Visible Life

After so many months of TTC, I found Ramos's step-by-step description soothing, even appealing, for its order and predictability, for the way it makes conception?that long-elusive goal?visible. If the oocyte is fertilized, Ramos will see the formation of two pronuclei, then the fusion of the diploid cell, or zygote. Over the next few days, as the zygote is incubated at 98.6 degrees, she will track its development in the lab. Ideally, the zygote will form four even, smooth cells, then eight. Sometimes, Ramos can wait for the embryo to become a morula, which looks like a blackberry, or a blastula, which looks like a soccer ball, before transferring the embryo to the woman's uterus. "Look! How beautiful!" Ramos said, showing me images of embryos she had worked with. She had folders and folders full of these images, and they were, at every stage, strangely beautiful, as were her tools: the polished steel and glass pipet used to move the embryos, the tiny, needlelike cryoloop used to cryopreserve the leftover embryos using vitrification.

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