hysteroscope. Here we go.'
Valerie felt the cool intrusion of the tube as it slid into her. There was a pause, then she felt a blunt pressure against her cervix. The end of the tube moved slowly around, Fletcher peering head down into the scope like a submarine commander seeking an enemy ship.
'Just relax, Valerie,' her soothing voice entreated. 'I'm get-ting it lined up.' A slow, insistent pressure gave way to the pain of numbed tissues and muscle being stretched. Valerie clenched her teeth. If it hurt this much under the painkiller for just a little tube, what must childbirth feel like? In that instant, she experienced an agonizing relief at her choice.
'Relax. Loosen up. We're almost there.'
A pain like a fiery knife stab pierced her as a final, firm push drove the tube home.
'Transcervical,' Nurse Dyer noted, watching the image on the video screen.
'Now we look around a bit,' the doctor said in her most con-versational tone. 'The uterine walls-I don't know if you've ever seen a picture of one-look like an ocean filled with drift-ing fronds of seaweed. Nestled in there somewhere is the embryo.'
'Go back,' Dyer interjected.
'Saw it,' Fletcher murmured, gently maneuvering the probe. She continued to speak soothingly to her patient.
'Now what we're going to do, Valerie, is turn on the suction. It's not noisy, and you won't feel any pressure. What we'll do is dislodge the embryo and remove it. This is a very gentle method that doesn't damage much tissue. You'll have a little bit of spot-ting when we're done but virtually no scarring.' Valerie nodded. She didn't know what else to do. She lay back and stared at the soft green color of the ceiling. A fire sprinkler head hung directly over her, right next to the smoke detector. There was a little brown spatter on the ceiling. She wondered what it was. Could it possibly be blood? How? Maybe it was a water stain. Rust.
She felt something indistinct rip within her. Deep and far away, like a plant being uprooted in the distance.
'Lavage,' the doctor called out.
'Cycling,' replied the nurse.
'Hold it.' She moved the tube around slightly, then with-drew it an inch. 'All right. Suction.' Her hands held the tube rock steady.
'This is the slow part,' Fletcher said in a pleasant voice. 'It takes a minute or two to get everything out.' She peered and probed gently. 'We don't want to leave any foreign tissue in there where it could cause problems.'
'Transoptus nominal,' Nurse Dyer said, flicking some switches and turning a dial or two. 'Capture.'
'Okay' was the doctor's terse reply. 'Cleaning up.'
'Tanking out lavage.'
Dr. Fletcher slowly pulled the tube back. 'While I have you here, Valerie, would you want me to fix this so it doesn't hap-pen again?'
Valerie looked between her knees at the woman's masked face.
'What? You mean tie me off?'
The doctor nodded. 'I can do a laproscopic sterilization when we're done here.'
'Oh, no. I still want to be a mother. Just not right now. Maybe later.' She grunted at the sensation of the suction tube's with-drawal. Her cervix throbbed; her vaginal walls ached.
'Then we're done.' Fletcher placed the instrument in a small tray on the side of the machine. It was coated with smears of bright red blood. Blood covered the fingertips that reached for cotton gauze. Valerie did not feel as if she was bleeding. She felt nothing at all now but a dull ache in her abdomen and an impression of finality. There was no going back now. No chance to change her mind. The gauze rubbed roughly against her tender flesh. Dr. Fletcher removed her goggles, then stripped off her outer set of gloves and threw them in a metal waste can.
Nurse Dyer wheeled the suction device out of the room, switches still on, lights still glowing, a faint hum still emanat-ing from its interior. She used a door that led to a short hall-way with another door at the end. Closing the door from the other side, she left Dr. Fletcher to finish up with Valerie. The doctor lifted her patient's legs out of the stirrups and rotated her to a sitting position.
