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randomfoggytiger · 1 year ago

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All IVF Roads Lead Away from The Unnatural and to Millennium

After spending too much time batting back and forth various IVF theories (post here for the hall-of-fame-ers), I'd settled on early Season Six because of the factored-in procedure requirements.

And then a discussion with @welsharcher and @agent-troi made me reevaluate everything... and I realized, with dawning horror, that the facts concluded upon not only upended what I believed about Per Manum's time crunch but also pushed back Mulder and Scully's dating timeline from The Unnatural to Millennium.

What Canon Presents as Facts

Per Manum was a patch-on episode; and there are a few restrictions it imposes on the flashbacks with Mulder and Scully.

The IVF arc must take place after the episode Emily because that is when Scully learns her infertility was caused by medical experiments robbing her of her ova.

In Per Manum, Scully is awkward about asking Mulder for her request.

When the IVF fails, both are not stingy with their hugs-- never have been-- but Scully stops herself from fully kissing Mulder, instead placing it tentatively on his cheek.

The greater implications of points #2 and #3

Point 2: Scully's awkwardness in these flashbacks is absent from her behavior all through S7, especially after Millennium. From then on out, she flirts and pulls Mulder's tie (Rush), makes cracks about going home and making all things right with the world (The Goldberg Variation), shares a personal, traumatic story from her childhood and is unfazed that Mulder collects her and her things to go (Orison), takes it for granted that Mulder would want her to spend the night and advocate for him (Sein und Zeit), is openly jealous of his attention (Rush, First Person Shooter), keeps him guessing (Theef), denies CSM's pop psychology but not his claims about her love (En Ami), and pouts openly while calling Mulder (Chimera.) (See post here for flirty gifs (collected from @settle-down-frohike.)

Point 3: Scully's miss-kiss is how we know this precedes Amor Fati: then, she passionately and unhesitatingly gives Mulder's bandaged head a kiss after his dream recitation; but in Per Manum, though both are tender and grieving, there is still a hesitancy in her behavior. That hesitancy is born from Scully's insecurity in Mulder's life post The Beginning, after her hallway forehead blessing was replaced by his frustration at her refusal to believe. She and Mulder were in sync in S6, and she knew he loved her... but where was she in the order of importance? Still under the Truth? (It's a question she is still asking in S8's Essence.) Amor Fati was the turning point in their relationship: Mulder finally showed his partner that any better life, any better ending paled in comparison to the chaotic and brutal and beautiful one they shared together.

The Requirements for IVF (specifically the FET Timeline)

There would have had to have been a lot of downtime for Mulder and Scully to attempt IVF and continue a pregnancy.

Flying while pregnant, in the 90s and now, is not unsafe; but frequent flyers are heavily discouraged from taking as many trips because of possible health concerns (blood pressure, early risks, radiation, etc.) with mother and fetus-- particularly in the first and third trimester-- and even more so if the mother has a preexisting condition or previously challenging medical concern. Not only that, but the demands required for the IVF process would have put a further strain on travel.

Scully's ova were collected and stored (and recovered) frozen, meaning she would have had to use the FET method for her IVF cycles. Frozen Embryo Transfer takes up to 32 days from start to finish (starting the count from Day 3 of a woman's period up to the day she takes a pregnancy test); and Scully would likely have had to use the medicated FET method rather than the natural one, which is not a difference in timeline so much as convenience. Not only does the medicated FET method require additional supplementation, but the changes from estrogen and progesterone to embryo transfer-- in other words, forward progress-- hinge on how successfully the lining of the uterus thickens: if it's slow, the process drags on longer; if it's unsuccessful, the process starts from scratch. And despite all these measures, the "success rate of an untested frozen embryo transfer can go as low as 20-30%, decreasing with increasing maternal age." Hence, its failure.

The only times The X-Files had enough downtime to meet these stringent requirements were twice, and both in S6: the grounding under Kersh's disciplinary thumb and the unaccounted-for months between The Unnatural (April) and Biogenesis (September.)

The Clincher: A Purposefully Placed Family Planning Book

While the mind melding events of Biogenesis-Amor Fati are unfolding, Scully scours the office before jet-setting off to Africa. In the background is a clear glimpse of a blue family planning book amidst Mulder's various piles that he uses to feather the nest (grabbed from @dreamingofscully's post here~.)

Chris Carter, Frank Spotnitz, the writing team, and the actors knew David Duchovny was leaving the show after the finale of S7; and they planned for the miracle baby early on in the season. (For any lingering doubts about William's paternity, see here for Frank's own words on the subject.) Because of that, the gang split up and left some clues: not just the family planning book mentioned above, but also David and Gillian's decision to act as if Mulder and Scully were dating off-screen post Millennium and the writers request to incorporate William's conception into All Things. Because of those decisions, fertile (heh) ground was sown for anyone willing to look back and fill in the gaps... which they did in Per Manum; and which I do now.

The family planning book serves as the definitive timeline marker for Scully and Mulder's IVF journey. If they had attempted IVF early S6, then the book would have shown up with Mulder's things when he "feathered the nest" post One Son. If he and Scully had attempted IVF after Millennium or any time S7, it would have made an appearance then. But it doesn't: it only appears on the end of season six after Mulder and Scully have grown closer, when an IVF success or failure makes him clarify that it won't "come between us." When there is more that is between them but not technically enough for them to do this journey as a couple (yet.)

It also bookends the conclusion of the IVF arc: by joining Mulder's stash, the book has become another totem of his life in the vein of Samantha's picture, the cloth hearts, and Karin Berquist's "I Want to Believe" poster (and even Queequeg's collar and Scully's keychain.) It'll be packed away out of sight once he gets the cleaning bug or Scully asks him to; but, until then, it haunts the basement with the ghost of its lost potential.

Why IVF, Why Now, Why The Unnatural?

As mentioned above, there is a pocket of downtime post The Unnatural's April and Biogenesis-Amor Fati's September (thank you to @dreamingofscully for pointing that out in this post), with only one legitimate case in-between.

(With that in mind, The Lone Gunmen's ask of Scully is doubly stupid since they asked her to fly out to Las Vegas in Mulder's name sometime during her IVF process and triply stupid because Scully-- who likely went against medical precautions-- was drugged.)

But why did Scully seek a second opinion after The Unnatural?

Because Mulder's baseball date and uplifted banter reawakened that dream in her: "What you may find as you're concentrating on hitting that little ball, the rest of the world just fades away. All your nagging concerns, the ticking of your biological clock, how you probably couldn't afford that nice new coat on a g-woman's salary, how you threw away a promising career in medicine to hunt aliens with a... crackpot, albeit brilliant, partner." Because Mulder signaled that he was noticing her, her new suede coat, her ticking biological clock... and that those were important to him.

So, Scully went in for another checkup, to seek hope for both of them.

The Timeline: A Culmination

The Unnatural-- Mulder, for the first time in their partnership, turns away from the heart of the mystery to gaze at the mystery of his heart; and Scully is giggly and hopeful (having pressed hints about "a normal life" over and over since early S6.) For the first time he mentions something between them that is personal beyond near kisses and love confessions: he brings up her habits, her coats, and her fertility, showing her that he sees her. And after that night, Scully gets another checkup with her doctor and kicks off Per Manum.

Per Manum, the elevator-- Scully runs into Mulder after her appointment, depressed and down with more negative results. Seeing how devastated this fresh reminder is (despite the episode's very clunky reiteration of her infertility-- which both she and Mulder already know about and know each other knows about), he admits to having her ova on ice. Scully is both hurt he'd kept this information from her for over two years and desperately hopeful-- again-- that there is another last chance.

Per Manum, the clinic-- Doctor Parenti tells Scully there is a "good chance" that she can get pregnant if they get started right away. She's barreling onward, not thinking two steps ahead of her (noted here in some deleted lines-- thanks to @dunhamhairograpy) except for the fact that she has to ask Mulder for his participation.

Per Manum, "The answer is yes"-- "I don't want this to come between us" is pivotal. Yes, it could refer to their recent peace over Mulder's noncommunication; but that seems to have been swept aside by both of them in their heady anticipation. So, it has to refer to their personal relationship, one which just blossomed beyond loving partners into partners focused more on each other than the Truth. Mulder can't let go completely until his Closure; but he'll explore living a variation of normal with Scully post The Unnatural's moral lesson and Amor Fati's revelation and Millennium's permanent shift.

Three of a Kind-- Scully hops on the rare plane to join "Mulder" in Las Vegas, being pulled into The Lone Gunmen shenanigans and ending up getting drugged, flirting up a storm, and planning her revenge. Luckily, it seems Scully isn't too worried about what happened, meaning she was either between rounds or hadn't begun her first (or only?) cycle yet.

Field Trip-- A more personal episode for Mulder and Scully: he is unusually hurt and angered by her normal level of skepticism, which hurts her in turn as he's devalued herself as well as her abilities for the work. The two of them dance around these feelings until they fall right into hallucinogenic mushrooms. (An interesting note: @iconicscullyoutfits noticed here that Scully does not drink at Mulder's wake, slotting in perfectly both with her denial of this reality and her on-going carefulness with the IVF tries.)

Per Manum, "It was my last chance"-- Regardless if it's their first and only or last of many tries, Scully is unflinchingly scooped up by Mulder, though diffidently shy about crossing too many lines herself in grief (shying away from her impulsive smooch to instead hesitatingly place a kiss on her partner's cheek.) "Never give up on a miracle", Mulder intones; and holds onto the family planning book for a while more.

Biogenesis-- Mulder may have the book in his office; but Scully has lost hope, asking him "Look, after all you've done, after all you've uncovered... I mean, you've won. What more could you possibly hope to do or to find?" Her question is more in-character with another fruitless endeavor behind them, a wish to see this journey, too, to its end; and this informs her arc in this three parter: rebuilding herself and her identity in Africa, at the military base, in her apartment, and outside his.

Amor Fati-- Mulder dreams "another life, another world" where Scully can live safer and freer from him while he gets a built-in idyllic life, wife, and children: "Don't give up on a miracle" echoing around in his head. (An interesting note: @cecilysass's post here about the meaning behind Mulder's Temptation is amazing.)

But that miracle is a false illusion; and Scully saves him from himself ("You were my constant, my touchstone") just as he saves her from her self-distrust ("And you are mine.") It's now that Scully brands Mulder's forehead as her own just as she had in Fight the Future: diffidence gone, courage and confirmation found.

From Brain Surgery to New Years Celebrations

Mulder would have been too weak for much while recovering from invasive brain surgery, as evidenced by his and Scully's (mostly) hands-off approach in the next episode Hungry.

However, Mulder joined Scully in California for Christmas-- on a case, of course-- and got himself from one mess to another. They avoided death, saved the world from the Apocalypse, and, most importantly, patched a family back together. There might never be a child to welcome them home from a dangerous case; but they have each other.

And Mulder seals that realization as the ball drops.

And that concludes the IVF arc~!

Thank you for reading~

Enjoy!

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