Breeding Clinic (Heatverse)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

KAT

Maybe this is a bad idea. I’m thirty-five and packless. I live alone with only my cat to talk to some days. My palms are sweating, and I’m gripping the steering wheel too tightly while I sit in the breeding clinic’s parking lot. It’s not too late to turn around and go home. Nobody but Jen knows I’m here.

As if my thoughts summon her, her name flashes across my car’s dashboard display. I tap the green icon and wait for it to connect.

“How is it? Is it nice?” Jen asks.

“I haven’t gone in yet.”

The building is nondescript from the outside. White painted brick with a powder blue sign showing their medical logo. It could just as easily be a radiology office or dentist. Even their name is subtle. Family Solutions. It’s a fertility clinic. One of the best. Word of mouth says that Dr. Fugo gets results. His success rate is twelve percent higher than his peers.

“Are you thinking of turning around?” she asks.

“Maybe. What if they turn me away?” Not all clinics or sperm banks allow single patients. But after a pack dissolution and four lost pregnancies, being thirty-five means if I don’t do this now, I might never do it at all.

“You won’t know if you don’t walk in,” she says. “But if you’re not sure yet, then don’t. You can wait for another heat cycle or two. And there’s always adoption.”

Adoption is an option, although it’s a hard one if you’re single. Part of me still wants the experience of being pregnant. Of growing my baby in my womb and giving birth. Nursing and looking at the child I made. One who looks like me. All I need is the sperm.

If I don’t go in now, I’ll never come back.

Resolved, I grab my phone off the charger and turn off my car. “I’m going in.”

“Thatta girl. Call me the minute you’re done. I want to hear everything.” Jen’s kids scream in the background, and she sounds rushed when she says, “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Bye,” I say, but she’s already hung up to deal with her kids. They’re two and four years old and a handful. But their cute smiles and the sheer joy on their faces when they witness something exciting and new for the first time makes my ovaries twist with longing. I want a hellion or two of my own.

I slam my car door shut and press the button on my fob to lock it, then walk across the parking lot. Before I chicken out, I tug the door open. A blast of cold air hits me, cooling the sweat gathered on my brow. It’s only April, but you wouldn’t know it from this heatwave. It’s supposed to be a scorching summer.

A pretty brunette beta receptionist greets me with a smile and asks if I have an appointment.

“Hi, I’m Kathleen. I have a one o’clock with Dr. Fugo. I’m a new patient.”

She taps on her screen, then hands me a clipboard with new patient forms and a pen. “You’re seeing his NP today. He’s out sick for the week. Here, fill these out and bring them up to me when you’re done. I’ve got you all checked in.”

“Oh, okay.” That’s a bit disappointing. I’d wanted to meet the renowned fertility specialist. I take the forms and sit, then fill them out. The packet is seven pages thick and thorough, going over everything from pack status to demographics to previous pregnancies and a long family history form. Filling it out takes my focus until I’m done and I’ve handed it in.

Now there’s nothing between me and my anxiety as I wait. A medical assistant eventually calls my name and I follow her, listening to her new patient spiel. She shows me to a room and grabs a set of vitals before leaving me alone.

Twenty minutes later, the NP comes into the room and looks over my chart. “Kathleen? Hi. I’m Amanda. So I see that you’re here for a new patient evaluation. Can you tell me more about what brought you here today?”

“Everyone calls me Kat, and…” My heart pounds in my chest, vacillating between hope and dread. Will they say no? Turn me away? That’s the worst part of all of this. The endless brief periods of hope between the long stretches of grief. “I’d like to have a baby.”

She smiles and takes a seat, going over my paperwork more thoroughly. “Well, you’re in the right place. That’s what we do here. If you wanted a root canal, then we’d have a problem.”

I laugh nervously at her corny joke. Relief washes over me and the tight knot in my chest unclenches. I’m glad I came. “So you think it’s possible?”

“There’s always a chance. I’ve read through the testing you’ve had at other practices. Seems like you’ve run through the whole gauntlet of tests and there weren’t any significant findings. I understand you had four losses with your old pack? No births?”

I swallow past the lump in my throat. The lost pregnancies are old, but the hurt never fully fades. Not all the way. Maybe if I’d been able to move past it, my pack wouldn’t have rejected me. But I didn’t know how. I still don’t. Not when being a mother is the one thing I’ve always wanted since I was a girl myself. “That’s right. They all happened early, even though the doctors said my progesterone level was fine.”

“Most pregnancies that fail do so in the first trimester. It’s a sensitive time period, and if things don’t divide and multiply right, it won’t stick. But after three years of trying to conceive with no live births, we have to assume there’s something more going on.”

I nod. It’s nothing I haven’t already heard. This is the third fertility specialist I’ve seen.

The NP continues, saying, “Unexplained infertility is an umbrella diagnosis for disorders we don’t fully understand yet. But your heat cycles are regular according to their notes. Your old ultrasounds show you’re ovulating fine. That means we have a few options.”

I sit up taller in my seat, eager. “Okay. What are those?”

“There are three main methods. Natural insemination, intrauterine insemination, and In Vitro Fertilization. In IVF, we harvest your eggs, inseminate them in the lab, and transplant an embryo into your uterus a few days later. There are pros and cons to all of them, and the cost varies but goes up as more intervention is needed. Here’s a pamphlet with our prices. Most insurance doesn’t cover infertility services, so we offer bundle pricing and we have financing options too if you’d like to take out a medical loan.”

I take the pamphlet from her, not shocked at the high price tag for some of their services. IVF can cost as much as buying a car. Thanks to my pack disbanding settlement, I have the money for it. But I don’t think I’m ready for all the shots that come with IVF. What if Jen is right? What if it’s Josh who had the problem?

“What are the success rates for each one?” I ask.

“Normally I’d recommend going straight to medicated IUI or IVF for someone in your age range. But you had bloodwork done six months ago and your ovarian reserve is good. Since omegas are hyper-fertile compared to betas, you could try a low-dose medicated insemination round. Our results show that we have a better success rate with this method when an alpha and omega are scent matched well. Your sensitive nose can tell a lot about the compatibility of a prospective alpha. If that doesn’t work after your second heat, then you could consider more advanced options.”

Hope renews me yet again. “Okay. Let’s do that. So what’s next?”

“We’ll have you look through the books, pick out some sperm donors, and do a sniff test for compatibility. Unless you already have someone donating? No? Well, that’s fine. We have plenty of wonderful donors for you to choose from. All of them go through criminal background, motility, and STI tests. In the meantime, we’ll run some fresh blood work and call your prescription into your pharmacy. You’ll need to test your urine at home with estrus strips. When the indicator says you’re in preheat, call us to book your heat appointment, then start your medication. It’s usually about five days of pills.”

“Okay,” I say, truly excited now. “My heat’s due in a week or two.”

She smiles at my enthusiasm and leaves me to order the medication and blood work. A medical assistant brings me to another area where they draw several vials of blood. Then she leaves me in a private room with a white glossy book of potential donors. There aren’t any current photos, only baby photos and donor numbers. Each page has a list of basic demographic info, a health history, family history, and a brief paragraph about why they’re donating.

Most of the donors are young, struggling college kids who are probably doing it for the money. Their essays glowingly praise how selfless the act of donation is. Each one sounds almost exactly the same as the next. While they probably have the healthiest sperm, I find it hard to pick from one of them. None of them feel right. When the first binder is a dud with only a few maybes, I grab another from the rack on the table.

The second binder has a better mix of donors. Some are in their twenties, most are in their thirties, and a few are older still. Their essays are more personal. Some talk about how they always wanted kids but never found the right partner. Others talk about busy, intense careers taking up their prime breeding years. From this one, I find three potential donors.

The first is a thirty-four-year-old lawyer. He’s smart and successful. He enjoys hiking and jogging with his dog. But his pheromone sample smells terrible. My nose wrinkles as I seal his baggie and flip to the next donor I liked.

The second one is thirty-eight and owns a pub. His paragraph talks proudly of his family. How he’d always wanted a large family like the one he grew up in. How he never found someone to have kids with. On his days off, he enjoys being with his friends and family and watching movies. While his bio doesn’t stand out among all the doctors, lawyers, and business executives, there’s something sweet about it.

His scent sample is a dreamy mix of woodsy notes. It reminds me of that one summer when I was fourteen and my entire extended family went camping in the mountains. We ate blackberries straight from the vine and caught rainbow trout that we skinned and cooked.

The third donor is an engineer. His baby photo is of him crying while meeting the Easter Bunny. It’s an endearing mix of cute and funny that makes me laugh. His scent is okay. An overly sweet mix of cinnamon and sugar that might be sickening in large doses. His bio hits all the right notes. He’s smart, has a great career, has a cute baby photo, and I like his sense of humor.

I flip through the album again to make sure I didn’t miss anyone. There’s something about the second donor that I can’t get out of my mind. Maybe it’s how much he appreciates family or his scent, but my gut is steering me toward him.

She said to follow my nose. Besides, if the first time doesn’t work, I can always pick a new donor. They might have more to choose from by then.

I make my choice, feeling satisfied that I’m finally doing this after months of thinking about it. I hand the binder with my choice on top to a harried-looking staff member sitting at a computer in the hallway, then head out.

My phone is in my hand and I’m dialing Jen as soon as the door closes behind me.

“Hey. How’d it go?” she asks.

“Amazing.” I smile and head to my car, unlocking it and cranking the engine, then turning the AC to full blast. “They took blood work, and I picked a donor. Once my next heat starts, I call them and take some pills. It’ll probably be next week.”

“See? That wasn’t so bad. I—Bailey! Put that cat down right now ! Because I told you so. Thank you.”

My cheeks hurt from grinning. “I’ll let you go. You sound busy.”

“I can’t wait for her to start kindergarten,” she sighs.

“You’ll be a crying mess the day she finally leaves for school,” I tease her.

In the background, something crashes to the ground and breaks. Jen sighs again. “True. I gotta go. I’ll call you when they’re down for their nap.”

I pull out into traffic and drive to the store. There are probably still some old estrus and pregnancy test strips collecting dust in the shoebox hidden in the back of my closet. But it might be best to start fresh. What if they expired? Besides, digging out that old box of dying dreams would make me sad.

The family planning section of the local big box store brings back enough painful memories as it is. For the first year after everything, I pretended it didn’t exist. I never looked down the aisle while getting groceries. Now butterflies flutter in my stomach as I debate the blue one or the pink one like I’ve never done this before. There’s a new digital test kit they didn’t sell three years ago. Thin test strips go into a portable machine and the result pops up on a digital display. Its box says it does both ovulation and pregnancy tracking and it syncs to a smartphone calendar app.

I put the two-hundred-dollar machine in my cart and buy an extra box of refill strips. I grab a few more things I need so it won’t be the only thing the cashier rings up. Not that the eighteen-year-old with the lip ring cares. The bored teenager scans my items quickly and rattles off the total. I throw everything into a bag and pay, then take my purchases home.

Waffles greets me at the door, rubbing against my legs and meowing, begging for his dinner like he’s starving. “I fed you this morning,” I remind him. He meows again and leads me to his food bowl as if I might have forgotten where it is.

I scoop some cat food into his dish and stroke his back, enjoying the way he arches into it. “You’re getting fat.” Waffles doesn’t care. I make a mental note to switch him to a light formula for indoor cats. He’s older now too, and his metabolism’s slowing down.

After dinner, I set up the fancy machine in my bathroom and download the app. A few taps syncs it to my health app and it records my heat information. The instructions say it works best with first morning urine, so I force myself to wait to try it out.

I try to distract myself with a movie, but nothing holds my attention. My thoughts keep drifting back to baby fever. It’s crazy to look up nursery photos, but I can’t help myself. Josh, Andrew, and Kevin never understood my relentless need to plan.

Four potential nursery themes later, I finally call it quits when I can hardly keep my eyes open. The movie rolls to credits. I turn the television off and drag myself to the bathroom to brush my teeth, then go to bed.

In the morning, I wake up with energy. It’s time to pee on a test strip. I read the instructions that came with it again, then pee into a cup and dip the test strip. The cap goes back on and it’s the other end that goes into the machine to be read.

After three agonizing minutes, the display reads low fertility. Now that I’ve told the machine when I want to test, it sets an alarm for the rest of the cycle.

With nothing else to do but wait for my body to do its thing, I wait.