All I want for Christmas is you

Wednesday we went for Thanksgiving Eve dinner at my parents' house.  It was a nice meal with even nicer cornbread, the remains of which my mom helpfully sent home with us.

Before dinner, we'd gone to the clinic to get Heather's blood taken for hormone tests.  I don't even know what the tests were, only that we had no option but to hope the results held a ringing endorsement of Heather's fertility.  In the waiting rooms were unhappy-looking people, probably not there to get pregnant but more likely to get un-pregnant, and I imagined they were staring at the white ladies getting special attention with resentment.  Still, they were there in hopes of a better life, just as we were.

There hasn't been any ringing yet.  I don't know when Nurse Nina will be back in the office to run tests, or whether we'll even hear about their results until the next round.  Hell, I don't know when we'll hear from her about any of it; she operates in what sometimes feels like a mysterious way.

The holidays do function as a reminder of how disinclined my family is to endorse Heather's fertility.  We didn't mention our clinic visit at dinner, and, when I decided to risk it over our standard Thanksgiving dinner, my mom swiftly turned it into a discussion of Memphis' abortion clinics.  It's somehow unbearable, it seems, for her to acknowledge that neither cornbread nor my sister's Christmas visit have much to do with our holiday hopes.  Meanwhile, Heather's family members constantly text her about when she's gonna get pregnant, nearly as concerned as we are.

Heather is due for her period in the next few days.  We still plan on inseminating at home this cycle, so our early Christmas present to ourselves is a three-pack of sperm.  We could literally be testing on Christmas day.  It would be a miracle for us, but, as we unpack stockings with my family, we won't be mentioning it.