GRAND Magazine - Spring 2024 - 13

from our readers
Inconceivable
BY DEBORAH LEVIN
I
confused surrogates with donors, agencies, doctors,
and clinics. I learned to speak the new language of
Assisted Reproductive Technology with its unfamiliar
acronyms and long-forgotten terms from 9th-grade
biology class. Days were marked by pills, injections,
retrievals, and transfers. Weeks, months, and years of
waiting followed.
This was my daughter's life for ten long years. After
a decade of trying with so much money spent you
could build several houses, go on a world cruise or
two, and buy your own jet. Buy everything but a baby.
I grieved my daughter's losses with her but suffered
a different kind of grief as her mother. Did her
difficulties have anything to do with me? Probably
not. I had easy pregnancies and uncomplicated deliveries.
Was I aching to hold a child of hers in my arms?
Yes. Could I share my own anguish openly with her?
Some of the time. Too often I found myself at a loss
for words. But the elephant was always there, big
and heavy, waving its long trunk, emitting a pitiful,
mournful cry.
My grandmother's heart was breaking. My son's
two young children had introduced me to the exhilaration
that is grandparenting a few years earlier. I was
a devoted, doting, actively involved grandmother who
taught them to swim, ride bikes, and ski. I couldn't
wait to do the same with my daughter's children, and
the thought of missing that opportunity saddened me
terribly.
13 GRAND SPRING 2024
" I stopped counting after eight
miscarriages. I lost track after the
number of in-vitro fertilization
cycles climbed to double digits. "
Once, I was heading down a local road and
was pulled over by a policeman. When the officer
approached my car, I rolled down my window and
burst into tears. I looked up into the kindly face of an
older gentleman who said, " M'am, are you that upset
about getting a ticket? " I shook my head no and told
him I had just received an upsetting phone call from
my daughter who had suffered another miscarriage.
He nodded as I imagined a loving grandfather might
and offered that maybe this wasn't the best time to
be driving around. Then he held out his long blue
arm, stopping traffic, so I could make a U-turn to go
home. I cried all the way.
My life went on while she kept riding the roller
coaster. Every phone call was a mix of hope and disappointment
or both. As much as she had shared over
the years, there were periods when it was so emotionally
exhausting for her that the topic was taboo. I
understood. My husband and I communicated openly,
but there were also periods when we commiserated
in silence. Just one look at each other's faces was all
we needed to confirm our mutual pain, our hearts too
"
My husband and I communicated
openly, but there were also periods
when we commiserated in silence.
"
heavy, our tongues too tired to speak it aloud. The
elephant lived in both our houses.
And then, most unexpectedly, there were two.
Twin A and Twin B, so named in utero by the medical
team. When she uttered those words, " I'm pregnant, "
I could not believe what I was hearing. My husband
and I were visiting in early September when she told
us the news. Stunned and speechless, we stood there
trying to make sense of what she was saying. My husband
hugged my daughter. I froze, willing my brain to
fire neurons from audio to visual to visceral. " What? "
I gasped. " We heard the heartbeats, " she confirmed.
" But how...? " I sputtered.
Explanations followed. My husband and I walked
around all weekend in a daze, looking at each other
while shaking our heads in bewilderment, questioning
how this was possible, how this could be real.
Continued on next page
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GRAND Magazine - Spring 2024

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