Raj and Lois in Timor

I was incorrect. In other news, it is raining again here, a little early for the late rains, but too late for rainy season. It's pleasantly cool after the rain; the grey clouds, having wept themselves dry, slip into the distant and ever-present mountain mists, and the dusty earth drinks up the water like a promise. Half-naked kids run through the downpour screaming with laughter and in the office we shut our laptops with an air of finality as the internet crashes. -------------- Raj has taken the HIV line management load off me, leaving me free to concentrate on creating training content for clinical and managerial training. I miss the team but I am grateful for the extra time this frees up -incidentally for work that I find enjoyable and meaningful. I might muse about some of the learning points from this process along the way.  -------------- I might as well speak directly of it: Raj and I had a difficult conversation about our exit strategy with our team this week. I trust the t...

Raj and I have, for the last few years, been going through assisted reproductive technology. Unsuccessfully. Today I confirmed that the last of our 4 embryos (Eeny, Meeny, Miney and Mo- had I presence of mind I would have called them maggie and millie and molly and may ) didn't make it after implantation. We're done with this process. We are grateful for the technology and the access we have to IVF as Singaporeans. And we're sad.  Sad is too short a word, but it's also an appropriate word, the sigh lisping out at the start, the little exhale in the vowel curling up in the back of your throat like a hurt animal, and the downward pitch of the last closed syllable. Now you can read on if you are thinking "how is Lois making sense of this?" and "how can I be helpful to her?" I caution that if you're processing your own loss, infertility, grief or gender identity, my reflections may not be the most helpful thing for you to read for you right now. I wi...