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It's a new year, which, for Simone Collins, means a new pregnancy.
This will be her sixth pregnancy since 2019, and, if all goes well, Collins will bear her fifth child by December. She approaches each the way an endurance athlete does a marathon. She and her husband, Malcolm, have waited exactly nine months since the birth of their last child, Industry Americus ("Indy" for short), to give Simone's body adequate time to recover.
She goes through a barrage of exams, starting with a hysteroscopy and a uterine biopsy to "get the lay of the land," and "very detailed" bloodwork. She will take the hormone medication necessary for transferring a frozen embryo into her uterus. At home, she exercises, walking for hours on a compact treadmill she keeps at her desk, and "eats really well": plain yogurt, no added sugar; hard-boiled eggs; a "slurry" of blended vegetables.
When it's time to give birth, Simone will have a Caesarean section — because of complications that arose when she delivered her first child, Octavian George, all of the births have been C-sections. With each...