On the early road to fertility, I was so closed off to my wants that my imagination became a walled-off city. I was guarded and wary. Then, as things progressed, I found that I needed my imagination to get me through the intense physical realities of the process. So, with trepidation, I knocked a small hole through the wall. I allowed myself to imagine kissing my baby’s bald, fuzzy head as I went under anesthesia for egg retrieval. I imagined reading my future child Miss Rumphius and The Woman in the Moon as I jabbed myself with shot after shot of IVF hormones. I even had my husband speak to my belly each morning and evening so that he could imagine, too. I still tried to keep managing my own expectations — I knew miscarriage was all too common, and mine was a high-risk pregnancy — but as the weeks ticked by, and my belly grew, something in me was opening and my imagination grew and grew, too.