Ability to do preimplantation genetic testing
Better and more info regarding whether frozen embryos will lead to a healthy baby/babies
Reduce risk during the freeze-and-thaw process
In short: more data to work with
When it came to marriage and kids, Ben and I didn’t feel any rush, but our conversations about a future together had been real and present since our early days of dating. And as our relationship became more serious, I wanted things to progress with intention, which I’d communicated to Ben. A couple of weeks earlier, during a long weekend in Colorado with Ben’s parents, who’d flown in from Florida, and mine, his father had made a few lighthearted comments about Ben buying me an engagement ring. Being in a relationship and debating freezing eggs versus embryos casts a spotlight on the big questions: How serious is this? How likely are we to really, truly have kids together? The thought experiment of egg freezing, already difficult to conceptualize, becomes trickier. All in one basket, or all in with one person, or something in between? I was clear on the science: Freezing eggs affords more choice. Freezing embryos offers better odds. But when you’re doing the latter with a partner, matters of the heart require some degree of certainty, too.
Over the next few weeks, as Ben and I joked about and then more seriously discussed fusing our sex cells to create embryos, I kept thinking about the day we drove from Colorado to Texas, moving me and a car full of my things to The Bungalow. I’d had my first panic attack that day, as we traversed bad weather that made driving conditions treacherous. A few hours into the long drive, high winds whipped up and we noticed a few semi-trucks teetering on the two-lane highway we were barreling down. The truck in front of us, its trailer empty, swayed and then began to tip sideways. I started to cry and couldn’t catch my breath. “I think I need you to pull over,” I said, anxiety rising in my throat.
“You’re fine. Just breathe,” he said, concentrating on the road. As he moved into the left lane to attempt to pass the wild truck, I didn’t understand why the car wasn’t slowing to a stop, or why I was having such a strong reaction.
When I realized we were gaining speed, not losing it, I tensed my arm against the passenger window, as if to steel against the crash I felt was imminent. “I really need you to pull over,” I repeated. I don’t remember what Ben replied, but he did not pull over. Maybe it wasn’t safe to slow down, but I hated that he sped up. I looked to my right—so close to the swaying truck trailer we were now parallel to that if my window had been down, I was sure I could’ve reached my arm out and touched it—and then lurched forward when Ben hit the brakes, unable to pass. We were now both scared, but I began having flashbacks to other frightening close calls I’d experienced in cars, and I struggled to control my breathing. This was my first full-on panic attack, though not my first time feeling very panicked, and I recognized a specific kind of fear in the deep center of my chest, so sharp I put my palm against my breastbone to quell it.
The winds eventually died down, and though we were almost in an accident and later witnessed other empty semi-trucks nearly careen off the highway, we were okay. But it was the first time I knew, in my gut, it might not work out between us. Just as quickly as the thought came, I willed it away, refusing to allow it to crystallize. I told no one. I did not write about it in my journal. I told myself it was misplaced fear after the stressful drive, an overreaction to an unnerving day. I tried to convince myself that my panic attack had nothing to do with my deciding to move in with Ben. It was raining by the time we pulled into a motel parking lot in Dallas hours later, and the thought had faded, or I’d managed to stuff it away, or both. We would get some rest, and when we woke in the morning to finish the drive, my bones would no longer ache the way they had been since we’d left Denver at dawn. I composed these wishes as facts because I needed them to be true.
But now those thoughts and memories of that day were resurfacing. The reason I kept revisiting that distressing day, amid my wondering about freezing embryos with Ben, was because, pleasant zygote discussions aside, we had been fighting. A lot. Since moving to Houston, I had cried myself to sleep more times than I could count. Our differences had begun to go beyond his partying and my projecting. We disagreed more than seemed normal for two people in love. We even disagreed about whether the things we disagreed about were a big deal or not at all. Driving. Drugs. Cooking. Monogamy. God. I’d become nagging and controlling, and Ben had begun to distance himself from what he sometimes called my “roller coaster of emotions”; “you’re too much” was a criticism he often leveled at me, and it cut straight to my core. The hard parts of our relationship were not the right kind of hard, the misalignment more serious than when car tires go awry and the steering is no longer properly calibrated. Something fundamental was missing—I didn’t know what, exactly, but I knew it was essential—and that made it difficult to see past the trivial stuff, to compromise, to keep believing it could work. But when these thoughts bubbled up I would berate myself for feeling unsure, for conflating work and personal life. After all, it had been my choice to move to Texas and live with Ben when he asked me. I was here now, digging my heels in, swatting away red flags that popped up. I had—we had—invested too much to undo things now.
So this was a pretty big hang-up. Embryo freezing made sense for women in committed relationships, or who otherwise knew whose sperm they wanted to mix with their eggs. And the truth was, I realized with an ache, that I was not deep-down certain I wanted to freeze embryos with Ben. As much as I wanted to believe he was the person with whom I wanted to and would have children down the road, I was no longer sure.
No Place to Be
An early August evening in Houston. One hundred degrees outside. I am at Walmart buying plastic bins. I am pretty sure I am moving out and that Ben’s and my relationship is over.
The breakup had happened slowly, then all at once. I had been clinging tightly to the idea that we had just been having trouble adjusting to living together. But our differences had become irreconcilable, and we’d come to a point where most days we just weren’t happy. Where we were in complete agreement: We were tired of fighting and tired of trying so hard to make it work.
A couple of nights earlier we’d biked to Blanket Bingo, a monthly summertime event downtown. We sprawled out on the grass among groups of friends and families and attempted only light conversation. It was humid and sticky. After, Ben asked if I wanted to get a drink at a nearby bar he loved before biking home. I didn’t, really, but I’d felt as if we had been walking on eggshells around each other for days and was afraid my not being up for this would start another fight. We sat at a high-top table near the bar. Ben ordered a cocktail; I asked for ice water. His phone buzzed, and I watched him look at it lighting up. “I’m going to take this,” he said. It was a work call. He launched into an animated conversation with a colleague about renewable fuels and I sat there and waited.
I watched Ben as he laughed and talked, sipping his drink between sentences. I considered this person I had fallen in love with. This man who loved old-fashioneds and the Green Bay Packers, playing the drums and chatting up interesting strangers. Who had lived in the same house for most of his childhood and whose Midwestern niceties had made him charming and sweet. Who lit up and said oh, golly when he saw a road sign announcing a Friday night fish fry. Whose high school years as a soccer player and star running back had made him so physically sturdy. Who hadn’t gone to the dentist in a decade. Who avoided conflict like it was poison. I looked at this man who knew my secrets, who rubbed my feet on long airplane rides, who texted me things like Come be the queen of my bungalow and I’ll love you madly and I want our lives together to be as colorful as your breakfasts. Who more than once bought me a big bouquet of flowers and said, “Because I love you. And because you should have flowers like this every single day.” My ice water was sweating, leaving dark rings on the wood table. Ben, still on the phone, got up and paced, drink in hand. I stared at the water rings, feeling more ignored and resentful by the second. What am I doing here? I thought. I stood up from the table, grabbed my bag from the back of the chair, and left.
I was halfway to where we’d locked our bikes when I felt Ben’s hand on the back of my shoulder. I turned to face him. “Where are you going?” he asked. He was still on the phone, holding it against his ear away from his mouth. “Back to the apartment,” I said. He turned the phone and told his colleague he was going to need to call him back. Then he looked at me, his light eyes stormy. I asked why he’d taken the call; he said something about being bored.
“Bored with me?” I asked.
“The thrill is dead,” he said coldly, and my already queasy stomach lurched, his words a punch to my gut.
“What does that even mean?” I said.
It didn’t seem like we were talking about what had just happened in the bar anymore. He said something about it being my job—or did he say both of our jobs? My memory fogs here—to keep things interesting. Then:
“So captivate me,” he said. “If you want to be talked to, captivate me.” I froze, then felt my face flush with anger. It was one of those ugly sentences that slips out during a fight; Ben seldom spoke to me this way, which is why it stayed imprinted. More final than the packing bins and boxes, than the uncomfortable silence that had come to fill the apartment like stale air. A wave of dizziness washed over me, blurring the twinkly bar lights above the street corner we stood on. A memory came hard and fast: the first night we met, a different city, a different street corner, a different bar. Two years and a lifetime ago.
Inside Walmart, I blinked back tears in the home storage aisle and debated buying the cheap bins or the sturdier ones. When I had moved in with Ben half a year earlier, I’d convinced myself I would never move out. It was my first time living with a partner. I thought settling in together and hanging art on our shared walls would make me feel pinned securely to my world. All I knew now was that I was scared to leave but more scared, in a soul sense, to stay. I piled several of the sturdier bins into my cart. I felt drained, already overwhelmed by the prospect of packing—again. Too much life packed into plastic containers.
Back at The Bungalow, fruit flies fluttered around the kitchen sink. Sunlight streamed through a window, settling on an unassembled shoe rack, a placemat, a pile of mail. When I was done carrying the storage bins in from the car, I kicked off my sandals and caught a glance of myself in the mirror that hung next to the front door. I forced myself to face my reflection, the realization ringing in my ears: Commitment does not always mean staying. Sometimes, to commit is to leave. Leave the person you thought you’d always remain alongside. Leave a place you tried hard to make your home. Leave even if you’re not sure how to let go or what comes next or if you’ll be okay.
—
A few days later, I was sitting in a corner in Terminal A at Houston’s international airport, about to board a flight to Seattle. From there, I would rent a car and drive to Banff, Canada. A ten-day trip to celebrate my birthday—a trip Ben and I were supposed to take together. We’d planned to camp and stay in hostels sprinkled around national parks, the Icefields Parkway, the famously blue Lake Louise. It was out of a sort of stubborn pride that I didn’t cancel the trip as soon as Ben and I broke up. But even if I had admitted to not being sure I wanted to take the trip without him, he would have insisted I go solo.
I had been packing since dawn. The day I returned to Houston from Banff was the day I would move out. It had made sense when Ben and I discussed it—it was going to be painful no matter what, but this was the most logistically feasible option—but now that I was about to board, I was finding it difficult to get on the plane. I called Ben from a corner of the gate area. He was driving back from Dallas; he’d been there for work for the past few days, so at least he wasn’t there to watch me pack. “You don’t sound good,” he said. He was right. I felt depleted. Empty. Numb. I did not want to spend the next ten days alone in one of the most beautiful places in the world. I wanted to stay curled up in a corner at Gate A16, hiccup-crying into the phone to the person who at that moment still felt like my person. I hoped that hearing his voice might calm me down enough to get me on the plane.
“We’re doing the right thing—right?” I said weakly. “I need to hear you say it.”
Ben made a sound that I’d never heard him make before, a mournful half-groan, half-sigh. “Natalie. It’s so hard to hear you ask that. But yes. I think deep down we know we need this space. A break.”
I closed my eyes and held on to those words, even though I knew this was not, would not be, just a break. I knew he knew that, too. It doesn’t make sense to rip off half a Band-Aid, but it hurts less that way. Before we hung up, he shared a few heartfelt sentiments, the kind that always made me feel better when he said them—but this time they made me feel worse.
I got on the plane. He sent me a text I read just before I switched my phone off: Felt an unfamiliar ache during that call which I haven’t felt in long time. This is gonna be ok. This trip should be ideal for you. Be there. Be in it all. I wrapped one arm around the other, hugging myself, and took a deep breath. I felt irrevocably alone. As the plane lifted off the tarmac, I pressed my nose against the tiny window and looked out and down, trying not to think about the empty seat beside me.
In Seattle, I forgot to buy a map before driving into Canada. When my cell service went out just across the border and Google Maps was no more, I used road signs and a helpful gas station attendant’s directions to wind my way to Banff. I drove for hours on the Trans-Canada Highway, nestled between impossibly beautiful mountain passes. I tried to ground myself in the stunning landscape, the dizzying views of sharp, rock-faced mountains and deep green trees, but the sadness from the past few weeks and my fears about what came next felt like a weighted blanket, smothering.
Banff is a small ski town in western Canada surrounded by dense alpine woods with lots of trails. There are glacial lakes and steep mountains protruding above the treeline. The morning of my twenty-eighth birthday, I woke in a bunk bed at a hostel. I ate pancakes in the hostel’s small restaurant and, connected to their Wi-Fi, scrolled on my phone and replied to a few birthday messages. Then I bought a packed lunch and headed to a lake nearby that I’d been told had fewer tourists and even brighter aqua-blue water than Lake Louise. It was the first time I could remember celebrating a birthday alone. I needed this solitude. Needed space, and sky, and hiking to heal, and gulps of mountain air to make me believe I would be okay again. I sat on the edge of the water, watching canoers gently paddle the length of the lake. The late morning sun blanketed my face. A few friends and relatives had mailed birthday cards to Houston, which I’d packed before leaving. I reached in my bag for them and opened them one by one.
Ben did not call or text me on my birthday, and though I knew he rarely texted anyone on their birthdays, I tried but failed to not take it personally.
The next day, I set out to hike to the Plain of Six Glaciers Teahouse. From Lake Louise’s inlet, I began to climb, eventually emerging from a forest to a deposit of glacial moraine. Rain fell steadily as I neared the small, historic chalet. I huddled with others to stay warm and slurped an overly high-priced bowl of steaming soup. On the hike back down, I sat for a while in a meadow surrounded by spectacular glaciated peaks. I had decided that when I left Houston I would go back to Colorado, stash my bins of belongings at my parents’ house, and move to Denver or Boulder. I tried to find the bright spots. One was that starting over could be an adventure, a chance to plant my feet firmly in a new city I would learn to call my own. The chilling part, the reality I was finding it painful to stomach, was that I had no place to be. I had choices of places to live, but nowhere I belonged.
When the rain eventually let up, the meadow glistened. The sun began to peek out from behind the clouds and I stood to go, feeling a familiar, curious tug of fullness and regret. I paused, then did something I hadn’t done in years: put my palms on the earth and kick my legs up. After a few more handstands, feeling better, I pulled my jacket tight against the wind and walked on.
Mandy: Resilient Ovaries
Several weeks before my personal life started to crumble, I had planned out a reporting trip to San Francisco. The Bay Area was an incubator for the future of fertility; I wanted to interview some of the doctors and entrepreneurs at the center. And visit Mandy, and see FertilityIQ’s Deborah and Jake. In mid-September, a few weeks after leaving Houston, I flew to San Francisco. I arrived at my Airbnb, dropped my bags, and promptly lay down on the carpeted bedroom floor. I thought my heart had settled enough to get back to work reporting, but anxiety sat like a pile of rocks on my chest, the post-breakup heavy sadness still lurking. I started to cry, taking gulps of air between sobs, then turned to look through the sliding screen door at the sliver of ocean blocks away, willing the sight of water to calm me some. Many minutes later, a distant ice cream truck and its cheery, annoying song helped bring me back. I forced myself to stand up and make a plan. I decided to walk to get my nails done because a female graduate school professor had once commented on my messy, short nails, admonishing me to never conduct an interview with chipped nail polish. I threw my hair into a bun, grabbed a scarf, and headed out into the drizzle.
—
A few evenings later, I visited Mandy at her home in Oakland to have dinner with her and Quincy. I was eager to ask her more about her embryo freezing experience, especially now that it was over and behind her. The meetings I’d had since arriving in San Francisco had been mostly with doctors, and while helpful, they hadn’t been all that, well, interesting. It was talking with women like Mandy, who had experienced egg or embryo freezing themselves, that revealed the most about the process. When I knocked, she greeted me with a warm smile. We sat at the kitchen table, catching up a bit. I’d last spoken with Mandy before I moved out of The Bungalow. She asked me how life in Houston had been going. I wasn’t prepared to talk about my personal life. After all, I was there to ask Mandy more questions. I was there as a reporter. But for months now, she had been sharing intimate details of her life with me. She’d cried on the phone, laughed, and gotten angry. And she’d sometimes ask me about my egg freezing decision. She knew I was in a relationship and was exploring freezing embryos instead. I didn’t want to deflect or dodge her question. So I explained about the breakup and moving out.
