Marissa didn’t answer. She merely sighed as she took the clothes from Mrs. Hargrave and started into the changing room. Mrs. Hargrave reached out and touched her shoulder.

“Anything you’d like to talk about?”

Marissa gazed up into the woman’s face. There was warmth and sympathy in those gray-green eyes.

At first Marissa could only shake her head as she fought back tears.

“It’s common for emotional problems to burden people involved with in-vitro,” Mrs. Hargrave said. “But it usually helps to talk about it. It’s been our experience that part of the problem is the isolation the couples feel.”

Marissa nodded in agreement. She and Robert had been isolated. As the pressures mounted, they started avoiding friends, especially those with children.

“Has there been a problem between you and your husband?” Mrs. Hargrave asked. “I don’t mean to pry, but we truly have found it best for people to be open.”

Marissa nodded again. She looked at Mrs. Hargrave’s understanding face. She did want to talk, and with a few tears that she wiped away with the back of her hand, she told her about Robert’s initial refusal to cooperate that morning, and their consequent quarrel. She told Mrs. Hargrave she was beginning to think they would have to stop the infertility treatments.

“It’s been pure hell for me,” Marissa admitted. “And for Robert.”

“I think it is safe to say that something would be wrong with you both if it weren’t,” Mrs. Hargrave said. “It’s stressful for everyone, even the staff. But you’ve really got to learn to be more open. Talk to other couples. That will help you learn to talk to each other and to be aware of each other’s limitations.”

“We are ready for Mrs. Buchanan,” another nurse called through the door to the ultrasound room.

Mrs. Hargrave gave Marissa a comforting squeeze on her shoulder. “You’d better get on with this,” she said. “But afterwards I’ll come back and we’ll talk some more. How about it?”

“Okay,” Marissa said, trying to muster some enthusiasm.

Fifteen minutes later, Marissa again found herself on her back in the ultrasound room, facing yet another painful and potentially risky procedure. She was lying supine with her legs straight out. In a few minutes her legs would be put up in the all-too-familiar stirrups. Then there would be the disinfectant, followed by the local anesthetic. She cringed at the thought.

The room itself seemed scary. It was a cold, forbidding, futuristic environment filled with electronic instruments, some of which Marissa recognized and some she didn’t. Multiple cathode-ray screens were set into the instrumentation. Mercifully, the foot-long egg-retrieval needle was kept out of sight.

The nurse-technician who had brought Marissa into the room was busy with preparations for the procedure. Dr. Wingate, who performed most of the clinic’s infertility procedures including the in-vitro fertilization, had not yet arrived.