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  • Words We Never Knew
  • Erin McKinney and Robert Curran

The Beginning

Erin

"I'm not worried about you … you are Superman!"

An exclamation I never thought I would hear directed to my kind, patient, sensitive husband of less than three months, and from an embryologist no less. But, we never thought we would be facing cancer. We also did not know the word "embryologist" even existed before we were married. After less than a single season of being married, we already understood the awkwardly uttered, lilting comments like this one, and the meaning of so many other words and acronyms we never imagined would be defined. Preimplantation genetic diagnosis … reproductive endocrinologist… intracytoplasmic sperm injection … AC/T … follicle … BRCA …

Everyone was worried about me, but not one person had called me Superwoman—at least not yet.

We met at a bustling restaurant on a freezing Tuesday in January 2012, after weeks of furtive internet stalking and lengthy phone conversations while traveling and working in different states. We sat at a booth for nearly four hours, discussing typical first date topics—our families, our work and our parallel life stories growing up in adjoining towns. This was the year we would both turn thirty—an exciting milestone event in any young adult's life—but for us, the last year of our twenties seemed to highlight the reality that neither of us had found our true companion. I, being independent and blunt, disclosed to Rob that I would find a way to have a child by age thirty–five, even if it meant doing it on my own. He, being traditional and romantic, responded with wide–eyed curiosity and possibly a hint of distain. We eventually looked around, realized we were the only diners remaining, and rushed out to say goodbye in the cold. He gave me a flower and a kitchen scale, already knowing me all too well; I kissed him back. We smiled a lot more from then on, right on into our thirties.

Two years later, Rob tearfully proposed to me the night before our trip to Mexico and said I'll make the best mother to our children. When we arrived to our destination, I began asking if we could elope, or at least get married as soon as possible with little pomp and circumstance. I wanted to skip the wedding and get straight to the marriage… i.e., buy a home and start a family. This was not what Rob had in mind. So, in our first exercise in marital compromise, we planned to get married under three birch trees just nine months later … in front of more than three hundred of our family and friends. Had I been able to see the future, I never would have complained about his enthusiasm for this grand celebration. His romanticism trumped my pragmatism in what became the greatest day of our lives. Not only because it was a 70 degree day in October and everyone we loved was together, but because he wrote to me that morning that now was when we could start planning to have a baby.

Two weeks before our wedding, starting to feel the first chills of fall with the window open, I put my arms up to my chest to warm my hands. Rob carefully felt the place where I discovered something under my skin. We weren't sure what this something could be, so I called my local Ob/Gyn the following morning. A nurse passed a message encouraging me to come to the office to have it checked out, but told me waiting until after our wedding would be fine. The nurse explained that at 32 years old, this was likely nothing more than a skin abnormality—or at worst, a benign cyst of some sort. Two days later, I told a coworker that I had a dream that I had breast cancer. The coworker responded that this was just wedding nerves, but I didn't have any nerves about marrying Rob. I only feared this mysterious something would slow down our baby–making process in some small way. [End Page 127]

My fears turned out to be well–founded. I spent...

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