Fever dream
I was pregnant, fifteen times over.
This was unexpected, naturally, but not entirely impossible. After all, it was a common fact that in certain rare circumstances, nonviable pregnancies can result from a woman's own germ cells. (This is, disturbingly enough, kind of true.) Since I am, apparently, exceedingly unlucky, I had managed to conceive eight of these virgin births. Seven of them had split into identical twins. So all in all I had fifteen zygotes gestating inside my fallopian tubes.
I think they were my fallopian tubes, anyway. You see, it was also a common fact that women had uteri halfway between the semi-triangular uteri of most primates and the bicornuate uteri of house cats. Normal pregnancies were nested securely in the central triangle, while ectopic pregnancies took hold in one of the two horns. My zygotes were all, of course, ectopic. As I could see on the ultrasound the gynecologist was showing me, they were quite evenly spaced along the horns of my uterus.
I call them zygotes because they couldn't really be called fetii, or even embryos. They were eight neatly circumscribed ovals on the ultrasound, with small dark circles representing what, I suppose, were the budding pregnancies. Seven of these gestational sacs had two zygotes inside; only one, the topmost one on the left, was a singleton. Regardless of their lack of development, they were clearly palpable from the outside, as small hard lumps about the size of a golf ball. I was not at all surprised when the gynecologist plainly informed me that my only option was a speedy abortion.
From there I do not remember much, except that actually getting my abortion was a far more difficult matter. I remember stabbing pains in the sides of my abdomen, and reaching down to feel those swollen parasites nesting in my womb. I remember my abortion being constantly rescheduled just a few hours later, and being made to watch healthy babies aborted through a device like a dentist's suction machine. The whole time, though, I just remember thinking: "How much longer until I can get these things out of me?"
And then I woke up to another bout of vomiting and this lovely news from Utah.
This was unexpected, naturally, but not entirely impossible. After all, it was a common fact that in certain rare circumstances, nonviable pregnancies can result from a woman's own germ cells. (This is, disturbingly enough, kind of true.) Since I am, apparently, exceedingly unlucky, I had managed to conceive eight of these virgin births. Seven of them had split into identical twins. So all in all I had fifteen zygotes gestating inside my fallopian tubes.
I think they were my fallopian tubes, anyway. You see, it was also a common fact that women had uteri halfway between the semi-triangular uteri of most primates and the bicornuate uteri of house cats. Normal pregnancies were nested securely in the central triangle, while ectopic pregnancies took hold in one of the two horns. My zygotes were all, of course, ectopic. As I could see on the ultrasound the gynecologist was showing me, they were quite evenly spaced along the horns of my uterus.
I call them zygotes because they couldn't really be called fetii, or even embryos. They were eight neatly circumscribed ovals on the ultrasound, with small dark circles representing what, I suppose, were the budding pregnancies. Seven of these gestational sacs had two zygotes inside; only one, the topmost one on the left, was a singleton. Regardless of their lack of development, they were clearly palpable from the outside, as small hard lumps about the size of a golf ball. I was not at all surprised when the gynecologist plainly informed me that my only option was a speedy abortion.
From there I do not remember much, except that actually getting my abortion was a far more difficult matter. I remember stabbing pains in the sides of my abdomen, and reaching down to feel those swollen parasites nesting in my womb. I remember my abortion being constantly rescheduled just a few hours later, and being made to watch healthy babies aborted through a device like a dentist's suction machine. The whole time, though, I just remember thinking: "How much longer until I can get these things out of me?"
And then I woke up to another bout of vomiting and this lovely news from Utah.