After weeks of weighing the pros and cons, Anh and I decide to move forward with gonadotropins. The success rates are higher, and even though the risks and costs make my stomach twist, I can’t ignore the possibility. Not now. Not after how far we’ve come.
Dr. Chen listens quietly as we explain our choice. Then she nods, her expression turning serious. "Alright, let's go over the protocol in detail. This treatment is more intense, so it's crucial you understand every step."
She walks us through the plan of giving myself daily injections, frequent monitoring appointments, and the potential risks. I nod, trying to absorb the rhythm of this new routine, but it’s a lot. I feel the weight of it pressing against my ribs.
Anh must sense it. He leans in and whispers, "Hey, look at it this way - you're leveling up from fertility cyborg to fertility super-soldier." (Này, như vậy là – em đã nâng cấp từ cyborg sinh sản lên siêu chiến binh sinh sản.)
I laugh, and the sound surprises me. A small crack of light in the overwhelm. "Well, when you put it that way, how can I resist?" (Anh đã nói thế thì sao em có thể từ chối?)
The days blur. Alarms for injections. Early morning appointments. Numbers scribbled in margins. My arms start to bruise from the blood draws. I’m grateful—truly—for our app. It keeps the chaos in check. And every time we hit a pain point, we fix it in code.
One evening, I find Anh at his laptop, a cup of cold coffee beside him.
"Mai, come look at this," (Mai, em đến xem nè,) he says, not looking up. He’s added a predictive model to estimate ovarian response. It cross-references my hormone trends with past cycles and adjusts dosage tracking in real time.
He spins the screen toward me. The interface is clean, intuitive. My data, visualized in a way I’ve never seen before—my own body, translated into lines and probability curves. "That's incredible, Anh. This could really help predict OHSS risk." (Thật tuyệt vời. Điều này thực sự có thể giúp dự đoán nguy cơ OHSS.)
We lose ourselves in the code—hour after hour, refining interfaces, fixing bugs, smoothing workflows. Some nights, it almost feels like we forget the treatment altogether. The algorithms are easier to manage than my body. The logic steadier than my hormones.
But the physical toll builds. My lower belly aches constantly. My skin prickles with a tight, low-level heat. And one night, standing in the bathroom with the syringe poised above my thigh, I just… can’t.
My hand shakes.
I try again. Still shaking.
And then I crumble—sinking to the floor, the needle still capped, tears blurring the tiled edges of the room.
Anh finds me like that. Knees drawn in, silent except for the shallow rhythm of my breathing.
"What if this is all for nothing?" (Nếu tất cả điều này chẳng có kết quả thì sao?) I I whisper.
“Then we’ll face that together. But look at what we’ve already created,” Anh says, nodding toward our laptops.
“This app could help so many people, regardless of our outcome.”
His words settle over me, warm and weighty. I glance at the screen—our code glowing softly in the dark, charts layered with intention, data points shaped by hope. For the first time, I begin to think beyond us. Beyond this room. Beyond our story.
Lying in bed, my mind starts wondering, wondering if someone else is out there—already doing this work, but in another language? Not code, but care. Not features, but people.
I don’t know who they are. Or where.
But something tells me—we’re building toward the same thing.
And maybe, one day, we’ll find each other.
The thought lingers as I close my laptop for the night. I don’t say anything—not yet. But the seed is there.
Finally, after what feels like an eternity of injections and early-morning monitoring, Dr. Chen gives us the green light. We’re ready for the IUI.
The day of the procedure, my nerves feel like exposed wires. I log the moment in our app—date, time, medication dosages—then tuck the phone away and lie back on the exam table.
Dr. Chen tells me to try to relax.
It’s over in minutes. But the waiting that follows—the endless, quiet limbo—is far worse. Every sensation becomes suspect. Every cramp, every wave of nausea, is either nothing or everything. I keep notes, run comparisons, cross-reference hormone levels with what little data I can find. Anh distracts me with food, bad reality TV, long walks through the neighborhood. But nothing quiets the looping thoughts.
Two weeks later, we’re back in Dr. Chen’s office. I hold Anh’s hand tightly, bracing for either possibility. I almost can’t look up when she walks in.
"Congratulations," she says, smiling. "You're pregnant. And..." Then she pauses, her eyes flicking to the numbers, "your hCG levels are quite high. We'll need to monitor you closely, but this could potentially indicate a multiple pregnancy."
I blink.
Twins?
Anh and I lock eyes—half stunned, half giddy. We knew it was a risk, but the reality is something else entirely.
As we step out of the clinic, the sun feels too bright. Joy and anxiety swirl together, impossible to untangle. We’re pregnant. Finally! But the road ahead may be more complicated than anything we’ve faced so far.
Anh, ever the builder, already has his next task lined up. "We need to add a multiple pregnancy module to the app," he says, eyes already scanning through imaginary wireframes. "There must be so many unique tracking needs for twin pregnancies."
I laugh, a soft, surprised sound, marveling at how something so private—so vulnerable—has given rise to something that might help others. As we step into this new chapter, I feel a steady kind of hope—not just for the life growing inside me, but for the quiet power of what we’ve built, and what it might mean beyond us.