Designing a Miracle

April 14th, 2019: New Shepard, Texas
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Lauri and Mona sat in the waiting room of the local Fertility Institute ready to make the biggest decision of their lives, and all either could do was hold onto the other's hands in the cold and crowded waiting room, watching countless other perspective parents come and go. Some looked elated, others simply looked just as anxious as they did.

"Lauri and Mona Flores," an older nurse called out, "Dr. Chella will see you now."

Mona was the first to rise, still clutching her wife's hand as if to pull her up with her. The two had talked about this for more than three years; first with idle, "have you ever thought about"s, then moving into more serious, "do you think we're ready"s, and finally the dry, but easily most crucial, "can we afford it?"s.

The hall was decorated with OLED displays each cycling though images of how the process is done, while other simply showed happy clients with their new children.

They reached the room that held Dr. Raj Chella, one of the chief fertility specialists. He was a relatively short man with dark mocha skin and a receding hairline. He spoke with a faint accent, showing that he was at least a second generation citizen.

"Well, Ms. and Mrs. Flores, are you finally ready?"

The two looked at eachother, and Lauri offered Mona a reassuring smile, "Yes Dr. Chella," Mona answered, "I think we are."

"Excellent," Chella responded, "Now comes the fun part... well, not as fun as the old fashioned way, but still pretty cool."

The gentlemen led them to a glass table and had them sit at the opposite end of himself. He held his thumb down on a power symbol, engraved in the left corner on his side, and an image of a child came up, resembling both Mona and Lauri. Beside the image was a list of traits; eye color, skin tone, gender/sexuality, etc.

"Now, obviously you want the basics, health, intelligence, strength etc. Now its really just down to the little details."

Lauri leaned eagerly over the screen and perused the selection of features from both Mona and her own genome. "We've given it a lot of thought and we both want it to be a girl."

"Wonderful, have you decided on sexuality?"

Mona spoke up first, "Can't we just leave that to chance, I really wouldn't feel right about that."

"I'm afraid not, Ms. Flores, the embryos are incredibly hearty, if we gave your partner two you'd just wind up with twins."

Mona didn't want to decide for her child who'd she eventually come to love. As a Texas native, born to two devoutly Catholic parents, she was still uncomfortable talking to her parents about her own sexuality, she didn't know how they'd act towards their grandchild.

Lauri spoke again, "Why don't we just select "Random, and let the computer decide, that way it will still be a surprise."

Mona sighed and held her wife's hand again, "alright, that's fine."

They spent the next half hour selecting traits. Choosing Mona's caramel skin, but Lauri's green eyes. Mona's wavy hair, but Lauri's red color. Mona's father's height, but Lauri's mother's build. When it was all done they looked at the gene projection of what their full grown child would one day look like and both began to cry after hitting "COMPLETE."

Chella stood up and moved over to shake their hands, "Congrats, I'm sure she'll turn out to be a lovely woman someday."

He bent over to sign his name on the Attending Physician line, and the information was off to the lab where the DNA they donated would be used to build their child's embryo that they both agreed Lauri would carry to term.

They left the Institute holding eachother tight, both overjoyed at the thought of the new life they would soon be able to call their own.