The surrogate will take the hormones, just as Helen did. The main difference will be that this time we will use thawed embryos and not fresh ones. The chances of pregnancy are significantly lower, so I would recommend implanting four, perhaps even five, depending upon the quality of the embryos. Your file says there are six in storage. We won’t know their viability until we thaw them all on the day before the implantation.
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