Growing into the Job, Post 503: A Day at Far Horizons: Fertility & Maternal Optimization Clinic (aka Mom Genes (1))

Ellie kept her hands at ten and two on the wheel, but her mind was already somewhere else. The words were forming. The sentences. The blog post.

How do I even start?

She licked her lips, tasting salt - I have to stop biting them - testing a few opening lines under her breath.

"Fertility is a journey, not a destination." - Too cheesy.

"Sometimes, when one door closes, another opens." - Too vague, too trite. Everyone’s heard that one.

"What if the way we think about motherhood is all wrong?"

…

Better.

A soft hum of excitement curled in her belly. She was good at this, at shaping stories, guiding narratives. She spent many of her hours working at home freelance editing other people’s stuff, helping them find the right angle. But today…today was about her story. She would post on her blog, the hobby that her husband tolerated, and one that actually brought in a couple dollars in ad revenue and from affiliate links. She posted several times a week, usually. Today, though, was different. Today felt like a whole new chapter.

The car smelled like lavender.

Ellie barely noticed it at first - too much static in her brain, too much excitement buzzing in her nerves - but as she rolled to a stop at a red light, she realized the scent was filling the whole cabin. It must’ve been from the clinic, maybe she brushed against something in the plush little waiting lounge where they’d told her to relax before her consultation. Everything in that place had smelled soft, warm - like mothers.

Like she knew she was supposed to.

She swallowed. Her hands flexed on the wheel, knuckles pale where she gripped it too hard. Ellie tended to do that.

It felt weird, driving home from that place. Well, she had to admit a lot of the day was weird. Meeting Brandon at his work - who’d have thought it would come to that! And entering the new medical building for her appointment - that huge statue! Checking in at the desk of the atrium, and then in the Fertility Clinic - these girls were just too pretty! And then sitting, waiting - even that had felt weird. It all felt weird at first. She was used to medical offices being cold - stark white lights, scratchy chairs, the quiet hum of machinery. She’d talked about it on her little blog, which was a little place online supporting women trying for a pregnancy. But this place? It had been…well, welcoming. Very welcoming. Like it had been waiting for her. Like they had been waiting for her. Weird, but it got less weird, the longer she was there. 

She exhaled.

The road stretched out ahead of her, a long, winding strip of suburban gray cutting between autumn trees that had mostly lost their leaves. The sun was getting low - it was later than she expected. She must’ve been at the clinic for… what, two hours? Three? Maybe more? She hadn’t even noticed time passing. Hadn’t felt it. One of her hands slipped from the wheel, pressing absently against her stomach.

They had told her things. Things she’d never heard before. Things that meant a lot, for her, and for her husband. Things she couldn’t even process yet. Not fully.

Her eyes flicked up to the rearview mirror. Her own face stared back - thin-cheeked, brown-eyed, framed by her plain, mousy brown hair. Was her nose too big? Or her eyes too small? She had never looked particularly striking, nor did she embellish much with makeup. She never really turned heads, unless she decided to wear something to show off her too-big chest, which she rarely did because, well, Brandon told her she wasn’t that kind of girl.

But today? Today, she had felt seen. No, not just seen. Chosen.

Another breath.

The light turned green. She pressed the gas. The car was old, and sputtered. Ugh. She drove toward home, toward whatever the heckin’ heck was going to happen next.

She had been at ‘Far Horizons’, the new medical clinic that had just opened today. Specifically, her appointment had been in the Fertility & Maternal Optimization Clinic. It had been recommended to her by an APRN at her own OB/GYN as a good next step. 

On her trip into the clinic, earlier, her stomach had been tense with nerves, lots of nerves. She thought she shouldn’t feel that way - right? Other women didn’t feel that way, did they? But did they come in alone, like she had, with their husband’s bottled-up seed in a little baggie, instead of with him at her side in support? No, probably not.

Ellie licked her lips, tasting the faintest trace of salt. Had she been biting them again? It was a bad habit, she knew. She forced herself to stop.

Brandon had said he was too busy to come. Said there was no point in both of them missing work over something that was really her issue. She exhaled through her nose, white-knuckling the wheel again.

He didn’t say it that bluntly, of course. Brandon was never actually cruel. But she knew what he meant. She knew Brandon very well, after five years of marriage. 

She had been the one tracking her ovulation. She had been the one peeing on sticks, month after month, and watching the second line never appear. She had been the one swallowing supplements that made her stomach hurt, the one researching positions and diet changes and basal body temperature charts. She had been the one losing sleep in worry and anxiety: will I ever be a mother? Some of this she shared on her blog, with her smattering of readers, but some she did not. The blog was, if anything, more a source of personal expression than anything else. But it was a catalog of much of the work she’d done, trying to get pregnant.

And when nothing changed? When nothing worked? Brandon had just sighed, rubbed the back of his neck, and said, “Maybe we need to face the reality that something just isn’t working with your body.”

‘My body’? she thought in anger, now, now that she recalled him saying this, now that she knew what she knew from the clinic, Something wrong with ‘my body’? She snorted to herself. You seem to like ’my body’ enough when I sit on your lap and smother you in it. 

Ellie’s throat tightened. Yeah, she’d started to think, back then, in silent moments of private agony, maybe my body just doesn't want to make children. That was why she had gone today. That was why she had sat in the softly lit waiting room, knees pressed together, hands clutching a paperwork packet with her name printed at the top. Awaiting all the tests: bloodwork, ultrasounds, a host of various panels and procedures the clinic promised would help them get to the bottom of her troubles conceiving. 

But they wanted to test Brandon too, at the very least his sperm. At first he refused, scoffed at the idea, but despite his complaints and arguments he eventually relented - he really wanted a son. It had been her, though, who had been the one who had come to pick up the test kit from the clinic early this morning. Brandon hadn’t wanted to be seen walking into a fertility clinic, and then walking out with a little plastic cup.

He told her to bring it to his office, right before her appointment. So, Ellie had met him there, waiting awkwardly outside the downstairs men’s restroom like he’d told her to, eyes darting anxiously around the hallway while she waited for him. He was a few minutes late, and told her to come in to the restroom with him - they could lock the door. It only took a few minutes - he predictably groped her too-large left breast while her hand took to its task - and she finished with the warm cup in her hands. He’d kissed her on the forehead, and gone right back to work.

Ellie took care of it. She’d helped him, did all the work. She made sure it was collected, sealed, labeled, and stored properly. She‘d kept it warm between her thighs as she’d driven in, because she’d read that temperature fluctuations could affect sperm motility, and carried it into the building at the time of her appointment, clung to her chest. 

That had been more than three hours ago.

And now? Now, Ellie was gripping the wheel, her heart racing, because she knew something Brandon didn’t. She knew what the clinic had told her. She knew why they hadn’t been able to get pregnant.

She had been so nervous!

The Fertility and Maternal Optimization Clinic was nothing like a typical doctor’s office. It was beautiful. Warm. Welcoming. It didn’t have that sterile, clinical feel Ellie had been expecting - no stiff chairs, no flickering fluorescent lights, no cold, detached staff.

Instead, it was designed like a sanctuary. The waiting room - no, the ‘Nest’, they called it - had oversized plush chairs, soothing ambient lighting, and a soft floral scent in the air. It smelled like fresh-cut lilies, like clean linen, like - she’d said it before - lavender and motherhood itself.

She had felt small at first. Mousy, like she always did. It didn’t help that many of the women she came across, all the staff members here at least, seemed to be tall, curvy, radiating strength and confidence. Ellie had pulled her cardigan tighter protectively around herself, acutely aware of the way it stretched over her chest, the one feature of hers that had always felt like too much. 

But the staff had been so kind.

They had taken her into a private consultation suite, where everything was white and silver and modern and yet somehow still beautiful and welcoming. They had spoken to her in warm, reassuring tones, explaining everything in detail as they guided her through the tests. They’d even given her a little private tour of the clinic, the cryogenic chambers, the labs.

Her bloodwork. Her ultrasound. Her hormone panels. Her full reproductive health assessment.

Then, a bit later, another woman came in, then another. Women with questions, about her, about Brandon, about their lifestyle and history and relationship. It seemed intensive, and more than she was expecting. It seemed like they were not just evaluating how good a mother she might be, how good a family she might be able to provide, but something else. They were definitely probing - they even asked about the couple’s intimate time together, which she guessed made sense, since they were trying to get pregnant. Even when they got to the, uh, details, though -  it didn’t feel strange, or intrusive. Even when they asked about ‘your husband’s relationship with your breasts’. Which - haha he’d never admit it but I know he’s liked them more and more - seemed a little odd. But maybe it was their perfume - all the nurses and assistants and doctors; they did smell really nice, and seemed really smart - so she was happy to answer all their questions. By that point she was eager to tell them ‘it’s like the one thing that makes him vulnerable, my chest.’

And then, finally, though - the results of all the bloodwork and tests and spermanalysis. She’d prepared herself for this moment, as best she could. She’d readied herself for bad news, the words that would tell her she’d never fulfill her dream, the results that would take away from her the one thing that she’d been looking forward to for as long as she could remem-

"Ellie, your fertility markers are exceptional."

The words had struck her like a bolt of lightning.

She had blinked, startled. “S-sorry?”

The doctor - Dr. Casavant, the head of the clinic and so pretty and exotic with her French-ish accent - had smiled, flipping her clipboard around to show the results. “You are, quite literally, built for conception. Your hormone levels are textbook perfect. Estrogen is through the roof. Your ovarian reserve is extraordinary. Your endometrial lining? Ideal. Your overall reproductive health? Pristine.”

Ellie had sat there, stunned.

All this time, she had been steeling herself for the worst. For confirmation that something was wrong with her. For the doctor to give her that sympathetic tilt of the head, that clinical kindness, and say the words she had been dreading: ‘It’s you, Ellie. You’re the problem’. She was ready to go back and share all this with her blog followers.

But that wasn’t what happened.

Instead, the doctor had told her that she was exceptional. That she had the body of a mother. That she was made for this. She had actually used those words: ‘built for conception’, that she was ‘perfect for making babies’.

Ellie’s breath had caught in her throat. Something warm and fierce bloomed inside her chest.

Made for this. I’m made for this.

Her fingers had trembled slightly as she had gripped the edges of the exam table. She had never felt this before - this deep, primal rightness.

She was all Woman.

She had swallowed hard, her cheeks burning, and finally managed to ask:

“Then…then why am I not pregnant?”

And that’s when the doctor’s smile had turned just a little, and she told Ellie about the spermanalysis.

Brandon. It had been him all along. His sperm count was abysmally low. His motility was poor. His morphology was concerning.

The doctor had been gentle as she explained it. “Ellie, based on these numbers, conception would be…difficult. Statistically, very difficult.” She described the situation, she described some options - IUI, IVF, ICSI - but with Brandon’s poor sperm morphology and underlying genetics, chances of success were low. And the process would be grueling.

Ellie had just sat there, staring. For months - years, actually - Brandon had blamed her. ‘Maybe we need to face the reality that something just isn’t working with your body’ - he’d say.

Her body? Her perfect, fertile body? Well, now she knew. There’s nothing wrong with my body, Brandon. 

Her fingers had curled into her lap, nails pressing into her palm. A quiet, simmering anger had started to bubble beneath her ribs.

He hadn’t wanted to come to the appointment. Hadn’t wanted to do the sperm sample at the clinic, where people might see him. He hadn’t even wanted to take more than five minutes out of his workday, thinking it was her issue. He’d needed her hand, he’d needed to grope her breast as she jacked him off into a plastic cup.

And yet, it wasn’t her. It had never been her.

Ellie had exhaled, slow and measured. The realization settled in heavy and strange. Brandon - her husband, her strong, confident, always-in-control Brandon - suddenly felt…

Smaller. Less.

For the first time in her life, sitting in that clinic, Ellie had begun to see Brandon differently. And it had changed something inside her.

Now they wanted to change something inside her, too.

Driving home, the thought made her grip the wheel just a little tighter, her knuckles going white once again against the steering wheel as she replayed the conversation in her head. She had gone into the clinic expecting answers, maybe even a path which would lead to her and Brandon to having a baby - but what they had given her was something else entirely.

It started so simply, so clinically.

The next doctor - what was her name? I don’t know if she told me. She had a vague Russian accent, but Ellie could not remember her name. They had called her in, from another part of the facility, another wing. She had smiled at Ellie across the desk in one of the small, intimate consult offices, radiating a warm, maternal authority that made her feel like a schoolgirl speaking to a favorite teacher. The office had been softly lit, its walls decorated in warm shades of ivory and gold, all of it designed to be soothing, comforting, safe. The doctor even mentioned her blog, complimented it - she’d read it! My silly little blog! - and that made Ellie blush.

Ellie had sat there listening as the doctor went over her bloodwork, her hormone levels, her astounding fertility markers. This was the first time she’d had such testing done. "Ellie, do you understand how extraordinary you are?" the woman had asked, and something deep in Ellie’s chest had tightened at the words.

She had never been called that before - ‘extraordinary’. Not by her teachers. Not by her friends. Not by Brandon.

Certainly not by Brandon.

Ellie had shook her head numbly, because she didn’t trust her voice not to wobble.

And then the doctor had continued.

Her body was primed for motherhood, she told her. It was, in fact, unusual to see a woman so perfectly suited for conception and gestation. If there had been any issue with her getting pregnant, it was not her fault. It had never been her fault. The doctor made it clear: the problem was Brandon.

Ellie’s breath had hitched.

The test results were clear, the doctor explained them again. She said his sperm was weak - every metric had been abysmal. In all likelihood, even if they went through years of treatments, of expensive IVF rounds, of painful hormone injections, he still would never be able to give her a child. The realization had landed in Ellie’s chest like a stone.

Brandon. Brandon, who had sighed whenever she got her period. Brandon, who had rubbed the back of his neck and said "Maybe it’s your body." Brandon, who had made her feel broken, who had let her think for years that something was wrong with her.

And all this time…

Her throat tightened.

Brandon, the big, strong, successful man she had idolized, the one who had always made decisions for her, the one who had dictated how she dressed, how she spoke, how she carried herself. Brandon, whose touch had always felt a little too firm on her wrist when he guided her away from conversations at parties. Brandon, who always seemed a little disinterested, a little amused whenever she cried. Brandon, who made her feel small, and wanted himself to look strong.

But he wasn’t strong at all. The Russian doctor was telling her this now. 

He was weak. He was the weak one. She’d brought the proof herself. She’d hand-delivered the evidence of her husband’s failure in a little plastic cup. The thought stirred her again.

And that’s when the doctor had leaned forward, fingers folding together on her desk, her voice lowering slightly, just enough to make Ellie lean in.

“That’s why we have another option,” she said, "He can fill your womb in a different way."

It seemed like a blur to Ellie now, as she drove herself home, far outside the city by this point and eyes on the horizon. The doctor talked to her about something she called “The Process”.  She would be one of the first women here in the States to which it would be made available, and only because she was such a perfect candidate. Ellie was told of her extremely high natural estrogen levels, her body’s predisposition for rapid tissue growth and regeneration, and the ‘rare maternal markers’ in her DNA.

Also - which wasn’t shared with Ellie, but what was nearly as important to the researchers who would be using her and her husband as test subjects for Protsess - were the levels of pathogen by Western blot in both partners and her highly suggestible psychology. Ellie, to clinic staff and analysis of her blog writings, wasn’t just the perfect incubator for Protsess, but proving both yearningly eager to please, deeply receptive to authority, and subconsciously craving a higher purpose. That, along with some other borderline psychoses, was what really made her a perfect candidate. Eleanor Hastings, dob 14.07.20&%, was made for more than just conception. She was made for Protsess.

The explanation, the offer of this revolutionary new “Process”, had been so strange at first, and all Ellie could do was blink.  “I don’t understand.”

The doctor had smiled, warm and patient. She explained how she and other researchers across the world had been working for years on a breakthrough - a way to help men, the ones who really had no way to conceive, to pass their genes on to a new generation. These were the weak men. 

“Like Brandon?” Ellie had asked. 

Yes, the doctor confirmed, like Brandon. The Process was a way to ensure that no matter what happened, no matter how weak their bodies were, they could still fulfill their most essential purpose. Men like Brandon, who would never be able to give their wives children, could still be part of a family, part of the future.

He wouldn’t be gone.

He would be reborn.

Not as her husband. Not as the man who dismissed her, who patronized her, controlled her, failed her (how did they know this?? she wondered for a moment - but just for a moment). He would be reborn as something better.

Ellie had stared, her mind struggling to understand what she was hearing. The doctor, though, then showed her the pictures. By the code names and numbers on the photos, they looked like something out of a Russian lab or something. They were pictures of other couples going through “The Process”. The women were beautiful, strong, fertile. But it was the men, in various stages of treatment, that made Ellie’s eyes go wide. Some of them being held by their wives, some of them in their arms but some…oh god…in their hands…

…the men were so small. 

The men were being changed, being made ready for their final purpose. And Ellie saw how the women changed too. How hips widened, how breasts grew, bodies preparing for their final purpose. Ready to claim their husbands and start their families.

Ellie looked at the pictures, and then back up at the serene face of the doctor sitting across the desk from her. The doctor nodded, smiled and then - then, for the first time in her life - Ellie felt something bloom inside her. Something thrilling. Something dark. Something she didn’t know she was capable of feeling.

She was powerful. She was extraordinary. She was a WOMAN.

And Brandon..?

Brandon was just a little, broken thing.

The clinic had told her she didn’t have to decide right away. That she could think about it.

"We’d also like you to hold off on writing about this on your blog for now, or talking about it with family or friends," they had told her gently, "at least until we’re further along. If you decide to proceed, we’ll help you share your journey the right way."

But Ellie, gripping the steering wheel, feeling warmth spread through her perfectly-sized, perfectly-big chest, already knew what she wanted.

Her body was meant for this. Her body was strong enough for this.

And Brandon…my weak, impotent little husband..?

Ellie’s lips parted slightly as, finally, her car pulled into the driveway, her hands loosening on the wheel and she unconsciously brushed her hand over her lower belly, as if she was already cradling him. A slow, hot thrill curled down her spine.

…Brandon is going to be my baby.

====================================

Management would like to apologize for the unnecessarily long-winded title for this post. Those responsible have been, as they say, sacked. And then promptly rehired. Good help is hard to find these days.

We would also like to thank brother Ankle4u for the fertility-goddess used in the image. Please check out his DeviantArt.