After all the upheaval—leaving Alabama, starting over, finding community, securing the loan—Marcus and I decide to move forward with IVF. It feels like the culmination of everything we've fought for. Not just a medical procedure, but a reclamation. A voluntary metamorphosis.
The weeks that follow are intense in a way our Alabama selves couldn't have imagined. Syringes line our bathroom counter like tiny soldiers engineering a cyborg self. My body becomes a carefully monitored science project—measured, tracked, optimized for hope.
Each injection stings, not just physically but emotionally, carrying the weight of everything we've sacrificed to get to this point. But here's what they don't tell you about becoming cyborg: it's not just about the technology merging with your flesh. It's about your consciousness expanding to hold contradictions. You learn to love the machine that hurts you. You learn to trust the system that failed you somewhere else. You become something new—not quite the woman who fled Alabama, not quite the mother you're trying to become.
Still, I keep showing up. We both do. Because this is what survival looks like now: voluntary transformation. Chosen adaptation. The future writing itself into our bodies, one injection at a time.
One night, as I prep another hormone shot, Marcus watches me with an expression I can't quite name. There's tenderness in it, yes—but also something heavier. Something that looks like recognition. Like he's seeing me become something he doesn't have words for yet.
"All these chemicals, these labs, machines..." he says quietly. "Sometimes I wonder if we've gone too far outside what's natural. What God designed. My dad keeps asking me—are we trying to do God's job?"
I pause, needle in hand, feeling the familiar tension between his faith and this new reality we're creating. "Marcus, we've been through this. Alabama tried to make this illegal—maybe that should tell us something about its value."
"Or maybe Alabama was wrong for the wrong reasons," he says, voice strained. "Just because they were persecuting us doesn't mean every path we take now is automatically right. What if we're so focused on fighting them that we've lost sight of what's actually sacred?"
The words sting more than the injection. "So you think what we're doing is ungodly?"
He runs his hands through his hair, clearly wrestling with something. "I don't know, Aisha. I honestly don't know anymore. But when I pray about this—about creating life in a lab, about choosing which embryos live or die—I don't feel peace. I feel... unsettled."
"Well," I say, wincing as I inject the first dose, "Alabama tried to make this illegal. Guess I'm becoming the cyborg they feared."
You think this is just fertility treatment? This is evolution under duress. This is what happens when biology becomes politics and politics become personal. This is how we learn to be more than human when being human isn't enough.
The egg retrieval yields fifteen eggs. I wake up groggy and sore, but Dr. Lopez's voice breaks through the fog with cautious optimism. Through the haze, I whisper to Marcus as we walk to the car, "Feels like we just crossed into uncharted territory. We're creating life outside my body. Alabama called this criminal. I call it miraculous."
But miracles, I'm learning, come with side effects.
A few days later, my body rebels. Sharp pain, shortness of breath, nausea that won't quit. Marcus doesn't hesitate—he calls Dr. Lopez, and we're told to come in immediately.
The diagnosis comes quickly: OHSS. Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. My ovaries went into overdrive, swollen and leaking fluid. I'm admitted to the hospital within hours.
Lying in that bed, hooked up to machines and IVs, I can't help but think about the bitter irony. In Alabama, creating these embryos would have been illegal. Here, my body's trying to reject the very process that represents our freedom. Even liberation has its glitches.
I try to lighten the mood. "Guess I'm a glitchy cyborg now. Maybe they'll reboot me after this," I tell Marcus.
He doesn't laugh. Just takes my hand gently, eyes brimming with worry. "This is too much. I hate seeing you like this. Maybe we pushed too hard, too fast."
Before I can respond, Dr. Lopez enters with news. Her tone is gentle but professional. "You're going to be fine, Aisha. But we need to freeze the embryos and wait for your body to stabilize before we attempt transfer."
Marcus clears his throat. "Will freezing them hurt our chances?"
"Not at all," Dr. Lopez assures us. "In fact, frozen embryo transfers often have better success rates. Your body will have time to heal completely." She pauses, then adds something that hits me like a revelation. "Consider yourselves fortunate you're not in Alabama. There, your embryos would be considered legal children from the moment of fertilization. Any decision about their fate would carry potential criminal liability."
The reminder stops me cold. Even in my hospital bed, even dealing with OHSS complications, we have choices Alabama would have stripped away. The cyborg comes with citizenship rights here.
"Ten of your eggs fertilized successfully," Dr. Lopez continues. "They're developing well. In a few days, we should discuss genetic testing. It's optional, but it could give us important insights about which embryos have the best chance."
Genetic testing. Another choice Alabama tried to complicate with legal landmines. Another step deeper into the cyborg future they couldn't imagine.
After she leaves, Marcus and I sit in silence punctuated only by the soft beeping of medical equipment. I can see the question in his eyes before he asks it: What now?
I think about those ten embryos—our maybe-babies, created in a state that protects our right to hope. I think about the road we've traveled from Birmingham to Chicago, from persecution to possibility. From fully human to something more complex.
"What do you think we should do?" he asks softly.
I take a deep breath, closing my eyes against the fluorescent light. "We give them every chance," I whisper. "We do the testing. We rest. We heal. And then we trust the process we came here to access. We finish becoming what we started."
Marcus nods, relief subtle but present. "Whatever happens, we're doing this where it's legal. Where we have choices. That matters."
And maybe, for now, that's enough. The cyborg doesn't need to be perfect. It just needs to be possible.