“Sloan, my uterus is a wasteland. It always has been. It’s been one thing after another since my very first period, and now it’s a fibroid-riddled holocaust too. I have the womb of a fifty-year-old and I’ve tried everything—you know I have. I spent the better part of the last six months bleeding myself into anemia again. The IUD I got as a last resort hasn’t done a thing. I still have bleeding and cramps almost all the time. The birth control pills that were supposed to help made the tumors get bigger. That’s it. I’m out of options.”
The defeat moved across her face as the reality of what I was saying settled in. This wasn’t some spontaneous thing I’d decided to do on a whim, and she knew it. I’d weighed my options. I’d seen multiple specialists. I’d read the “grieving my uterus” brochures. I’d talked with other women who were having the same issues and had gone through it.
“I’m not going to get better, Sloan.”
I looked down at my stomach and smoothed my dress over the small, firm, distended mound that was my abdomen. I looked three months pregnant. That had been the final straw. The thing that tipped the scales. The tumors had begun to distend my uterus.
Google searches had shown me women with my condition with stomachs so full of growths they looked six months pregnant. That was it for me. The final insult to my injury. I couldn’t let this continue until it got that bad. I’d given up enough dignity already.
“The doctor said they could get so big they’d make it hard to breathe. Push my other organs around. Look. Look at my stomach, Sloan.”
She stared at the triangle between my fingers. “When?” Her brown eyes blinked back tears.
“April. I scheduled it for the Thursday after your wedding. I’ll still have my ovaries so I don’t go into menopause. I can do a surrogate pregnancy if I can ever afford it. So there’s that.”
She sniffled. “I’d carry a baby for you.”
“And you think Brandon would go for that?”
She pulled a paper towel from the dispenser and pressed it under her eyes. “I’m sure he’d be okay with it.”
I doubted that. Brandon was a good guy, but I didn’t picture him being cool with his wife carrying another man’s baby or loaning her body to something so serious for so long. It wasn’t entirely her choice to make.
I’d already looked into it. It was no small thing in gesture, cost, or practice.
A professional surrogate would run me around fifteen to twenty thousand dollars and the in vitro another twelve grand. The success rate for IVF was only 40 percent, and my insurance wouldn’t cover a dime. So basically, barring a lottery win and a lot of luck, my rust bucket of a womb was going to leave me barren and childless. I’d probably end up being that crazy aunt who wore veiled hats and smelled like mothballs with ten small dogs.
I smiled at Sloan, even though I knew it didn’t reach my eyes. “Well, let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. Tyler doesn’t even want kids. But I appreciate the offer.”
“Tyler doesn’t want kids?” she asked, furrowing her brow.
I shook my head.
She blinked at me. “Are you serious? Why are you with him, then? You want kids, Kristen.”
I looked away from her.
“Kristen!”
“Sloan, stop.”
“What the hell are you doing? Why are you settling?”
The bathroom door opened, and some lady came in. She smiled at us, and Sloan and I stood there awkwardly while she went into a stall.
“I’m not settling, Sloan,” I whispered. “The man is a ten. He’s driven and ambitious. He’s smart. He makes good money. We have things in common. And let’s be honest here—I have to choose a man that doesn’t want kids. That’s just the reality of my situation. Josh wants kids. He broke up with Celeste because she didn’t want them. And in the best possible case, if all the stars align, maybe I might have one. One baby, if I’m rich and lucky. Tyler and I are just more compatible.”
She stared at me. “Oh my God, you’re doing the thing. The spreadsheet thing that you always do. You don’t pick a boyfriend like you pick what car to buy, Kristen.” She crossed her arms. “You don’t love Tyler, do you?” she hissed quietly. “You’re not even remotely in love with that man. I knew it. I knew it when I