The void inside

source.

There's a giant new TV screen mounted on the wall of the ultrasound room at my fertility clinic. We women used to crane our necks to see the screen beside us as we got intimate with the ultrasound probe. Now, as we lie on our backs holding both our breaths and our hopes inside our chests, we can watch our uteruses on the big screen.

At midcycle, we're hoping for lining thicker than 8mm.

"You're at 10," says the nurse.

I breath a little.

She moves the wand to the left and to the right. Hazy grey waves roll over the screen until she finds what she's looking for: a mature follicle.

We're hoping for something larger than 18mm: a follicle ready to release an egg. Ready to be fertilized. Ready to become my child.

My follicle is enormous on the screen. To hell with 18mm; it's at least a foot long up there! And black. A big black hole of potential. It's the void in Genesis. It's the darkness, hovering over the surface of the deep. I wonder if the Spirit hovers over it, too.

"That's a big one!" My nurse smiles, "25mm! You're about the ovulate."

 I'm praying God's voice will speak into this void like he he did at the beginning. Praying he'll make something where nothing was before.

The nurse tells me we can schedule our IUI tomorrow. "Will it be your first?"

"My fourth."

I let a few deep breaths escape from my chest. A little hope escapes too. It scares me to hope again. Three failed IUIs. A surgery. Three failed cycles again. Now, a fourth.

Oh God! Please. Speak life into that void, deep inside me.

*

xo