Chapter 3 - Harbor Ridge Fertility Center
Four years earlier, Emily and I had spent nearly twelve months trying to have a child.
After two failed cycles, we went to Harbor Ridge Fertility Center.
The process became our life.
Blood tests.
Medication.
Ultrasounds.
Consent forms.
Egg retrieval.
Sperm collection.
Embryology reports.
Waiting.
We eventually created seven embryos considered suitable for continued development.
Two did not survive to blastocyst.
One transfer failed.
A later frozen embryo transfer became Lily.
Three embryos remained cryopreserved.
After Lily’s birth, we left them stored while deciding whether to have another child.
Two years later, Harbor Ridge experienced a corporate restructuring.
Storage accounts transferred to Nexora Reproductive Services, a third-party cryostorage provider.
There had been administrative disputes.
Invoices.
Consent renewals.
I hated every document.
Emily handled more than I did.
Eventually, after several conversations, we signed instructions to continue storage.
At least that was what I remembered.
Caroline Mercer had been:
Embryology operations coordinator.
Her name appeared on chain-of-custody emails.
She was not our doctor.
Not our friend.
I searched old email.
There.
From: Caroline Mercer
Subject: Storage disposition clarification
Six years? No. Sophie is six while Lily three, impossible if embryos created four years ago. Need chronology consistent. Ryan and Emily must have created embryos around seven years ago, then had Lily three years ago from later embryo? Let's establish carefully without meta. Rewrite timeline in-story from here: Emily and Ryan started fertility 7 years prior, initial embryo transfer maybe failed, then took break, later Lily from remaining embryo 4 years later. Sophie could have been born from unauthorized transfer roughly 6 years ago, while Lily born from another embryo 3 years ago. Good.
Actually Sophie age six, Lily three. So embryos created seven years ago. A first transfer failed. They delayed. Unauthorized transfer of one embryo could produce Sophie. Three years later they returned, Lily from another embryo. They never knew one embryo missing because inventory errors. Let's state.
Seven years earlier, Emily and I had gone to Harbor Ridge.
We created eight embryos.
One fresh transfer failed.
Two were not viable after extended culture.
Five were frozen.
Then Emily developed a uterine complication requiring surgery and a long recovery.
We paused.
Three years later, we returned.
Harbor Ridge records said:
Four viable frozen embryos remained.
We questioned the number because we remembered five.
The clinic explained one embryo had been lost during thaw-quality review and documented as nonviable during storage transfer.
We accepted it.
One frozen transfer became Lily.
Three remained afterward.
Later Nexora storage listed three.
Everything appeared balanced.
Except if the “lost” embryo had not been lost.
Sophie was six.
Her conception timing fit exactly.
Emily read the emails over my shoulder.
“No.”
“We don’t know.”
“Ryan, no.”
“I know.”
Then Caroline’s name.
She had emailed us six years earlier asking to clarify whether we had authorized “directed disposition.”
We never answered because clinic manager followed up saying:
“Internal coding question resolved. No action required.”
Manager:
Dr. Martin Vale, medical director.
Then Caroline disappeared from correspondence.
I searched public records.
Caroline Mercer.
Age thirty-eight.
Died fourteen months earlier in a highway collision.
That was all I knew.
Emily whispered:
“If Sophie’s mother was Caroline…”
“She called Caroline Mama.”
“Then how?”
We stopped.
A child.
An embryo.
A dead clinic employee.
A hidden maintenance passage.
May you like
Too many assumptions.
We needed facts.
