The anguish of the fruitless woman

10/24/18, Boulevard Saint-Michel, waiting time until the next bus: nine minutes.

Jonas Moreno had just left the Sorbonne University where he teaches history. He was late and worrying his wife was not an option. She had enough worries these days; one more wasn’t necessary. So he called her to apologize. It was a rainy grey Thursday in Paris, one of these days you want to forget when the atmosphere overwhelms you and the climate depresses you, when life’s hustle becomes unbearable. All wrapped in his coat, braving the wind, Jonas was trying to figure out how he could arrive on time for the 5 pm appointment. The hospital was on the other side of the city and, with the traffic, it would probably take longer than usual to get there. In the meantime, Anna was patiently sitting in the crowded doctor’s waiting room, biting her nails and staring at the fishes in the aquarium, which was probably here to keep patients relaxed. Right amongst the sneezes and the coughs Anna was trying to concentrate on this old article from the Elle magazine that she had found on the table which promoted yoga practice to “live a better life.” Under the austere and pallid neon’s light, everything sounded grave. In front of her, a baby was crying so loudly that his mother felt obliged to show a sorry face to cope with patients’ impatience. Anna did not understand why the mother felt sorry for the cries of her baby. For her, this was the true essence of joy. Looking at the baby made Anna nervous as her dream was so close and yet so far. Holding a baby in her arms was what she wanted the most in life and the only way to achieve it was to wait in this hospital's room on this cold Thursday night. Indeed, Jonas and Anna had discovered two months ago that Anna was infertile.

Since then, her everyday life had turned into a series of blood samples, specialist's appointments and long talks with her husband. The smell of sanitizers in the waiting rooms had become part of her routine, as well as the hysterical waiting of test results. After she had learned that she might experience difficulties to get pregnant her blue eyes had turned darker and her full red lips were now bitten owing to her heartache. Those days had been challenging for the couple, but this Thursday appointment could define the course of their future parenthood or its nonexistence. As Anna touched her empty belly mechanically, still waiting for the doctor, Jonas came in, breathless and sweaty. A few minutes later, it was their turn. She grabbed her husbands’ hand and came in the doctor's office. She was convinced that there would be a solution, even if they both didn’t expect the first three words that would come out of the doctor's mouth-Medically assisted procreation. Of course, Anna and Jonas had heard about it. As they were quietly sitting on their chair, things appeared to be more complicated than they had imagined.

Everything in the room was scary to Anna: the doctors' attitude- he was intimidating, using technical and complicated words to explain the M.A.P process-, the auscultation tools, the medical posters displayed on the wall and, above all, the terrible hospital smell that she would have recognized among hundreds of other smells. Anna was fiddling her zippers, incapable of asking any question while Jonas, incredulous, tried to understand the doctors’ recommendations. Without really realizing what they were approving, they both answered with determination to the doctor that they were ready to begin a new chapter of their lives thanks to this method. It was the beginning of a new adventure. Anna and Jonas had not exchanged a single word since the inception of the appointment. They had already talked about medically assisted procreation but it was not an option anymore, it was a reality.

E.R.