#ivf arc

[randomfoggytiger]

In which season andor episode was the pregnancy book seen in their office? I can't remember.

Just my thoughts:

When the IVF fails, she tells Mulder "it was my last chance" and not "it was my only chance", so I take it as they have tried before. This gets me thinking that there might have been a time when the IVF did take, but then she miscarried, and why they have a pregnancy book in the office. Not a medical book on IVF or other medical research book. For a moment, they were looking forward to a pregnancy together.

He says "don't give up on a miracle" which suggests that she could still get pregnant without IVF because they were already doing it. He wouldn't suggest a "miracle" with another man. No way.

I think you're looking for the "Pregnancy, Birth, and Family Planning" book, credit to @dreamingofscully.

The still is from Brand X (or earlier?), credit to @fashionbooksboozefeminism:

You could also argue it was present in Amor Fati:

But to answer your last question: Scully could have had multiple attempts, of course.

Personally, I think not. Because--

Parenti's pressure when Scully consulted him: a "good chance" he called it, with the caveat, "it's not out of the realm of possibility if we start soon." I'm no medical doctor, but I don't believe he'd say that if her remaining ova could be preserved and stored reliably.

I believe the writers were referring to Emily (since Frank Spotnitz not only had a large hand in her fate but also in Scully's pregnancy.) As Scully said in A Christmas Carol: "I feel like I was given a second chance." Her language in Per Manum ("It was my last chance") was in keeping with and building on (and concluding) past sentiments.

Mulder's face. If this had been the final of a series of attempts, his reaction would have been different: more worn, weary, stricken. Instead, he rises nervously, rambles about sleeping on her couch, and tries to read her expression to know if the attempt was successful. Those are first timer responses: he's unused to this new side of his partner (and them.) By the second, third, or etc. time, he would have known within a glance ("that unspoken.")

Meta and Resources

“Pregnancy, Birth and Family Planning” (and Emily's photo?)

All IVF Roads Lead Away from The Unnatural and to Millennium

"Life on This Planet" Before the IVF Arc

Biogenesis-The Sixth Extinction and Scully's healed fertility

Mulder Didn't Use Scully's Apartment Key Until He “Belonged”

The Scully Family In-Depth (Part XIV Home and Part XXV: Existence.)

The X-Files (In-Depth): Scully's Pregnancy, Mulder's Abduction, and the Truth Behind Requiem and Season 8

Bonus

Fan Theories on the IVF Arc's Placement

@settle-down-frohike's Treatise on the Intimacy of IVF

@carefulfears and @gabby-msr on Mulder's IVF parenthood

Other meta and fics can be found here and here.

[agent-troi]

thinking about the rain king in the context of the ivf arc again… rain king takes place in august 1999, the tail end of the missing period between the unnatural (april) and biogenesis (september) so what if the ivf failed for the last time right before the episode? and they have to deal with everyone assuming they’re a couple, mulder identifying with holman’s unrequited love for sheila (side note: i just noticed sheila saying “holman, it’s me,” when she calls him sgsjdksjdkdkd), and having to share a room and a bed, and scully’s wistful “the only person you can ever imagine yourself with” speech… all of that coming right after they just lost their last hope of (completely platonically) having a baby together

[television-overload]

In case you're in need of a very lovely IVF arc fic:

My only complaint is I wish it were even longer 😭 I need to see the happily ever after (even though it didn't go that way in canon)

@today-in-fic

[freckleslikestars]

supermarket flowers

@xfilesbingo Promp: Flowers

IVF arc, Late-night store runs, outside POV, MSR, General Audiences

687 words, read here on AO3

It had been a long night – the nights always were these days – and the fluorescents were giving her a headache. Half an hour more and she could clock out, go home, feed the cat, and crash out. ‘That’ll be ten fifty,’ she watched as the guy fished out a crumpled bill from his pocket and accepted it with a tired smile, handed his change over with his receipt.

Nothing much happened in the store at this time of night: students mostly, coming in for bread and beer. It gave her time to draw, fill her sketchbook full of quick studies. She searched the ends of the aisles that she could see for her next subject, finding him easily. He was standing with the flowers near the door, at this point in the night mostly wilted. He’d been there a while, since before she served the last customer, and his decision-making didn’t seem to be going particularly well. But he had an interesting face, angular and strong, but there – hidden beneath layers of exhaustion that seemed to weigh heavily under his eyes and over his shoulders – was a boyish charm that lit his eyes. A hope that creased his fore brow.

As she sketched his likeness onto the back of one of the store receipts he made a decision and wandered deeper into the depths of the store, disappearing from her view. A pretty blonde with a pretty smile appeared at the end of her till, an armful of snacks piled high that she dropped to the counter, ‘finals?’

‘Uh-huh,’ she gave another winning smile.

‘What are you studying?’

‘Physics. You?’

‘Oof, uh, I’m doing my Masters in Art and Museum Studies.’

‘Wow,’ she peered over the checkout at the collection of receipt stubs and napkins and scraps covered in sketched portraits, ‘they’re good.’

‘Thanks. That’ll be twelve seventy.’

‘Twelve seventy, coming up,’ she smiled, digging around in a worn wallet, handing over the exact change, ‘maybe you could draw me sometime?’

‘Maybe I could,’ she scribbled her number on the till receipt when it printed and slid it across the counter.

One final smile and she was gone, juggling her haul out the door. The man with the flowers had reappeared, lingering along the shelves of wine. Turned away without taking a bottle before hesitating and turning back, choosing a bottle of red. He made his way over to her, still seemingly internally debating the wine.

‘Hi.’

‘Hey,’ he nodded distractedly, unloading the contents of his basket – a bouquet of white lilies and the bottle of red, a bar of dark chocolate – she rang each of the items through as he unloaded them, chuckled and smirked, ‘forget your anniversary or something?’

‘Uh... not exactly,’ he murmured, passing her two tubs of ice cream – the expensive one that she could rarely afford.

‘Must have missed something important for all this?’ she inquired casually with a quirk of her eyebrow as she absently took the last item from him and scanned the box, and it wasn’t until it beeped on the register that she took in what she was holding, ‘oh.’

‘Yeah,’ his expression - something a little like hope, something a little like fear – intrigued her as he accepted the pregnancy test from her and placed it carefully, reverently, in the bag amongst his other purchases.

‘That’s, uh, that’s thirty-six ninety.’ He nodded, slipped out his wallet from his back pocket and passed over his card. She passed it back with his receipt, ‘hey, good luck, dude.’

‘Thanks,’ he nodded, taking a little shaky breath before nodding again and giving her a smile full of hope, ‘yeah, thanks,’ he left, a hurried bounce to his step, and she wondered who it was he was eager to get home to: whether it was a wife or girlfriend, whether it would be a night of celebration. She sighed and looked at her watch, groaning at the idea of having to spend fifteen more minutes there before she could cash up and go home, thinking about the potential of a message on her ansaphone from a pretty blonde with a pretty smile.

Tagging @today-in-fic

[lotsoforangesoutside]

Chance

msr | s5 | words: 740

Afterwards, he stays sullen for months.

Of course, Mulder continues to play the class clown like he does when he’s in her presence, thinking and hoping she will never notice.

He carries on with the jokes and the innuendoes. For two whole weeks, he goes to work with something to make her laugh. He sticks red coffee stirrers at each corner of his mouth and pretends to be a catfish; that makes her laugh. He draws a fake mustache above his upper lip and hides behind a book, waiting for her to come into the office; she almost spills the coffee in her hand when she sees him, but it’s more hilarious when she has to frantically rub the ink off his upper lip so they can go to an emergency meeting with Skinner regarding a potential case.

As frantic as she is, her laughter fills the whole area of their underground world, and Mulder allows himself to be creepy for a minute in fantasizing some strange apocalypse happening and trapping the two of them in a bunker like their office. He thinks he’ll do fine, more than fine, if he were to spend eternity without ever seeing the sun.

He wears a red ball on his nose and is ready to do some juggling, but Scully mistakes him as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and he is too self-conscious to be singing Christmas tunes; this does not go as well as the other props.

His favorite one is the trick with the radio. Mulder brings in a hand-crank radio, cranks it for a good 3 minutes, and hits play right before “Moon River” starts serenading their underground world. He holds out his hand, and she accepts. They dance. Favorite Scully memory no. 658.

He does everything and anything to not think about Emily, to not think about how this is about him, too, but if what happened in Philly last year has taught Mulder anything, it is to not make everything that’s about her to be about him.

But, how can he not?

His sun brings life and warmth to him every single day, even when they spend a day apart, but his sun is barren. Barren, what a cruel word to say. Barren and just recently buried a casket of sand, which people claimed to be the body of her 3-year-old daughter. Barren, brokenhearted, broken.

Some time ago, he accepted that he will never have children in his life because Scully is barren. Then, he accepted having accepted that. Then, they discovered Emily.

He thinks of those little boys he saw with Samantha last year—if she really was Samantha, something tells him that she wasn’t—and realizes there will never be little uber-Mulders tumbling like puppies after their red-haired, blue-eyed mommy.

Mulder never knew he wanted children, but he knows if he does, they would belong to Scully.

He doesn’t want to give up; he won’t give up, but he did not expect for her to find Emily.

He has feared for years that there would be little cloned Danas, big eyes and red hair, plump faces and angelic smiles. He has nightmares and dreams which both haunt him and make him wonder. He would spend his whole life tracking down every single cloned Danas, that’s for sure.

But, he wasn’t prepared for Emily. He dreads for more Emilys. He is grateful that the Gunmen hasn’t dug out anything that says otherwise.

Mulder lets himself be sullen, lets himself fixate on this fact that he will never have a little girl or a little boy, no one to tell scary stories while holding a flashlight under his chin, no reason to learn all the shadow puppets for story time while Mommy tells all of them to go to bed, never teaching his little ones how to make a basket or swing a baseball bat, no lullabies, no finger paints, no stickers on faces, and no first day jitters. No sneaking ice cream cones or Oreo cookies into tiny hands and saying, Don’t tell Mommy.

No chance to ever say what are your intentions with my daughter, no chance to ever say gluing the gymnasium shut? What were you thinking? You’re grounded until summer. No choo-choo train noise, no airplane peas, no getting dressed up for Halloween.

No chance to make Mr. Potato Head faces, ever again.

Yes, this is never about him.

So of course he says yes. It’s his only chance.

Portal to Series on Ao3 |

[lepus-arcticus]

24.

All through the week, they work in soft, careworn silence to reclaim the office, sorting rescued files, restocking the fridge, filling out order forms for new lab equipment. Scully tries to ignore the patch of carpet scoured half a shade lighter than the rest of it, tries not to imagine the hot seep of Jeffrey Spender’s life leaking out of his ears. 

Mulder takes down Clinton and tacks up Bigfoot, throwing her long, contemplative looks over his shoulder as she reorganizes the books he’s shoved slapdash onto the shelves. 

He touches her lightly as he passes; they’re careful not to linger. 

-

Sunday night, and she’s three glasses deep into a bottle of cheap, bitter syrah. Mulder calls to let her know he’s on his way over, his tone indecipherable, and she paces while she waits for the faint, familiar rumble of his car echoing up from the street below. This is it, she tells herself, it’s almost over.  His awkward, uncharacteristic knock startles her into action. “Hi,” she manages, pulling open the door. He looks older in the ocherous light, his hair bristly, and Scully breathes through a singe of ill-timed tenderness. “Uh, come on in.” 

“Thanks,” he replies, trailing off. Clearly, neither of them know how to proceed, how to breach the matter at hand, and Scully pounces on the impending silence with the first thing she can think of to say. 

“Can I take your coat?” Jesus. 

“No,” he says, smiling bashfully. “I can’t stay – I, I’ve gotta get back to the office for a while.” The space between them is heavy, charged with gravity.  Grace. Control. Get it over with, Dana. “Obviously you’ve had some time to think about my request...” 

“Um. It’s... it’s not something I get asked to do every day,” he says, and her belly pitches dangerously, because she knows, God damn it all, she knows his answer already. “Um,” he continues, “but I’m... absolutely flattered.” She must not be hiding herself very well, because he immediately launches into protest – “No, honestly!”

“Look, i-if you’re trying to politely say no, it’s okay – I, I, I understand.” 

“...See, as weird as... this sounds, and this... it sounds really weird, I know, but I, I just wouldn’t want... this to come between us...”

“...Yeah,” she replies self-consciously, looking to the floor. There’s a searing, momentary urge to hit him, but it dissolves into a dull ache behind her eyes. How dare she hope. How dare she want. How incredibly, momentously stupid of her. “Yeah, no. I, I understand,” she says, trying to cover her dejection. “I do.” 

“But...,” he murmurs, reaching for her. “The... the answer is yes.” 

It doesn’t hit her for what feels like a century. And then she’s above herself, watching herself break into a smile and melt into his arms, eyes shining and contained. She lets him go, returning to her body, dizzy with incredulous joy. Oh, God, she thinks, oh, thank you, God. “Um. Well, I’ll call Dr. Parenti, and, um, I assume that he’ll wanna meet you and, and go through the, uh, the donor procedures.”  “Oh,” Mulder says mildly. “At that part I’m a pro.” He smiles and backs away from her, out into the hall, and before she can process his absence, he’s gone.  Scully lets her back fall against the door in his wake, the tears coming hot and wild now, a laugh bubbling up in her throat, the small traces of shame at the edge of her consciousness only sweetening the moment, sharpening it, making it real. 

“Scully...” His voice comes muffled through the wood. 

She turns and opens the door again, pulling herself together. “Hey,” Mulder says, quiet and serious. “Um. In case it wasn’t implied... I’m all in.” He brings his hand to her face, ghosts the pad of his thumb against her cheek, and discretion and neighbours and self-preservation be damned, she vaults up on her toes and crushes her lips against his. 

He laughs against her mouth and drags her close, so that her neck is craned uncomfortably, so that she’s crumpled against him, bent backwards, breathless. Her body responds in a deluge of heat, her heartbeat opposite his, tongues and hands and time disappearing, the softness of his cock swelling slightly against her hipbone. 

She pulls back. He lets her. “Stay,” she sighs, blinking slowly up at him, slipping her fingers under his collar. 

His grin, half-formed, is apologetic. “As much as I’d love to, I – I’ve really gotta get back to the office, Scully. I’ve gotta finish up some things, Arthur Dales left me a message earlier, and I’ve got some paperwork to push through so we can get down to Florida as soon as possible. 

“Do you need help?” she offers, thinking of all of the very unprofessional ways in which they might complete their salvaging of the basement. 

“No, honey, you rest,” he says. “We’re huntin’ sea monsters in the morning.” 

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[randomfoggytiger]

Hey 👋 just reading your All IVF Roads Lead Away from The Unnatural and to Millennium post, and I agree with the S6 timing for the IVF attempts. I never bought into the S7 timeline (I commented that on IG under a video and many people got upset) as the relationship shifted after Amor Fati. I won’t compare haircuts etc as we know this is all retcon

On the topic of retcon, what’s your theory on why CC / 1013 decided to add that IVF story in Per Manum?

I am not really sure how it adds to anything more, other than saying Scully’s pregnancy is a miracle and was deeply desired by both of them

The timelines on IVF / IVF process might have been butchered (and Mulder storing her ova in his pocket is a no-no but nvm), but I believe there was a deeper deliberate intention there, I never figured out what it was and I would love to hear your take on it.

Hey, luckily for everyone, Frank Spotnitz told us! :DDD

April 2001: The pivotal, if not confusing, mythology episode ‘Per Manum’ used flashbacks to establish the fact that, at some unspecified time in the past, Scully was trying to conceive a child through in vitro fertilization. (Per X-Files canon, Scully’s own abduction back in Season 2 left her barren.) The reasoning for bringing up the in vitro angle at all, Spotnitz explains, was twofold. “One is that [Scully’s infertility] was a thread of The X-Files’ mythology that had never been sewn up. Back in season 4, we saw Mulder with the harvested [ova] that they’d taken from Scully; but we’d never had an opportunity to address it until now. The other reason was that we have this bombshell with Scully’s pregnancy, but we have no emotional context for it. So it felt good to show the audience the back story for Scully and Mulder, leading up to this news that she was indeed pregnant.”

That's Spotnitz for you, always remembering and bringing back the dropped throughlines. For example: CC originally toyed with the idea of giving Maggie cancer in Season 4, but Frank (jointly with Shiban) recalled the MUFON women and presented Scully's cancer arc instead. (Spotnitz also thought up Scully's pregnancy as early as Season 5, which wasn't acted upon until he and CC closed the mytharc and plotted the road to Requiem.)

As an aside, the brain disease (I remain convinced) was a way to give Mulder a substantive subplot in DD's absence... and was butchered because there was nothing canonically to spring from (unlike the IVF arc-ish, which had its foundation in Season 4.) Contrast the unplanned nature of Mulder's health crisis (not a sign or symptom in Season 7) with the prominent arc of CSM's blatant decline (from Amor Fati-Requiem) and well.... Poorly done. A fact Spotnitz also acknowledged-- In the absence of pre-existing context for season 8’s dramatic surprises, the writers relied instead on flashbacks tailored to fit this year’s narrative. “Had I known there would be a season 8, I would have preferred to salt in all of the clues about these flashback episodes last season,” says Spotnitz of how he dealt retroactively with fitting in Mulder’s illness and Scully’s [pregnancy.] “But there really is no way to unravel these mysteries in my mind, and make use of David in the time that he was available to us, without having some flashback episodes.”

Anyway, hope that helps! And sorry for the delay!

[randomfoggytiger]

I know there is no set in stone exact timeline for the IVF arc does the general consensus among the fans say it starts after the unnatural and before Season 7? Thanks!

Everyone draws their line differently, I think.

I've seen some set it in Season 7 (after Millennium and before all things), though that would by necessity reconfigure the theorized "season of secret sex." I've seen others set it between Amor Fati and Millennium (though not as frequently.) I've even seen some set it in Season 5 (I believe? one of @dreamingofscully's posts first brought it to my attention.) And I've read an infamous multi-chapter fic (here) by @sunflowerseedsandscience which takes place between late Season 5 and very early Season 7.

Frank Spotnitz has since copped to the fact that the IVF (and Mulder's brain disease) was a last-second slip in, meaning if they knew it happened if they had more time to plan, seeds would (and should) have been sown sooner. However, since he and Chris Carter were already plotting Scully's pregnancy in Requiem (as early as Amor Fati, post here), there's a logical follow-through which might set the arc sometime in Season 7. Why I would argue against that theory-- which I have, in this post-- is because, narratively, there would be no time between Mulder and Scully's cases across the country to keep up with the procedure's demands (and Per Manum's flashbacks.)

Personally, I set the IVF journey after The Unnatural: not because the writers anticipated or wrote that episode with it in mind, but because the timeline and the state of Per Manum's Mulder-Scully relationship would slot more naturally there (which I discussed in detail in the first link provided below.)

At the end of the day... the writers didn't intend for the arc to exist. Previous episodes weren't written with it in mind. So, we all try our best to make things as logical as possible; then escape into fanfiction to read others' ideas.

Here's some of my IVF arc links if you're interested (no pressure~)

Meta

All IVF Roads Lead Away from The Unnatural and to Millennium

"Life on This Planet" Before the IVF Arc

Fic Rec Lists

IVF Successes 

IVF Success, Addendum

All IVF Arcs Must Come to Their End