[Cardiff, Wales – 05:52 AM, 12th of March, 1921]
I chuckled evilly to myself over how the process of making birth control pills honestly felt more like a witch brewing a potion or a sect master making a chi-consolidation pill rather than actual science. Well, at least a lot more like alchemy than chemistry normally did.
I stood before my laboratory bench, the weak gaslight casting long shadows over the cluttered tables. Around me lay a clutter showing the months of work put into this next attempt.
The process began by carefully trimming bovine ovaries, separating the corpora lutea glands, which were these tiny golden nodules, from the surrounding fatty tissue. The glands were minced into a coarse paste, then suspended in ethanol and gently warmed over a water bath to dissolve the neutral lipids and soluble sterols.
After several hours of stirring, I filtered the mixture through a bed of wax filter paper to remove fibrous material, collecting the pale amber liquid. I repeated the washings with acetum ethylicum to draw out any remaining hormone. The pooled solution was then concentrated by slow evaporation, with me taking care not to overheat it, until a viscous residue remained.
I dissolved this residue in a minimal volume of diethyl ether, then cooled it gradually, allowing the progesterone to crystallise as fine, needle-like solids. These I collected and washed gently with more diethyl ether to remove any final fats, leaving me with small, shimmering crystals.
In a separate vial, I had distilled a small quantity of ethynyl bromide. My hands trembled whenever I handled the stuff, since the substance was far more volatile than even the strongest of blasting caps.
The plan, in theory, was deceptively simple: convert the naturally occurring progesterone into norethisterone. In practice, every step threatened ruin.
The first challenge was adding an ethynyl group to the seventeenth carbon. A simple ethynyl radical, placed in the alpha disposition, shields the hormone, essentially preventing the liver from breaking it down before the body absorbs it.
I dissolved my crystalline progesterone in ethanol and gently warmed it over a water bath, keeping the solution just shy of a boil. Then, slowly…drop by agonizing drop… I introduced the bromoethyne while stirring constantly.
The reaction was delicate; the triple bond of the ethynyl group was capricious and eager to rearrange into useless byproducts. My eyes flicked between the solution and the clock. Too fast, and I would burn the molecule. Too slow, and the reaction would stall entirely.
Once the ethynylation appeared complete, the pale amber solution now shimmering with a faint iridescence, I moved to purification. Here, I relied entirely on fractional recrystallisation, dissolving the crude reaction mixture in a blend of ethanol and diethyl ether. By then allowing it to cool slowly in an ice bath, needle-like crystals formed. They were beautiful in their own kind of way, almost ethereal in just how delicate they were. I filtered them through a bed of wax filters again and pressed them carefully, mindful that the slightest jostle could destroy the fragile crystalline lattice.
The next stage, removal of the methyl group at carbon nineteen, required both finesse and courage. I first oxidised the methyl with chromium trioxide in a solution of acetic acid and water, which was promptly followed by carefully reducing the intermediate with lithium aluminium hydride. Every swirl of the flask, every rise of the refluxing vapours, told me whether I was on the right track. One false step, and I would have to start the hours-long process once again.
When at last I held the finished form, a solid that gleamed faintly like frost in the dim lamp, I could hardly breathe. I had no instruments to confirm its purity beyond thin-layer chromatography, but the crystals themselves whispered that I had succeeded. Its smell, its texture, its way it clung to the spatula…all seemed consistent with crystal latices under this grouping.
Each batch I made would have to be homogenised and tested.
[Cardiff, Wales – 12:12 PM, 18th of March, 1921]
Birth control. The very word made some stomachs twist. Personally, I disagreed with the Catholic view that it was murder to even stop a foetus from being conceived, even though, at least nominally, I was myself one. It was also by far so much kinder than forcing someone to decide later.
I was leaning over the table, my eyes scanning the several cages of rabbits and the ledgers tracking their fertility cycles; it appears that, with all reasonable deductions, my latest batch is pure enough.
The initial debate had been between Norethisterone and Levonorgestrel.
Norethisterone works by mimicking the natural hormone progesterone, convincing the body that ovulation has already occurred. In effect, it keeps the ovary silent, preventing the release of an egg each cycle. It also thickens the cervical mucus, forming a barrier that makes it far more difficult for sperm to reach any egg that might escape as well as subtly altering the lining of the uterus, making it inhospitable to implantation. All of this together suppresses fertility without the body realising it's being manipulated…but it does so in milligram doses, which are forgiving enough that even with that I could measure and test with some confidence. It just also happens to have the downside of messing with a woman's hormones long-term, which leads to various different effects.
Levonorgestrel is a far more potent trickster. It achieves the same goals and suppression effects as norethisterone, but it does so in microgram quantities and with a precision that leaves almost no room for error. Its potency comes from its exact stereochemistry, which the body's receptors recognise perfectly, meaning that instead of taking days to come into effect, it can be used the day after an ovulation event.
I had decided to go with norethisterone since a slight mistake with levonorgestrel, even a minor impurity, could kill whomever took it.
It is beautifully efficient in that way that made the perfectionist in me swoon, but in my lab, it would be nearly impossible to make repeatably with large enough of a safety margin that I could accept. One could imagine it as perfect, but in practice, unreachable.
But now I have the substance in my hands; presently I need to give it to her.
Soon enough, I was at our new house, our home, the one we had bought on Cathedral Road. It was more in the suburbs of the city, which was fine since a little greenery was good, and it also had a large side shed which could be used to house a workshop as well as four bedrooms, one of which was quickly becoming just as messy as my lab back at the rubber plant. The memory of how happy she had been when we moved in a few weeks ago was still fresh in my mind.
I entered the house and sat on one of the settees in the sitting room. The place still felt fresh, like we were still trying to live it, with several spaces unoccupied as we were still figuring out what we needed and where it went. I heard her get back about an hour later as the sound of her arrival broke me from the book I had been perusing.
Seeing my tense expression, her smile she had been wearing as she entered the room faltered. I traced the rim of the vial with my thumb.
Do I tell her now?
She doesn't even think about it, does she?
It was one of those things where there was a serious cognitive dissonance in worldview. Did she even want them? Or was she just waiting for the world to decide for her?
I inhaled, steadying myself mentally; there was no point hesitating when I already had made up my mind to tell her about this anyway.
"Catherine," I said, my voice low but firm, "I need to talk to you about something important."
My tone combined with using her actual name caused more worry to appear as she made her way to take a seat next to me. "Important?"
I nodded, placing the vial on the table in front of us. "In the future, we figure out ways of stopping women from getting pregnant in the first place; it means they don't have to worry and can choose when to try and get pregnant. It changes everything. And while it's not something I can mass produce yet… I can make enough for you. Just for you."
Her eyes widened slightly, a mixture of curiosity and caution.
"I didn't tell you before," I continued, carefully choosing each word, "because I was still experimenting and making sure it works…and that it's safe. There's no point talking about something you couldn't control. But now… now you do have control."
I waited, letting the truth settle between them. It was strange to feel so certain and so uncertain at once. Certainty because I knew it worked. Uncertainty because I could not predict her response.
"You… you made this for me?" she asked, her voice soft, almost trembling, taking the amber vial before popping the cork to look inside.
"Yes," he said, meeting her gaze. "You don't have to use it, not if you don't want to. But it's an option. One I want you to have. I didn't think to even ask before…do you want kids?"
Silence stretched between us, but it was not uncomfortable. It was the silence of gravity, of possibilities suddenly laid bare.
Kitty set the vial down carefully and looked at him, her eyes steady. "I… I've never thought about it," she admitted. "But I… like idea…"
Relief flooded me, though tempered by the awareness that the conversation was just the beginning. She then leant back into the sofa we were both sitting on and took my hands in hers as she lent into me, and said, "What about you…do you want them…"
I paused at that. "I don't know either. I had Charlie, but he was more of a positive accident than anything we planned."
"I see… How exactly does it work, though?" she asked, now more curious.
I replied. "It essentially mimics the hormone your body makes more of when it thinks you're pregnant; that then causes menstruation to stop, meaning eggs don't travel from the womb. You can't take it for more than three years straight without having to completely detox, because that long without shedding the uterine lining can be dangerous."
"So this also stops my monthlies…" she said.
I hesitated. "Yes…" It dawned on me that this was a far more important fact I should have mentioned earlier. "In fact, it was originally invented as a method to help with incredibly painful or irregular cycles."
She pinched her nose and tilted her head back in exasperation. "Why do men have to be so…"
"Dense…Thick… Lacking in Self-Awareness?" I tried to finish her sentence humorously.
She smiled and replied, "All of the above."
"But seriously…" she then looked me dead in the eyes. "Thank you. I need to think, but I get where you're coming from, and we'll figure it out."