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“reasonable.” Sitting there in his room I had the sense that all augured well: if the vasectomy reversal worked then a natural pregnancy wasn’t out of the question.
    I nurtured this belief that I would fall pregnant naturally. Why be nervous? If it really were true that only 10 percent of women aged 38 fell pregnant naturally (and I had my doubts) then I would be among the millions of women in the world who had once upon a time fitted that description. Pollyanna Juggernaut could do amazing things with the figures. I would be one of the lucky ones, an exception. After all, didn’t I have a track record for beating the odds? When I was 27 I was diagnosed with a tumor in my left lung. It wasn’t possible to do a biopsy at the time of the bronchoscopy, there was too high a risk of bleeding. Because of the central location of the tumor, the whole lung (and lymph nodes) had to be immediately removed. Lung carcinoma is the leading cause of cancer death. I had the operation and waited days for the result. When the registrar told me the amazing news—it was a carcinoid, not carcinoma—I just nodded like I’d been told it was three o’clock in the afternoon. He said I was a hard lady to please. This was because usually less than 1 percent of all tumors in the lung are carcinoids, a relatively slow-growing neuroendocrine tumor. I was on morphine but really I was so blasé because I had never taken on board the known likelihood of carcinoma. Before surgery I had willfullydisconnected from the probabilities. In my critical state they weren’t helpful.
    In the public imagination—as I perceive it—there’s a qualified sympathy for IVF patients, not unlike that shown to smokers who get lung cancer. Unspoken: “You signed up for it, so what did you expect . . . ?”
    Nearing the end of my treatment it became harder and harder to kid myself that I was lucky, exceptional, or altogether outside the realm of statistics. The real reason I didn’t want to know about the IVF numbers was that I was desperate.
    Our probationary year disappeared. During that time I decided to put up my hand to direct my screenplay. It was a long shot the film would get made since I’d never directed any sort of film before. My novel was published: I was happy with the reception. For Paul’s birthday I gave him a word. “To smund: when a woman, a wife, lays her length upon a man, her husband, and with slow loving sinuous movements caresses, presses her soft warm breasts against his chest.” One day we were walking home from the grocery store, and I said somethingvery homey, something like, “When we get home I’ll put the potatoes on.” “Will you, Mrs. McGillicuddy?” he replied. It was a sublime moment: the birth of Mr. and Mrs. McGillicuddy, there on the footpath, fully grown, the long-married homey couple, the cardigan wearers, the ones who put the potatoes on. After that we often used to call each other Mr. or Mrs. McGillicuddy, it became one of our fondest endearments. In November 2008 Paul underwent his vasectomy reversal. And on the December solstice, as agreed, Mr. and Mrs. McGillicuddy were married.
    Scene from a marriage: Night in the highlands, we had a fight and he ordered me out of the house. I had nowhere to go. Because I’d never learned to drive I wasn’t able to get in the car and drive back to Sydney. I walked into town and found a pub, closed, where the staff were having last drinks. Knocked loudly on the door. I tried not to cry as I apologized for disturbing them, asked to pay for a room. Upstairs, lying in the narrow bed, fully dressed, I took out my phone. Paul had left many messages. I thought about switching it off before letting him know I was safe but I also had an urgent desire to hear his voice. Heartbroken, remorseful, he begged to come and pick me up and I agreed.
    That is how in my 39th year I came to make love, for the first