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moratorium on talking about a family. A moratorium! For how long? Indefinite. He’d pilfered the word “moratorium” from one of the couples counselors, the one who gave us a book that said there was a finite number of possible types of relationship, something like 1,392 or maybe 3,921. Then Paul modified his position and said we could “shuttle between the houses till the baby comes.” Topsy-turvy. I thought the property settlement was such a sniveling low demand that ipso facto it warranted divorce. We signed the legal papers in my lawyer’s office. I was in tears. That night he came over to my place and we slept together.
    Why are you writing this, Rat-wife? Rat-patient. Hey, Queen of the Rats, why?
    I guess it’s common sense but I sincerely believe in the truth of what I’m writing and at the very same time I know Paul would shape a different story. What’s more, I know my own next sentence could turn this way or that.
    We reconciled. Beloved singular man, wondrous sea creature, hand-holder—I forgave him everything andvowed to do better in his eyes. Mr. and Mrs. McGillicuddy went back to the clinic. A sperm test showed the vasectomy reversal had failed. The initial sperm flow post-op had been “respectable”—said the doctor—but the test now confirmed a zero sperm count. No sperm. If we wanted to proceed we would have no choice but to begin IVF using the sperm frozen during Paul’s operation. Neither of us asked for how long Paul had been without sperm, it seemed discourteous, impossible to know. (A good question: why didn’t we test it earlier?) Part of me was pleased—if the reason I hadn’t already fallen pregnant was because of low or no sperm flow then that problem could be rectified. What was scary was my own ovarian reserve. My FSH level was retested and it had held steady. Another marker for ovarian reserve was an AMH test. Anti-Müllerian hormone is a hormone secreted by very early ovarian follicles. The clinic ran the test and analyzed the results in their own lab. Like the FSH test, this test could not tell me anything about the quality of my eggs. Nor was the test conclusive: on the upside, I was informed there had been several reported cases of women with undetectable levels of AMH who had fallen pregnant. My level came back as 6.1—which was fractionally better than average for awoman my age. Ovarian reserve diminishes over time: that was the golden rule. When I was tested again in 2012 my level had gone up to 8.3. Alice in Wonderland. I asked Dr. Rogers how that was possible. He shrugged it off. He said a woman of 25 had a level of 50; it was all relative; my reserve was low. I should be glad, he said, the clinic would treat me. It seemed that only a veil of science shrouded the vast mystery.
    The doctor didn’t try to sugarcoat things, he said he was happy to proceed, all my retested bloods and ultrasound were fine but my age—40—was a problem. He gave me an approximate 20 percent chance of success. Thank you, thank you. I was so grateful, so willing. I didn’t hesitate for a moment to abandon Mother Nature. He filled out a consent form for Paul and me to sign that specified our treatment. Ran us through the costs. I played my inner trick of pretending it was all Monopoly money. He checked his watch, smiled kindly, inclined his head toward the door.
    If I were devout I would paint exquisite ex-votos on small tin sheets in a Mexican style, illustrating the miracle of IVF conception. A woman with her legs in stirrups.And floating in the surgery theater a little cloud, and in that cloud a sperm nosing into an egg, or perhaps an eight-celled embryo implanting into a red-lined womb. I’d go into churches and pin wax effigies of sprouting ovaries to the wall, in the same way the faithful pin up effigies of their ailing arms and legs.
    We never made it back to the clinic together. We scheduled appointments, we