Nurse Dyer wheeled the suction device out of the room, switches still on, lights still glowing, a faint hum still emanat-ing from its interior. She used a door that led to a short hall-way with another door at the end. Closing the door from the other side, she left Dr. Fletcher to finish up with Valerie. The doctor lifted her patient's legs out of the stirrups and rotated her to a sitting position.
"That's all there is to it," Dr. Fletcher said cheerfully, strip-ping the second pair of gloves off. "Expect some cramping and spotting. Use pads rather than tampons until your next pe-riod. No vaginal intercourse for six weeks." She handed Valerie three sample packets and a prescription slip. "This is an anti-biotic. This one's to control the bleeding. And this one's for the pain. Fill the prescription, take all the medication, and get plenty of rest. Then see us in ten days or so for a follow-up." She turned to follow Nurse Dyer's path out of the room, unty-ing her paper gown and removing her hat to throw both into a can by the door.
"Someone will be by when you're dressed to walk you back."
With that, she closed the door behind her. Valerie stared at the emptiness and listened to the silence. She hurt inside. Pull-ing on her light yellow panties, she was aware of a growing regret. Without deliberately thinking about it, she pulled a Maxi-Pad from her purse and slipped it into place. She was free. Free but hollowed. Free of obligation, but bur-dened with a sudden doubt. The outer door opened. Ron stuck his head in.
"Val?"
She turned toward him, buttoning her shirt. He smiled with soothing warmth.
"Hi, babe. Miss Tact out there told me I could come take you home. Need a hug and a ride?" She nodded sadly.
His arms wrapped around her like the warm folds of a thick wooly sweater. Gently, he lifted her from the table to lower her to the ground. She leaned against him, woozy at the change in position.
"I'm starving," she said.
"What should you eat?"
"I don't know. I just don't want anything that bleeds."
V
Nurse Dyer rolled the cart into the short hallway, stopped to close the door, then quickly stripped off her gloves and re-moved her gown. These went into a receptacle on the side of the cart. Opening the opposite door, she wheeled the cart into another operating room. This one possessed far more electronic equipment and medical implements than the other. On the table, swathed in a paper gown, feet dangling over the edge between the stirrups, lay a brunette with an expectant smile and steely grey eyes staring up at the nurse.
"The doctor will join us in a moment," Dyer said, handing the woman a small plastic probe wired to a computer console. "Hold that under your tongue for a minute." She dressed again for surgery, slipped on a pair of surgical gloves, added another pair, and reached for a second probe.
"Please put your feet up. I'll be taking your vaginal tempera-ture, too."
"I know," the patient said around her oral thermometer, a smile forming like that of a child's around a lollipop stick. "I've been doing this for long enough."
Nurse Dyer smiled. "Right. And tonight's the big night."
Just then, the door opened to admit a smiling Evelyn Fletcher.
"Well, Karen, it's taken us a while, but I think we have a baby for you." Opening a cabinet on the wall, she dressed for surgery.
Nurse Dyer carefully removed a white cylinder about the size of a two-liter soft drink bottle from the suction instru-ment. She hefted it as if it were filled with a dense liquid.
"This is the most wonderful moment of my life," Karen Chan-dler said.
"It won't feel like that when I start," Dr. Fletcher said. "We've loosened you up with the appropriate hormones, but I've got to insert a hysteroscope and microsurgical instruments into your uterus." She snapped on the second pair of gloves. "This will give you a little preview of what to expect in seven or eight months."
"I'm ready." Karen Chandler watched Nurse Dyer carry the white cylinder from one machine to another, similar-looking unit. Sliding the small object into a receiver on the top, the nurse punched a few buttons on the console, switched on the video screen, gazed at dials, and said, "Adding serum to Ham's F-10, seventy percent."
"Check," said the doctor, pulling an instrument tray toward her with one foot. She administered the pericervical block, then picked a sterile tube from an assortment of various di-ameters and lengths on the tray, lubricated it lightly, and slowly inserted it into Karen.
"Right out of the fridge," Karen murmured. "Can I get frost-bite from that?" Fletcher smiled without distraction. When she reached the cervical area, she slid the hysteroscope into the tube, locked it in place, and gently sought her way into Karen's uterus. Karen grunted as the probe spread apart her flesh. In a mo-ment, the shock of entry had subsided to a dull, throbbing ache.
"How's that?" Fletcher asked.
"Fine," Karen moaned, taking a deep breath.
"Don't strain," the doctor said urgently. "Just relax. We've got lots of work to do." Nurse Dyer stared intently at the video monitor. She moved a tube on the machine's side with slow, deliberate motions. A soft sucking noise grew and subsided in concert with the mo-tion of her wrist and the touch of her fingers on the controls. "In place," she said, quickly pressing a button and grasping the tube.
In a blur of rehearsed speed, Dr. Fletcher unlocked and with-drew the hysteroscope, leaving the hollow tube inside Karen. The nurse slid the other tube out of the machine and gently pressed it into Fletcher's hand. With a fluid motion, the doctor inserted the opaque rob deep into Karen's womb.
"Transfer," Fletcher said in a sharp voice.
"Pump on," Dyer replied.
A fluid warmth filled Karen. Liquid pressure swelled in her belly, pleasant and comforting amidst the ache of the instru-ments.
"It's in."
Another jolt as Fletcher removed the device and inserted a combination hysteroscope and laser microsurgical instrument.
Karen Chandler gazed at the doctor's head as she worked intently and silently between her legs. She thought there should be a sign around that read Caution: Baby Being Installed. She wondered who the donor was. Part of the privacy ar-rangement, according to her contract, was that the identity of the mother would not be revealed until the child was eighteen years old, and only if he or she asked to know. She hoped her child would someday ask. She wanted the chance to thank the nameless, faceless woman who so generously offered her baby to someone who couldn't produce one naturally.
Nurse Dyer stepped away from watching the work on her monitor to dab sweat from her doctor's brow. Fletcher re-mained bent over the eyepiece of the hysteroscope, maneu-vering the remote scalpel and laser microsuture with intense concentration. "
Thirty-five minutes passed during which Dr. Fletcher never shifted from her crouched position, never said a word. Nurse Dyer, watching the progress on the monitor, took over the re-sponsibility of reassuring Karen that all was well.
"The embryo knows what to do," she told Karen. "It's al-ready manufacturing the hormones that will tell your body you're pregnant. But since it's been detached from one uter-ine wall, we've got to reattach it surgically so that it won't bounce around." She smiled warmly. "You wouldn't want a child that young running around loose, would you?"
Karen tried her best to smile, but the length of the operation was getting to her. She simply stared at the ceiling. Someone had stuck a smiling yellow sun directly over the table. She focused on it, thinking of sunrises and waking up to mother and father and brothers when she was a child. She'd have a chance, now, to see it from a parent's point of view. If all went well this time. If their terrible past didn't repeat itself.