Witnessing Hope

Josh and I watched the Tig Notaro movie on Netflix.  It’s a documentary that covers a little more than the year between her groundbreaking set at the Largo and the anniversary set she performed at the Largo a year later.  This is the trailer:

So the “one shot” she refers to in that trailer is making a baby using her genetic material.  To give context on the weight of those words: she was looking into building a family, she lost her mother very suddenly, she was diagnosed with cancer (putting her family building dreams on hold), she was told — fairly cruelly in the film — that she shouldn’t attempt to have a child because it could cause the cancer to return, and she decided to attempt IVF with a surrogate one time.

So the “one shot” she refers to in the trailer isn’t actually one shot at living or a “carpe diem” message about doing what you love and being with whom you love.  It’s literally her one shot — out of the nine embryos, only one survived the thaw.  There wouldn’t be a follow-up cycle.

She films the whole process, from meeting the surrogate to going injections to harvesting her eggs to the countless updates from RE on the embryos.  But the part that I found so gutting to watch — without knowing the outcome — was the period between transferring the embryo to the surrogate and waiting for the first beta results.

She’s a comedian and she jokes about everything — from removing her breasts to relationships — but there is so much earnest hope and love on her face when she talks about this embryo.  There is a moment when they are performing the transfer and she talks to her embryo — whom she has named Jack Notaro — and she leans forward, almost as if she is trying to pretend she is alone, speaking to her child, despite a room full of people.  There is just so much love in her voice as she tunes them out for a moment to tell him to stick around.

And then, when she is waiting on the sofa with her girlfriend, waiting for the call about the beta, she again speaks about parenthood with so much hope in her voice, explaining how this embryo is her last tie to her mother; that last chance to pass along her mother’s genes to her child.

We watched the documentary because she’s a really funny woman, but the moments I connected with the most and found the most moving were the ones where she was expressing this hopeful love for someone who barely exists; a cluster of cells.  It — to me — was proof of the power of love.  Of how much we can love another person before they’re even here.

So I cried through that part from transfer to beta, just like I’m crying now, writing this.  Because it is beautiful and so hard to witness that level of hope.

Not going to write the outcome of the beta, so let me know in a comment that you want to know before you watch and I’ll email the answer to you.