CGS-authored
In the fall of 2010, when I was 21, a highly regarded OB/GYN gave me one of the best compliments I have ever received. During an ultrasound in a dark exam room at the University of North Carolina’s Fertility Clinic, she moved the wand over my lower abdomen and said, “Natalie, you have a lovely ovary.”
She wasn't playing favorites—my other ovary had been removed during emergency surgery when I was twelve. Years later, a cyst had burst on my remaining ovary. After another surgery, doctors recommended I consider freezing my eggs when I returned to North Carolina that fall to begin my senior year of college. I was at the OB/GYN for a second opinion.
“Egg freezing technology is still very new and experimental,” the doctor told me after the exam. “You’re young. Your ovary is healthy—it’s lovely,” she said again, smiling when I blushed. “I don’t see a need for you to take this risk right now, if ever.”
At home that evening, I taped the black-and-white ultrasound image of my lovely ovary to the fridge.
Four years later, I arrived...