Letters to an Embryo E-Book

Jasna Kaludjerovic

• Herausgeber: WS
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 552

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

A true story.

 A broken marriage.

    A frozen embryo.

And one impossible decision:

SHOULD IT not LIVE?
__________________________________
Letters to an Embryo is an autobiographical novel that explores the deeply personal journey of Jasna Kaludjerovic as she grapples with the aftermath of a painful divorce. Left with a frozen embryo from the final IVF attempt, she feels torn between the responsibility of giving it a chance to live and the emotional weight of her past.

Over the course of many letters, Jasna writes to the embryo, reflecting on motherhood, identity, and the complexities of letting go.

The novel touches on themes of loss, hope, and the quiet resilience of the human spirit, offering readers an intimate exploration of one woman’s emotional and psychological struggle. With honesty and vulnerability, Kaludjerovic invites readers to walk with her through a personal crisis that many can relate to, yet few are willing to speak about.

Does it have the right to life?

How will it fit with her new role now?

What does it take to make a decision?

__________________

⚠️ Content Warning:

This memoir includes themes of infertility, IVF, divorce, emotional distress, and ethical dilemmas surrounding reproductive choices.

Leseprobe

Jasna Kaludjerovic

Letters to an Embryo

Copyright © 2025 by Jasna Kaludjerovic

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

First edition

ISBN: 9788690766222

Translation by Alice Copple-Tosic

This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy Find out more at reedsy.com

Contents

May 7, 2015

May 9, 2015

May 12, 2015

May 18, 2015

May 22, 2015

May 27, 2015

June 15, 2015

June 15, 2015 (a little later)

June 17, 2015

June 20, 2015

July 4, 2015

July 8, 2015

October 29, 2015

December 6, 2015

July 6, 2016

August 8, 2016

August 21, 2016

August 23, 2016

August 31, 2016

September 13, 2016

September 15, 2016

September 21, 2016

October 1, 2016

October 16, 2016

November 6, 2016

November 18, 2016

December 5, 2016

April 10, 2017

October 3, 2017

October 4, 2017

October 31, 2017

November 11, 2017

November 13, 2017

November 20, 2017

November 23, 2017

December 5, 2017

December 18, 2017

January 6, 2018

January 15, 2018

January 22, 2018

February 4, 2018

February 5, 2018

February 19, 2018

February 25, 2018

March 1, 2018

March 5, 2018

March 7, 2018

March 11, 2018

March 30, 2018

April 9, 2018

April 17, 2018

April 25, 2018

April 30, 2018

May 3, 2018

May 5, 2018

May 15, 2018

May 16, 2018

Contributors

About the Author

May 7, 2015

chapter-seperator

My dearest Embryo,

Yesterday I decided to write to you.

A long time has passed since I last wrote a letter. There’s something really nice about it. It’s too bad you’ll probably never have the chance to write a real letter. By the time you’re born, they’ll have disappeared. That is, if you’re ever born.

How we loved them! You’d make yourself a cup of coffee, collect your thoughts, get a stack of writing paper, and start to write. You’d write and cross out a hundred times, then copy over the final version… You’d wait to get a reply and there’d be such joy when it finally came. You carried the dear letter with you everywhere, reading it over and over until it was wrinkly. It had a smell of its own. It had to be carefully kept in the envelope and had a special place in the house where it wouldn’t be crumpled or damaged by humidity. The contents of a letter like that were different from today’s emails and text messages. Today they’re short: “What’s up?” or a few sentences, and a swift and short answer is expected in return. Gone are the detailed descriptions of important events and well-thought-out assessments of various topics.

My relationship with you, however, requires deeper analysis, full concentration, and enough time to deal with the topic. You might be just a frozen embryo, but I’m still your mama. And that’s why I’m going to write real letters to you. With a little luck, they might help me decide what to do with you. I’ll set aside an hour or two and write when I’m home alone. Late at night or early in the morning, when no one distracts me, when I can disappear from Facebook and my telephone, and calmly set aside time for you.

Now it’s 6:30 a.m. Little birds are chirping at my window. It’s a beautiful day. Spring. May in Belgrade. If I hadn’t decided to write you, I’d probably go running. My office signed me up for the marathon that will soon be held in Frankfurt. I’m in good shape, but not exactly for running. A bit of exercise would do me good.

Well, alright. Letters to frozen embryos aren’t written every day, so I’ll make an exception today. Instead of running, I’ll spend an hour before work writing you this letter – my first letter to you. Let me just go and make some coffee. There’s no sense in writing any kind of letter without a cup of coffee, particularly at 6 in the morning. :) There’s a smiley, so what?! A letter can have a smiley, can’t it?! After all, I’m writing this on the computer.

:) :) :) hahahaha!

* * *

Okay, the coffee’s ready. Now I can get on with the letter.

So, yesterday… Yesterday I went to my girlfriend’s slava1. It was a universe filled with children. Except for me, all the guests were couples with children of all ages, from three months to twelve years. Parents. Mostly my age. I watched them intently.

I was once married and part of their universe, although in the end I didn’t succeed in having children. But I was quite focused on it. I wanted children with all my heart and did everything I could, even IVF. I looked at the babies around me, read and thought about them. I saw myself in that maternal role.

The entire meaning of my life at the time was linked to having children. I felt somehow that I had to have a baby, that everything would be ruined if I didn’t, and nothing else was anywhere near as important. That phase of my life lasted a long time. Almost an entire decade.

Yesterday I felt like an extraterrestrial in that baby universe. My life is completely different now. Ever since I divorced your papa, the main focus of my life has been finding love, not having children. I’m surrounded by single and divorced girlfriends, flirts who more or less pass muster, dresses, hairspray and nail polish drying spray, books on personality types, interpersonal relationships, and how to overcome depression and loneliness and reach your personal goals.

Maybe I’m not completely aware of how much I’m moving away from some universes while simultaneously drawing closer to others.

Your papa was my first boyfriend and our love lasted until recently, until I turned thirty-five. And then I had a new experience. I became a free woman. Ever since my divorce, I’ve learned a lot about flirting, chatting, dating, and generally about male-female relationships. My taste in fashion has improved and keeps getting better and better. I’m in good shape from hiking a lot and am always on the move. I’ve traveled a lot and met many people, both men and women, and made new friends. Some of them will be or already are very important in my life. I started looking into issues such as domination in interpersonal relationships, the Jungian shadow, and why I like to wear black and gray. I even got up the courage to wear white based on that research.

In a nutshell, I’m starting to look like those loners who have the time to come up with such nonsense for a lack of real obligations.

Right now, my life is like some sort of meditation in the middle of an empty meadow, thinking about meaning and meaninglessness, while other people do something more concrete. Like they’re all on some path. Young people rush to get married, debtors to pay back their debts, unemployed to find a job. But I don’t know what path I’m on right now.

Once there was a path before me and I followed a chronology that seemed natural to me, believing it was the right one. And indeed, it might have been right for me, who can say: I fell head over heels in love with your papa when I was sixteen, perhaps too early and fatal for me to foresee the consequences of such a choice. I didn’t even feel that it was some sort of choice, it just happened, there was no choice. Then I went to a tough university that assured me of a good job when I graduated. When that was done, I married my first “no choice” and tried to get pregnant, and that’s when the troubles started… until the divorce, all along that same path.

If God had wanted me to bear children in that marriage, I would feel I was still on some path. The path would have seemed to fork and I’d taken the path that was actually just a little less popular than “married with two darling children”. After all, having children defines a person. Whether or not you find love, you have a child to love who takes up your attention and time. That would finally be a path, a direction of movement, tracks. Maybe new, maybe better or worse than before, but still a pathway.

Alas, no tracks were foreseen for me. Instead, I was thrown completely off the rails and landed in a meadow. And now I need to stay put.

The basic rule I’ve always followed, without actually knowing whether it’s right, is: when you don’t know what to do, take a little time, and don’t do anything. Is it just fear of making the wrong move? Maybe not doing anything is the wrong decision. Making no mistakes.

When I have to decide whether or not to accept a flirt, it’s a lot easier with this freedom. If I let him go and shouldn’t have, another one will come along. If I accept him and shouldn’t have, I’ll let him go and that’s that.

Deciding how to spend my time is also not very hard. Right now, I’m writing this letter. If I get tired of it, I’ll put it aside before I finish my coffee. I started knitting a sweater six months ago and it’s over there, waiting on the needles for me to finish it. So what? Everything can be ripped out, then you move on to something else that’s a satisfying way to spend your time.

The only important decision hanging over my head is what to do with you. Your situation and mine is quite specific.

In normal pregnancies everything starts when the woman finds out she’s pregnant. The only thing to do is let it progress or abort it. The choice is: life or death. I, of course, would always choose life. In your case and mine, however, it’s not quite that simple.

On the one hand, you’re my child. Sixty-some cells that comprise the life of an organism. Homo sapiens, just like all the rest. Fifty percent my genes. I made you intentionally, with a clear mind and sound judgment, while married, when I still wanted a child with your papa. In that sense, you’re the same as every other child. The only difference is that since you came to be in the form in which you exist, as a fertilized egg, you’ve never been inside your mother’s body.

There were four of you in all. You resulted from the last IVF attempt just before the divorce. Two of the embryos were the most advanced, so they decided to put them back inside me. They said that you and the fourth one were of poorer quality and would probably not turn into blastocysts that could be frozen. In any case, they left you to grow as much as you could.

The waiting period to see whether the two embryos had successfully gestated was more difficult than with the previous two failed IVF attempts. Relations with your papa had already become strained. The fact that I was undergoing IVF treatment didn’t help matters much, so for that reason or who knows what other reason, the pregnancy failed.

Several days before learning the results of the IVF procedure, we decided to divorce for completely different reasons.

The divorce was the greatest stress in my life thus far. I loved your papa. The things I found out about him destroyed a lot more than just our marriage: a whole concept of love and trust, my perception of your papa and our relationship, of myself with regard to love and life. The world I knew collapsed. The world of a princess transported by love kept alive by a handful of beautiful lies.

Disillusionment. Deep wounds. Knockout.

Two-and-a-half years later I’m still recuperating from it all and don’t know whether it’s properly done. I think things are going well, but – who knows. I felt sorry for your papa in a way, because he lost me without being ready and willing to lose me. But I felt even sorrier for him because he had to come to terms with his responsibility for everything he’d done to me. Because it all came out: from the love of my life, the object of so many sacrifices and so much love, he became a monster ready to hurt and deceive me in three hundred terrible ways. Someone who had to disappear from my life straightaway. I cried my eyes out and suffered to the utmost; I wanted him out of my life. At any cost.

That very same awful day when I decided to divorce, they called from the laboratory to tell me that one of the two remaining poorer quality embryos had nonetheless survived. That was you.

They even said you surprised them, that you were multiplying a lot faster and better than average for the fifth day after conception. And you were high-quality. They had underestimated you! They asked whether we wanted to pay to have you frozen.

That phone call made me happy. I was thrilled that you were alive! It was like some sort of victory. Something nice. I thought you were sure to be a fierce fighter who’d certainly find your way in the maelstrom of everything that was happening and the madhouse in which you came to be. You’d find your way to be born, to live and grow up. I even thought, like a real mama, that you’d certainly be a determined character, a real dragon, ambitious and successful in everything you did. I still hold onto that feeling, that vision. That you will be born, if nothing else. In your case, even that would be a great success!

The decision to pay for freezing the embryo was easy. Not paying would have been the same thing as an abortion, of course. And it wasn’t possible to put you back inside me right then. A certain number of days had to pass from the previous menstrual cycle, so even in the happiest marriage with the parents’ overwhelming love, you would’ve been frozen for at least several days. And so they froze you.

So now I live and think about you every day. I try to find a place for you. And time for you.

At first I said: of course I’ll pay for you to be frozen for the next three years. It was just the amount of time I needed to get over your papa, given that while I was still so mad at him and still attached to him, I didn’t want the additional attachment of his child. The idea was for you to just stay there for three years and then we’d see what to do with you.

Well, three years have almost passed. I went to the laboratory to pay for another three. But they told me I didn’t have to pay anything, they’ll keep you there frozen and won’t throw you away before they call us in for consultations.

I would also like to fall in love with a man. That’s my dilemma. Should I try to have you and, if it succeeds, be a divorced woman with a child? Or keep going like this, looking for a man to love, but what if I find one? What should I do with you then?

Throwing you away is out of the question. Should I give you up for adoption? Frozen embryos can be adopted too. A couple wants children, but can’t even make an embryo. If you already existed, were already born, I’d never give you up for adoption. Or is that true? Who knows. If someone asked me whether I’d leave my frozen embryo to wait frozen and unborn until I made up my mind, would I say that was impossible?

Life brings strange situations. You end up doing things you thought you’d never do. They come your way to make you wiser and have more understanding for all the people who commit similar or some other sins.

On the other hand, is it worth reducing my chances for a love life because of you?

Some happy couples who work well together during the IVF process get ten embryos like you. Two are returned to the mother’s womb and all the rest are frozen. Some of those lucky embryos from the first attempt go full term and are born, and the status of all the others is the same as yours: frozen blastocysts waiting for something… in a situation like that would I feel that I should give birth to you? Would I even think about it at all? Who knows.

Your papa is no longer a man fit to be the father of my child. Far from it. Miles away. Neither is he someone I would ever choose to be your papa with the experience I now have and my knowledge of him as a man. But it’s too late for that now. You already exist frozen and unborn. And you are 50% him and 50% me.

I don’t know. I don’t know what to do with you. I don’t know what’s best.

But I know for sure that I’ll write to you. After three in vitro fertilizations and two failed pregnancies, at the age of thirty-seven, with no fine suitor in sight, I’m currently no closer to motherhood with any single idea, thing, person or phenomenon than I am with you. And I no longer know whether motherhood is for me at all. I no longer know whether I want to be a mother. I keep waiting – perhaps time will reveal the right thing to do. Well, it’s almost eight o’clock. I have to get going. Your mama has to work. At least I’m successful at my job, thank God. That’s something, since my private life already has all these challenges and misfortunes.

So long, my dearest little Embryo, I have to get ready for work. Lots of love until the next time!

Your Mama

1Slava - Saint’s day party

May 9, 2015

chapter-seperator

My dearest Embryo,

I already told some of my girlfriends that I’ve decided to write you letters and am thinking about publishing them. They all like the idea.

You know, writing to you means so many things all at the same time. To me you’re a bit like a small child’s imaginary friend, a bit like a connection to the world of the dead, the unborn, from some other dimension, you’re a bit the expression of my responsibility to bear you, which indeed is not toward other people, but toward myself and God. You also have a bit of a therapeutic effect on me, since this is after all some kind of diary.

The last time I wrote to you, I cried my heart out. I was tired the whole day afterward, my eyes were swollen and I wanted to sleep. But when that passed, I felt a lot better. That’s why I’ve decided to write you regularly. Even if the letters are unable to resolve your fate, I’ll write for the beneficial effect writing has on me.

Wait while I put the last coat of nail polish on my toenails…

Done! Painting nails is the best thing to do before typing on the computer for at least two hours. The polish has time to dry and the nails are perfect. It’s just the thing to do before writing to you.

Recently I’ve started dressing better and fixing myself up. I even bought a few skirts and put on makeup every day. And I have my hair blow dried once a week at the beauty parlor. My energy has completely changed. I feel that I’m closer to a new phase in life. It turns out that people are right when they say everything starts with a woman’s new hairstyle. Maybe that will be true with me in the coming period.

Lately I’ve noticed some new thoughts regarding the direction my life is taking. I keep tossing about, analyzing and elucidating various arguments in my head. That’s nothing new for me. My thoughts are even on the same topics. Only the conclusions have started to take a turn.

After the divorce I wanted to have a baby right away. I was in the throes of the time when I really wanted to become a mother and sacrificed a lot for that to happen. When that failed with your papa, I wanted to replace him immediately with someone who’d fulfill my yearnings for motherhood and a family.

That replacement, however, didn’t come along as planned. Your papa and I grew up together. We started dating back in high school. You should know that he was the class heartthrob! But he had a thousand flaws and because of them today I wouldn’t give him a second look even in my wildest dreams. Over time I slowly got to know those flaws and gradually accepted them one by one. Later I was able to live with them, they were somehow mine. As long as my goal was to have a baby and family with him, it was easy to live with those flaws. After all, I’d grown up with them, right?

It’s a lot different with new men. Particularly if you enter into a relationship before a deeper emotional bond has formed. Their flaws aren’t something that goes without saying and are accepted as a matter of course. They poke you in the eye, are offensive and irritating. Only a few months are needed in a new relationship or friendship for me to clearly see that the man next to me will not be the father of my child. First, because I don’t want the double of someone whose flaws poke the eye, irritate and offend. And second, I want to give myself the chance for a lasting relationship where my child’s future is bound to a man I consider worthy of being present in my daily life, receiving all the love I intend to offer. And I will for sure, as soon as I find him.

After marriage with your papa, I have yet to fall in love again. Who knows whether I ever will. People say, of course I’ll fall in love, I’m too young for such pronouncements, love appears at the age of thirty and forty, and even fifty. I’d really like to fall in love, of course. Even unrelated to the topic of children.

Since the plan to quickly replace one husband with another fell through, I’ve made up my mind not to get married by hook or by crook, with great compromises, and will remain unattached while waiting for true love, a relationship that will be substantial and close enough that I won’t feel there’s anything false about the man. Nevertheless, it’s more than clear to me that such a goal entails time and uncertainty. Who knows whether it will come true, and even if it does, no specific time can be determined in which it could or will be reached. That means no one can say whether I’ll ever get married again. And if I do get married, it might not happen, let’s say, until I’m fifty. Or it might be next year, God willing, but we don’t know that.

The fact is, taking such a view also changes how I think about other things, outside the realm of love. About work, for example. When I thought I could easily find a replacement for your papa and return to the role of wife, and later mother, the plan was to find a job in a company where I could work a little less, even if it meant earning a little less. That makes sense, so I’d have more time to raise a baby.

The plan succeeded. I changed jobs and indeed work a lot less. It turned out that now I earn even a little more than before. It’s a lot more than I need for a nice life, but still a lot less than I could earn, for example, as a freelance consultant. In that case, not only would I earn more with less effort, I’d also have a greater degree of freedom and flexibility than working fulltime in a corporation. And it would be more exciting and dynamic. I‘d change clients all the time and thus meet new people more often and generate new business and practical experience.

My current job isn’t bad either: easygoing, gives me enough free time to work on myself, enables all kinds of promotions, learning new technology and languages. It makes sense being here, assuming that I’ll soon go on maternity leave and afterwards will have a good position to return to. And enough time for the baby when it’s born.

That would be a good plan if the baby existed. That baby could be you, if I decide to have you sooner or later. This company is a good choice for such a life. Except that I still don’t have a baby, and don’t have a husband either.

I’m sacrificing a lot on the professional and person level for the possibility of motherhood that’s still very uncertain.

Staying with my current company for a while was a good move. It provides balance, the time and security I needed to pull myself together after my former job where I was truly exhausted from too much overtime and traveling. This job also gives me room to work on my emotional recovery after the divorce.

But now, if I decide to wait a bit before giving birth to you, changing jobs on the way to freelance consulting might be a good idea. After all, I’ll need both time and money if I do or don’t become a mother. I’ll certainly need security.

The question is: if I can, why not?

If I were to receive such an offer right now, I just might accept it. Springtime brings energy for new projects and adventure.

I took a personality test on the internet. It turns out I’m a leader, a protagonist. I belong to the type of brave adventurers, compassionate people. I’m inclined to adventure, constantly questioning and learning about myself, my goals and limits. Today I had my aura read and it was orange, which corresponds to the results of the personality test.

The fact that people give me nicknames, such as Bigwig, seems not to be quite by chance. That’s my essence. My aura says so: sent by God to push the boundaries, to tell other people how things should be done, to stand up to everyone for everything, a winner. They gave Genghis Khan as an example. They say the aura of all these directors and ministers is primarily yellow, not orange. The main difference is that yellow backs down before higher authority and orange scarcely backs down before anyone. That’s our nature.

Well, now, how does this fact help in finding a husband!? Not very much, I suppose. It might be that a female Genghis Khan isn’t exactly a sexual or romantic fantasy for most men. But I am what I am. I shouldn’t pretend to be something I’m not, someone might like me that way, and my fate might lie in something quite different from love with a man.

Men look at me a lot. At second glance, I’m not right for many of them. To be honest, neither are they for me quite often. They say my aura sometimes gets along well with others who are like me. And apparently I have an open crown chakra, contact with God. They say it’s rare, particularly for orange.

Maybe that’s why I’m writing you letters. Contact with God, the other world, the unborn.

Someone normal would say, “What are you talking about? What other worlds, what God and obligation toward the embryo? Find yourself a normal husband for a normal family and stop the nonsense. Don’t write letters to embryos and don’t treat something in a test tube like a person. Naïve little fool, you’ll ruin your life because of fantasies like that!” Someone normal would say that and they might easily be right!

When they read my aura, they also told me that I have the capacity to be a healer. It doesn’t have to be healing by laying on hands, it could be painting a picture or writing a book that would have a healing effect on people. This book might help someone gain insight into certain issues they have. It’s definitely helping me already.

There you have it, my dearest little Embryo. I’d talk a little more with you, but my nails have dried. It’s already one in the morning, time to go to bed. I’m going mountaineering tomorrow. Yes, it’s an orange aura interest. This one will be just an ordinary hike, no adrenalin involved. An easy walk next to a river and waterfall. We’re going to the Nera, a beautiful river in Romania. I’ve been there before and tomorrow some of my friends, not to say flirts, are going, and a good girlfriend who is Russian.

There are good men among the flirts I expect to be there tomorrow, but none has won my heart. Your mama is still not in love. That might be a boon for you. I might decide to have you sooner if I’m not involved with someone new. Subconsciously, I might not even want to get attached to someone until I resolve the dilemma about your birth. I haven’t a clue. Right now, I’ve decided just to write, write, write.

I won’t give birth to you until that decision evolves inside me. Stay a bit more in the world of the unborn, in your test tube. That’s your fate for now, just as this is mine.

I’m off to say my usual Lord’s Prayer, through my open crown chakra, then to bed.

By the way, reciting that prayer used to be easier. I would just spill it out and that was that. Peace and joy would fill me, probably because I’d remembered God and talked to Him. But until now I’ve never felt the real importance of the words I spoke, their real meaning. Now I have a problem with part of the prayer. When I get to that, “forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us”, a flood of sorrow and tears pours out of me.

I’m furious with your papa. He’s the only one who’s greatly sinned against me. I’d like to be able to forgive him. To have things over and done with. But it’s not that easy. If God forgives me the way I forgive him, then there’s more to forgive. I still don’t exactly understand what it means to forgive someone. If something’s wrong then it’s wrong and that’s that! It’s easy to forgive someone for minor sins. You get angry, grumble for two days and then say, “Forget it” and turn the page. But a huge betrayal, something so big that your life takes a turn for the worse. Someone you trusted, surrendering to him under the assumption that his love would always protect you, that you were safe with him. And he thinks nothing of betraying you, playing on someone else’s team against you. Lying. Pretending to be someone else and playing that imaginary person his whole life with you. Watching you day in, day out, as you love that other, imaginary person. Seventeen years of love and selfless giving turned into seventeen years of lying and suffering. And waiting in vain for the endless sacrifice to finally start making sense.

Forgive? How? What has to happen to my anger for it to disappear? So, I can say, even to God Himself, that everything’s alright, it doesn’t matter, I’m okay with it. But it isn’t alright! It does matter! And I’m not in the least bit okay. Sometimes I wonder whether I’m causing additional harm to myself with so much pain and anger. And then again it seems natural. I release everything that needs to come out of me. And I say the Lord’s Prayer every night. I guess praying will heal my soul. I guess it will set in motion the needed thoughts and processes, until I miraculously turn back into a normal creature!

Now I’m really off. I have to get up early and go hiking!

Good night!

Your Mama

May 12, 2015

chapter-seperator

My dearest little Embryo,

Now I’m at work. It isn’t the best time to write. But I’m afraid that things will pile up until the next time I write and I’ll forget what I wanted to tell you. Anyway, I don’t feel like doing my German homework or anything “useful” other than writing a letter to my frozen embryo.

I told the girls, my sister and cousin, about you. First, they opened fire on me in unison. What am I doing with a child from my ex-husband? Do I want my life to turn into hell? Make it miserable for no reason at all? Am I going back to my ex-husband? What does he think about your being born? Would he even want to have a baby with me? Would he acknowledge you and bring you up?

A hundred questions. Not a single answer.

I explained to them that you already exist. In a way you’re my child. If I don’t give birth to you, then I’ll either terminate you or give you up for adoption – at the mercy of others. On the other hand, if I become seriously attached to another man, will he want to raise someone else’s child? What if I want to have you and he doesn’t approve?

I don’t want to force you on anyone. I don’t want to raise a child with a new man who thinks it’s his, and it isn’t. I don’t want to deny you the truth about who you are.

Every outcome from your birth bears a burden. If I decide to have you, the first question is how to include your papa.

Imagine that I don’t tell him anything. You’d be mine alone. As though you were conceived with Mr. Anonymous on some crazy drunken date. Or bought for lots of money in a sperm bank. I’m not quite sure, but I think the current law allows me to give birth to you without saying anything to your papa about it.

I must admit I find such an idea hilarious, what a shame it isn’t realistic. It’s more likely that I’d tell your papa after the first trimester that you’re implanted in my uterine wall and might even be born. Doing anything else wouldn’t be fair to him, regardless of his sins against me. But then, how will he react when he hears this? Will he acknowledge you? Will he say he’s no longer interested now?

I assume your birth would make him happy. He would love you and take care of you. When we split up, he said: there might be a hundred women and 350 children, but if I need sperm for a new IVF or if I want to give birth to you, I can count on him. With his new wife and child, who knows whether this still holds. But let’s say it does, and he’d want you and acknowledge you. That would put a great burden on my love life. I’d be a woman with a child, with obligations, without the freedom to go to a café and see a new man whenever I wanted. In addition, my ex-husband would be skulking around.

And if he doesn’t acknowledge you and care for you, then I’d be alone with a child. That would be a burden, but also liberation for me. It would be easier for me to never ever see your papa again. He’s already hurt me enough and I don’t want him anywhere near me. But then you’d ask about your papa, who he is and where he is. Why doesn’t he visit you and love you? In that regard, I’d prefer for him to love you and care for you at least from time to time, and I think he’d like that too. The way I knew him from before, I don’t expect him to reject you.

I don’t know how his new wife would react to your birth. Would she take it as my threatening to reappear in your papa’s life, this time with a child? But what could I do to her? She’s lucky that I actually have no claim on him, so she can feel whatever she wants.

An interesting detail from yesterday was the dream your aunt, my sister, had. She has a seven-year-old son and the night before last she had a very striking and grim dream. In it she left him by a dumpster. He was crying and all upset and shouted, “Mama, why are you leaving me? You’re not going to leave me here all by myself, are you?” And she replied, “Sit there and don’t move. When children turn seven, they’re left like that. You have to stay here until they come for you.” And she left him. In her dream, for some reason she thought she should leave him there, that she had to. She moved away and heard him crying desperately, calling for help, and went back to him. He was wailing and accused her, “I can’t believe you’re really going to leave me here all alone and trapped,” and she explained once again that she had to, that it was the right thing to do. And she left again. She felt awful and thought, “I’m crazy. What in the world am I doing?” And she went back and finally took him with her. Next to the dumpster where he was waiting for her, crying and wailing, she found our grandmother and grandfather. They had raised the two of us, but died quite some time ago. In her dream they seemed to be alive. She asked them, “How could you let this happen? How could you tell me to abandon him?” Grandmother said, “We didn’t tell you to abandon him!” She said, “Yes, you did, you told me to!” Grandmother said, “No, we didn’t. But we thought it would be better for you.” She took him from the dumpster and they went home. Grandmother and Grandfather disappeared. She woke up drenched in sweat, terrified, with a terribly guilty conscience.

What does that mean, “children are left at the age of seven”? Her son is about to start school and this dream, from her perspective, probably refers to that. But as I listened to the dream, I thought it resulted from the impact of my story about you. Right away I saw you, trapped in your test tube, alone, waiting and imploring me to let you live. And you said, “Mama, Mama, you aren’t going to leave me all alone, are you?” Hells bells! I probably have a guilty conscience for standing in your way. Indeed, walking together with you through the lines of this letter might be a way to start paving it. Were it a path like all other paths, then it probably wouldn’t be mine. Your mama’s a little off the mark, what can I say. Quite off the mark. What else do you expect? Orange aura.

That dream really shook me up. Like I’d dreamed it myself.

I asked the girls: what if I don’t have any other children? What if I succeed with someone else? How can I give up my child for adoption to be raised somewhere else, or stop it from growing at all?

They gave it some thought and said in unison that giving birth to you might not be that bad. If I give birth to you then you’ll have wonderful aunts. And a grandmother and grandfather. On my side, even though we’re all divorced and live separately, our lonely hearts have created a wonderful community full of mutual support, love and respect. One important reason to have you as soon as possible is the fact that I should do it while my parents are younger, since their support in raising you will mean a lot to me. Without even mentioning my sister and extended family.

On the other side of the family, I think you would be loved as well. You would have that half-brother. I don’t know whether his mother would teach him to love you, but I wouldn’t keep you away from him. When we old fogies are all gone, it would be good for you to have a close relative. You certainly won’t have any siblings. You’re my sole frozen embryo and having new children with your papa is not an option. Your grandfather and grandmother from that side of the family are wonderful people. They had a lot of consideration and love for me, I’m sure they’d extend that to you too. Regardless of their relations with your papa’s new wife and child. I firmly believe that. And I think your papa would love you too, I’m almost certain of that.

I’ve been thinking over that idea about starting my own company. If I do, then I have to consider what’s best: start the business first or have you first.

If I stay in this company until you’re born, it might be harder afterward to venture out on my own. Then again, if I decide to go my own way, it will take me some time to figure out how to combine childbirth with such a risky job.

Maybe I could try it out for a year and see how it goes. You’ll be waiting for me that year, why not. Or even two or three years, just so it’s not too much. So, it’s not too late for you and me. Although I don’t think it will be too late. I pray to God every day to disentangle our fates somehow.

A girlfriend told me I should read the book “Autobiography of a Yogi”. She says it would really help me with the dilemma of your birth, my career, love, everything. I’ll read it before I give birth to you. In the meantime, I’ll write to you and send you positive energy.

I already love you. You’re mine. What difference does it make that you’re trapped there without knowing whether you’ll ever be born, even if I gave you the chance. I don’t know whether you’re a girl or a boy, whether you have blue eyes or brown, or maybe black, there are such people on my side of the family. Are you serious or cheerful, do you prefer people or solitude, do you have a talent for music or dance? I don’t know that and neither does anyone else, but it’s already written in the genome of your sixty-some cells. God knows. Fate knows. And I know that God knows. So, it doesn’t matter that I don’t know. I’ll love you in any case, because you’re mine. Even before you’re born, while you’re still in the test tube and I don’t have a clue what to do with you. I don’t know how comfortable it is to be frozen, but you don’t know anything better, so… that’s the way it is, at least for now, until everything gets cleared up.

You are truly a little miracle. If I’m pregnant with you, you’ll probably be the embryo who was talked to the most before growing larger than sixty cells.

Goodbye for now, I’m going home. I haven’t seen my nephew in a long time and hope to have the chance today. And I have an appointment with the hairdresser around eight. I’m still under the influence of that new energy that inspires me to be prettier and better dressed than usual. I have several interesting flirts around me, and I like them seeing me in a prettier version. It seems to go with this spring’s energy.

Cheers,

Your Mama

May 18, 2015

chapter-seperator

My dearest Embryo,

Your aunt has been thinking about you. And hasn’t managed to come up with any solution. And she’s a really smart aunt. She said that after pondering the matter at length, she still has no idea what should be done. So, all of us continue to pray for the right solution for you and me.

I’m still not emotionally ready to give birth to you. When I make that decision, it will be when I know I can handle parenthood properly. When I can be a good mama to you, ready to protect and watch over you, regardless of whether I’m alone or with someone.

Right now, it’s 5:34 a.m. I’m watching the sun rise over the new bridge over Ada2 . In a while I’ll go for a walk on the Sava3 River. I bought some pretty new shoes, ballet slippers that are comfortable enough for walking. It will be a chance to try them out.

Last night I tried sleeping with curlers in my hair, but I don’t think it turned out very well. I’ll tie back my hair so the disaster is less visible.

I’m still toying with the idea of opening my own company. I think I’ll do it in September. You just wait there a bit longer in your test tube. You’ve got everything you need there. At least I hope so. If an embryo can survive in those conditions for thirty years and then turn into a healthy child, I assume that means you’re fine. You’ll be in your unborn universe a bit longer. Does that mean you’ll be more intuitive than you would be otherwise? After spending years in the freezer will you be like those people who experience clinical death and afterward can forecast the future and read minds? Or does it have absolutely nothing to do with anything? Well, who can tell. Whatever it is, it’s your destiny.

For the past several days I’ve felt rather stable. Except for a few despondent moments when I suddenly realized that I’m alone and lonely, and started feeling sorry for myself, I spent most days smiling, with other people, working. I won’t decide whether to give birth or not until I’m completely stable. Divorce isn’t easy, or solitude. At least for me. At least for now…

I have several flirts I’m supposed to see. Men still find your mama interesting, although no longer that young. I have a few wrinkles, my skin is getting looser. Sometimes I look at my skin in amazement. Like it isn’t mine. It’s changing. My grandmother once said, as she looked at herself in the mirror when she was about eighty, that it’s a good thing we age slowly, so the transition from a cute little girl into a wrinkled old lady takes place gradually. It gives you time to get used to yourself in the mirror. While you’re getting used to one wrinkle, another one is on the way. After the age of twenty-five, you slowly get used to one change after another.

Even if an old woman resorts to the latest fashion of silicone, she’s somehow still an old woman, even if she fights a lot against aging. She still won’t be a girl. She’ll go around and talk to her girlfriends about the wrinkles she doesn’t have. But her eyes will certainly reflect the pain and maturity of her years, and there’s no way to escape that.

How old will I be when I decide to give birth to you? How many wrinkles? How much pain? How much time will remain for me to raise you, teach you everything, and then let you go along the path of life alone?

I’m still confused. Disoriented. I still don’t know what I want. You, another new child, love with a man, I don’t even know which man. I’m not in love. I’m not motivated. I have no goal. I’ll let time pass. Maybe I’ll think up a goal just to have one. Maybe I’ll choose some material goals right now. Small, unimportant, little goals. For example, earning money, buying real estate. Hmm. But if that’s just a little goal, I’m afraid I won’t persevere and reach it. Let a little time pass, let the Sava flow. It will certainly bring me something.

I’m off to do my exercises and then walk along the river and meditate. Today I have more time than usual, I got up really early. I’ll take good advantage of it. I’ll bring the interesting book I’m reading about the history of marriage, and will read a bit next to the river in the sun.

Sending my love,

Your Mama

P.S. I forget to write that I found the book my girlfriend recommended when she heard about my predicament. It’s the autobiography of a yogi. If I understood correctly, the yogi had a life of suffering and went through a lot of soul-searching until he found the answer. Her recommendation of the book seemed along those lines. We’ll see. As soon as I finish the history of marriage, I’ll start it, but you still won’t be born in the meantime.

And I need love. I don’t know how I could give birth to you all alone. I don’t know whether I need marriage or can accept something less. I don’t know how or whom to ask for what I need to ensure your birth, but I know I don’t want it from your papa. God grant us a solution that makes both of us happy and gives you a chance to be born. Amen.

P.S.S. I almost forgot I have German this morning. So, no walk for me!

Ever since the divorce I’m a lot more scatterbrained than when I was in a “stable” marriage. Even if there’s no happiness in love and no understanding, these marriages are nevertheless a stable state. You think you have something and build onto it, or if nothing else, you think that’s the way it should be so you go to bed on time, get up on time, work all day concentrating on everything you have to do. And then you’re better organized. You forget less. You spend less time crying, analyzing dreams and people’s reactions to everything, mourning your sad fate until two in the morning.

I haven’t studied anything in a long time, not even a language, and right now I’m not really properly motivated for German. I don’t care how it’s said in German! I don’t know what came over me when I signed up for the class! Since I don’t know what I’ll do with my life, I haven’t a clue whether or not I’ll ever need that language. Whether or not I want to learn it. And so, like a witless fool, I go to the classes because they’re offered. I understand everything when I’m there, but I don’t always do the homework and simply can’t remember some word or another. Lots of excuses! How awful!

2Ada lake - A lake in Belgrade, Serbia, located on Ada Ciganlija, a popular recreational area known for its beaches, sports facilities, and outdoor activities.

3Sava - A river flowing through Belgrade, Serbia

May 22, 2015

chapter-seperator

Dearest Embryo,

I’m writing again from work, so I have to be careful not to cry. I often cry when I write you, but I’m usually alone at home so it doesn’t matter. It’s all some kind of therapy. With this serious look on my face, pretending that I’m writing something terribly important, urgent and business-related, it wouldn’t do to burst into tears. People would think I’d lost it. I’m considered to be a real beast at work. It wouldn’t do to cry while writing a development specification!

But last night I had a good cry! Over your papa.

I don’t know what started it, perhaps the solitude that is slowly becoming my customary state. It was probably because of a melancholy song by Djordje Balašević. I haven’t a clue why I even listen to melancholy songs. I’ve already learned about myself that I’m extremely suggestive and things like that affect my mood. That’s what happened now, and my mood became “how could he betray me like that”. And I had a good crying spell. Those spells are shorter now than before. They don’t last more than fifteen minutes. The depths I reach while crying are bearable now. Briefer. I regain my composure more readily and the tranquility is more complete. Right afterward and generally during the day. Everything is better than before. But it’s certainly nowhere near good enough for me to be able to give birth to you. I still cry too much and too often.

Who knows whether or not you’re inclined to cry like your mama. Are you gentle or perhaps strongminded? I’m really curious about what you’re like, but I’ll have to wait a bit more to find out. For now, you’re just an embryo, and that’s how I’ll address you. It’s not good for me to see your papa and have a child with him as long as I feel this way. Let the years pass, let everything pass. I’ll give birth to you as soon as I’m ready, whenever that is.

I finished reading “A History of Marriage” by Elizabeth Abbott. Now I have a better understanding of my position as a divorced woman. I know why married and other men started hanging around me so much after the divorce, I know that people look at me as being “husbandless”, a “divorcée”. I knew that already from experience, looking around me in amazement and analyzing people’s behavior toward me after the divorce. Civil liberties date from not long ago, practically yesterday. And not only in the Balkans. It’s the same in the West. Interracial marriages were not legalized until the 1960s, just a dozen years before I was born, and women only became persons in Canada in 1928. Able to sign documents by themselves, own property, have the right to vote and all the rest.

So, it’s no surprise that people still hold onto traditional roles. Not everyone is equally smart when it comes to dealing with all the liberties they now have. Everything is possible, so you wonder about the right thing to do.

Should I get married at all? When? To whom? As soon as possible, rushing into it? Marry this new flirt? There’s nothing wrong with him. The one who wants a wife who cooks? The one who wants a young wife? Some consider me young. Others not at all. And I’m not much of a cook. So-so. That’s what I think and that’s what every woman on the planet thinks, and every man.

What does it mean to be a woman? What does it mean to be a man? What’s important in their relationship? Where do I fit in and how can I be a woman’s woman? Or how can someone be a man’s man? How can I put my life in order? In what areas of my life should I follow the recommendations of those who are older, wiser and more experienced than I am? And do they really know what’s going on or are their recommendations a voice from the past that should be left behind and not be our guide? Can those guidelines be applied to new times? Or are we all wandering around in the fog, alone, without any guidelines, each for themselves. Managing as best we can…

I already know about myself and my future marriage. I’ll let time pass and my contacts will evolve naturally. I’ll interact with men spontaneously and sincerely, and should there be love, reciprocated and strong, where we ‘re attached to each other and recognize something valuable in each other, then let there be marriage. I would be the first to want it and would do my best to build it into something high-quality and strong, like last time. Something to last one hundred years. And if it doesn’t last, let it at least be remembered. Let there be tears when it’s over. And not be as if it never happened.

We’re living in interesting times today. Traditional views went unchanged for centuries. Life looked almost the same for someone born in 1550 and 1850. And then there was a big bang of all possible thoughts, ideas and inventions. Revolution. For sex and love as well as technology and science. The human species went out of control.

Civil liberties! If only we were responsible enough not to exercise our civil liberties against each other. But we aren’t. We haven’t matured enough inside for the concept of civil liberties. We hurt each other emotionally. We rob each other sexually. We highjack pleasure. We hold back love. Everything is topsy-turvy! Sometimes it seems to me that you have it much better there in your test tube than if you were to come out into the light of day in the middle of this madness!

Maybe there will be a really big and terrifying war, and we’ll find some humanity inside us. Sometimes I feel like a prophet and clearly see that this is exactly what must happen. Self-destruction will ensue from the personal, individual dramas we all live in this impersonal immoral world, leading to general, widespread catastrophe, to war in which we’ll then become humane, sincere, honest and decent toward each other. Or else we’ll die out as a species. Whichever happens first. Sometimes I feel this has to happen, according to this terrible scenario or prophecy. Be that as is may. As though evil has multiplied and gone too far. What can I as one person do? Except hold onto my humanity, as long as I can. What else? My personal choice, it might be unwise. We’ll see.

So, after the interesting history of marriage that brightened my current lone wolf and divorced fate, I stood before the shelves crammed with books and thought over what to read next. One choice was Karl Marx’s “Das Kapital”. The history of marriage talked a lot about equality. Women’s equality, gender equality, homosexuals’ equality, so Marx was a logical choice to continue the subject of equality in a time in which it had not yet become a reality. Another choice was the book my girlfriend recommended, “Autobiography of a Yogi”. That’s waiting for us, but I certainly won’t give birth to you quite yet, so it can wait a little longer, I’ll read it sooner or later.

The next choice, or no choice, is a book I bought at the airport entitled “Handbook for Divorcées”4. It has purple and black spiked heels on the cover and I bought it as a lark (or no lark). As if by chance (and we know that doesn’t exist). I was waiting for my plane, I was a divorcée, and those heels looked to me like they were strutting their femininity. Against all the traditional people I imagine or don’t imagine are everywhere around me, judging me, assuming all kinds of things about me that aren’t true.