Caeli Widger - Mother of Invention

“You’ve got options, sweetie,” said Ms. Hart, softly. “I can tell you’re going through a rough time. But it’s going to be okay.”

Irene collapsed against the officer’s starched blue shirt and began to weep.

2021

Three for three. They’re all absolutely perfect,” said Rita Gupta, beaming as she waved a silver pointer toward the video capture of three ultrasounds projected side by side on the monitors behind her. At 8:00 a.m., Tessa and Luke and a half dozen of the Seahorse clinical staff were gathered for their morning status meeting in a conference room of East Lobe. They sat in Lucite chairs around a surfboard-shaped conference table as Gupta, in a crisp white lab coat and slingback heels, presented her daily analysis of the Cohort’s pregnancies.

Tessa stared at the screens, transfixed by the distinctly human shapes of the images wobbling on them. Inside each form was the dark, fast-pulsing bead of a heart. It was day fifteen of the Trial, but she’d still not grown accustomed to the experience of seeing the babies growing inside Kate, LaTonya, and Gwen. Each morning, viewing the fresh ultrasounds caused her breath to quicken and left her almost dizzy with awe. Her friends were really, truly pregnant. TEAT had worked. Their babies were growing beautifully, just as normal fetuses should, only four and a half times faster. They were already the size of kumquats.

“Here we have an ear,” Gupta said, clicking the wand with her thumb so that a red dot appeared on the middle ultrasound—Gwen’s. Tessa squinted to make out the dark squiggle. It was earlike. “And up here”—Gupta raised her wand and the dot jumped—“is an eye.”

Across the table, Luke asked, “How did Ms. Harris respond to her view today?”

Tessa cut in, “Is it really necessary to ask this every morning?”

“I was asking Rita,” said Luke.

“Psycho-emotional reactions across all members of the Cohort are very positive,” said Gupta. “We see no indications of prenatal distress in the mothers. They’re engaged and excited.”

“When can we distribute the INR-Views to the Cohort?” asked Tessa. Part of the Seahorse Solution was issuing each mother her own patent-pending portable ultrasound device, so that she might check in with her baby whenever she wished. It was an elegant machine, the size of a small hand weight with a flat sensor that, when skimmed over the flesh of the abdomen, transmitted a 3-D image of the womb to any connected device.

“They haven’t arrived from the manufacturer yet,” said Roger Milford from the head of the table, his hands clamped around a coffee cup. “And regardless, we’re waiting until 7.5 weeks to administer them. Until the pregnancies have entered their lowest stage of risk.”

“What?” said Tessa. “Kwak told me they’d be here last week.” Her friend John Kwak had invented the INRs and agreed to provide Seahorse with four prototypes. “And 7.5 weeks is practically the end of the pregnancies. I’m calling Kwak right away. We need them sooner.

“We’ve already spoken to him,” said Luke, somewhat coldly. “Kwak moves at his own pace. Plus, the Cohort already has daily ultrasounds. That’s far more than most pregnant women. The INRs aren’t necessary.”

“Necessity isn’t the point,” said Tessa. “Their dailies are administered by our doctors.” She gestured toward Gupta. “The idea of the personal INR-View is to put the mothers in control of when they check in with their babies. It’s designed to enhance a mother’s sense of control.”

“We’re all aware of that objective,” said Luke. “But it’s less critical than preventing any unnecessary worries that frequent viewings might trigger in the Cohort.” He swiveled his neck toward Milford. “Right, Roger?”

Dr. Milford cleared his throat. “Correct. I recommend waiting until the fetuses are further along.”

“We do need to maintain balance between maternal sense of control and trust,” added Gupta.

Tessa felt heat rising to her cheeks.

“They deserve to see. They’ve already proven a high lev—”

Luke cut her off. “Doesn’t your flight to Boston leave in a few hours, Tessa? Can we table this discussion until you’re back from your trip and refocused on the Trial?”

Tessa felt he’d given her a light slap. Until you’re back and refocused. His disapproval over her leaving Seahorse to speak at Weldon was palpable. Even though she’d be gone for a measly five days, and even though she was working on some Seahorse-related meetings with a progressive biotech firm in Boston, Luke acted as if the trip indicated a skew in her priorities. It was ridiculous. He was acting like a toddler with separation anxiety.

“That’s right, Luke,” she answered calmly. “I am indeed headed to Boston to give a talk at my alma mater.” She panned her eyes around the room at the doctors. “It’s part of Weldon’s Influencers lecture series. Gabby Trace was there last quarter.” She spoke the name of Britain’s prime minister slowly. “And I think it was Imogen Bijur before that.” She watched Roger Milford’s face soften with approval at the mention of the famous astrophysicist. “So I believe my participation is quite positive for the Seahorse brand. The title of my talk is ‘The New Frontiers of Choice.’”

Around the table, heads nodded in approval. Except for Luke’s.

“Brilliant,” said Gupta.

Tessa went on. “I’m happy to table the INR discussion until I return. In the meantime, I’m going to nudge Kwak again, and Luke, I want you to follow up with him while I’m gone.”

Luke crossed his arms. “Fine.”

“Any more questions?” said Gupta brightly.

“Fantastic job, all,” said Tessa, standing. “Sorry to cut out, but I do need to get to the airport.” She panned her palm in farewell around the table, and rested her eyes on Luke. He held her gaze, as if meeting a challenge, his expression half-insouciant, half-needy, and Tessa felt a familiar stirring in her chest. Luke was forever difficult, but she needed him. They needed each other. Seahorse was incomplete without the both of them.

For a moment, the room was completely silent.

“Ciao,” said Tessa finally, and she turned to leave the room, feeling Luke’s eyes at her back as she went.

2004

Five years after she’d released the baby for adoption, when Irene was living in Austin and working as a glorified secretary for a nondescript financial services company, having never returned to Yale, she saw the ad in the Houston Chronicle :

Config Labs, prominent Bay Area startup conducting a study on the phenomenon of “accelerated gestation,” seeks female volunteers who have experienced full-term pregnancies in a fraction of the typical 40 weeks. Submit a relevant skin cell sample from you and/or your baby and receive an instant stipend. See www.AGvolunteers.com to learn more.

The language was dry and clinical, but it made Irene weep. Until she’d read it, she hadn’t realized just how profoundly lonely her experience had left her. She’d gradually become aware of other accounts of fast pregnancies as a handful of women came forward with their stories, but until she’d seen that ad in the Chronicle , on a bright winter morning in Texas, she’d still felt alone. That she was a freak. A wild anomaly, genetically miswired. And also, a terrible person who’d abandoned her baby in a national park.

But she was not. The ad proved that enough other women had experienced her sort of pregnancy that a research group knew of it. It even had a name—accelerated gestation—a phrase Irene had not heard before.