From Laurie’s perspective, the worst part of the whole infertility nightmare was the wait. In the first part of the cycle, you were occupied taking the pills or taking the shots and checking the progress with the ultrasound. One way or the other, you were busy and had limited time to obsess. But in the second half of the cycle, it was different. All you could do was wonder: Is this the cycle I’m going to become pregnant, or am I destined to be barren? Even the sound of the word barren was disturbing, as though there was something wrong with you, something missing.

As Laurie woke up on that early November morning with the rat-a-tat-tat of rain hitting the window, she wondered if she was pregnant. Like the ten or so preceding cycles, she had high hopes. The hormone shots she’d given herself that month had produced a bumper crop of good-sized follicles.

At the same time, Laurie felt depressed. She’d not become pregnant in all the other cycles deemed to be equally promising. Why would this one be any different? Wasn’t it best to lower hope and expectation? Last month when she’d finally gotten her period, loudly proclaiming she was not pregnant, she’d been ready to give up completely. She feared pregnancy just wasn’t going to happen to the over-forty Laurie Montgomery Stapleton.

As she lay there in her warm bed, she could hear Jack singing in the shower. His blitheness in the face of her struggles made them that much more difficult to endure.

“Screw it,” Laurie finally called out. She was resigned. She threw back the covers and hurried into the bathroom, where it was warm and steamy. Trying to keep her mind blank and devoid of expectation, Laurie got out one of her hated pregnancy tests. Squatting over the toilet, she wet the wick as the instructions advised. She set the timer and put the stick on the ceramic back of the toilet.

Heading back to the bathroom from the kitchen after turning on the coffeemaker and putting several English muffins in the toaster, Laurie picked up the pregnancy stick but purposefully avoided looking at it so she could devote more attention to turning off the irritating buzzing timer.

Having convinced herself it was negative, Laurie allowed a quick glance at its reading window but then had to look back when her brain said it was positive. For the first time there was a second stripe, and it was loud and clear. Laurie let out a whoop. Instinctively, she knew when the conception had happened. In India, right after Jennifer had happily appeared at the hotel, Laurie and Jack had made love, and even though later in the day they’d also done intrauterine insemination, Laurie knew it had been the natural way that had produced the happy outcome.