Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER
‘There were four eggs.’ Catherine Deveny issues the writing prompt to the group at her 197th Gunnas Writing Masterclass, and we begin…
There were four eggs. Not exactly, but at a regional hospital, anything is possible. At morning handover, a midwife had left an ice-cream bucket’s worth of home grown produce from her vegetable garden. There were the largest cherry tomatoes I had ever seen, palm sized rubies, bordered by forest green cucumbers. I thought to myself, surely the grass is greener, the roses redder, in the countryside. I’ve seen plastic bags over-flowing with sunburst lemons. Big enough to challenge those giants from the Amalfi. So. I imagine that someone, someday, might bring in chicken eggs. Free-range, from the backyard.
There were four eggs. I work in obstetrics, so human eggs have a different meaning. Human eggs can be ultra-sounded, counted, collected and fertilized. Female humans are born with all the eggs they are ever going to have. Girl fetuses have all their reproductive potential bound within them. This knowledge lurks in the back of my mind, until suddenly a friend, a colleague, a patient, comes in with an inability to get pregnant. Then, we can do clever things. We can induce ovulation through clomiphene stimulation, ovarian drilling, IVF. Eggs are precious, but not predictable. And there are no guarantees. So. We try, and wait, and hope, and pray. And be there for the journey, wherever it may grow.