And for one blind, blazing second I am furious; I am overwhelmed with a silent rage. Didn’t he know Josie—the fertility specialist—was going to call today? Or did it not even cross his mind all day, maybe not even all week, since I went in for the embryo transfer? So typical. Sometimes easy-going becomes thoughtless, even cruel. I take a deep breath and when I speak my voice sounds normal, light.
“Hey.”
“Work okay?” Rob asks and takes a beer out of the fridge.
“Fine.”
“You had that presentation today, right?”
“Right.” He remembers that, but not this? I take a breath, flip a piece of chicken. “Josie called.”
“Oh.” Rob stills, the bottle of beer halfway to his lips. “Shit. It’s not good news, is it?”
“Nope.” I smile, because I don’t know what else to do. I’m not going to cry again. Ever. Rob has never seen me cry, not once. No one has, not since I was about fourteen. I glance down at the chicken, using all my concentration on flipping another piece. Oil spatters and lands on my wrist, but it almost feels good because at least that pain is quantifiable, manageable. At least it ends.
“Martha.” Rob puts his beer down, pulls me a little bit towards him. I resist. “Martha, I’m sorry.”
And then I go, because I need to, I need this. Him. His easiness takes the edge off me, just a little. I rest my forehead on his shoulder and he puts his arms around me; for the first time since I got the news I can imagine feeling normal again. Maybe even happy.
“It’s okay,” I say. “After four tries, we didn’t have high hopes for this one, did we?”
“Still,” Rob says.
“I know.” My throat is tight and I swallow to ease the ache. “I was expecting it, really. And to be honest, it’s a bit of a relief. I mean, no more trying, right? We agreed on that.” I say it matter-of-factly even though there is a question in my heart, bursting in my lungs.
“Right,” Rob says, and he sounds so sure.
“So at least we can close the door on this. That’s a good thing.” I’m nodding, too much. I stop. Rob doesn’t say anything, just looks at me and I feel my own eyes fill. I turn away quickly to flip the chicken.
Everyone knows the basics about IVF. It’s difficult, it’s expensive, it doesn’t often work. I knew those basic facts even before I did all the research, scoured websites, read books and articles and even medical journals. But no one tells you just how difficult it really is. Or the fact that by the time you consider it as an option, you’re already desperate. You wanted to be pregnant yesterday, and one of the first things the doctor tells you is that it’s going to take a while. First you have to take the fertility drugs to stimulate your ovaries into producing more eggs. Tricking them, essentially. Then you have to get the eggs, and, trust me, that’s not as easy as it sounds. I had to take two days off work, the first for the actual procedure, which requires sedation and local anesthesia, and the second because I had such bad cramps afterwards.
So now you’ve got the eggs. The man gives the sperm; at least that part is pretty simple. The doctor puts the egg and sperm together in a process called insemination; this is what happens when people have sex and get pregnant. For people like me and Rob, think Petri dish.
And then these fertilized eggs are now embryos; they are little hoped-for babies. Except they’re not, because every time I’ve gone to have the embryos transferred to my uterus, suspended on a speculum and inserted into my cervix, it hasn’t worked. They don’t take. Those embryos—what happens to them? I often wonder that. Do they just wither and die like plants out of water? Do I pee them out right away? I’ve never asked my doctor. It seems like a silly question.
In any case, I went through this grueling round of pokes and procedures five times and so it makes sense to be done with it. We can’t afford any more rounds, not really, and then of course there’s the emotional toll. After the fourth round I was, I admit, a little low. Rob talked about the emotional toll then, said he was worried about me. About us. I asked him to try one more time.
But that’s not going to happen this time. I know that even though part of me wants to keep trying. I hate the thought of just giving up. It’s so not me, and yet here we are, eating our dinner in silence, knowing it’s over.
I know there are other options. I cannot even tell you the number of people who have lectured me about adoption when I mentioned I was going through IVF—which wasn’t that often, because it is not the kind of thing you just drop casually into a conversation.
“Haven’t you considered adoption?” someone always asks, round-eyed, as if they can’t believe I wouldn’t give some poor, needy child a home. The people who ask this question usually have children of their own, or, if they don’t, they haven’t considered adoption themselves. It’s always a great option for someone else.
And I have considered adoption. Briefly. I read an article in The New Yorker on someone who did psychological evaluations for children being adopted from Russia. It terrified me.
Then I went on a website for domestic adoptions in the state of New York. There was something slightly disturbing about the way the site was set up, a sort of point-and-click at the child you want. They had little write-ups on each child, usually with something about how ‘Sam has challenges with his temper and self-control, but in a patient, loving home he will thrive’.
I closed my browser window on that one.
Then there were the other options. Surrogacy came to mind, since the whole reason we went down the IVF route is because my Fallopian tubes are blocked, but I hated the thought of another woman carrying my baby. Mine. And the legal ramifications are, of course, tricky. In fact, when I did an evening’s worth of research on it, I discovered that surrogacy is illegal in some states, and the genetic parents’ rights aren’t even recognized. Scary stuff, and nothing I wanted to get involved with.
Besides, I thought then I could beat this. It felt like a challenge, and I’ve always been good with challenges.
Except now I’m not.
We don’t talk about it much over dinner, and I’m glad. Rob knows me, knows when to press and when to hold back, although maybe he just doesn’t care as much. I can’t always tell. That night in bed he reaches for me, and, even though I’m not much of a cuddler, this time I curl into him, tangling my legs with his, pressing my cheek against the steady thud of his heart as he strokes my hair. I don’t cry; I just lie there and let myself be held.
Maybe, I tell myself, this won’t be so bad. After a while it won’t feel so much like loss, like grief. At least we have each other, I think as Rob kisses my head. At least I have Rob.
Chapter 2
ALEX
This is how it happened; this is how it always happens. I got drunk. I finished work, I was meeting my friend Liza at a bar on Fourth Street and Avenue A. We had a glass of wine each, and then I saw Matt across the bar and he gave me the kind of goofy grin that convinced me I was half in love with him six years ago.
He came over, we talked, and at some point Liza must have made herself scarce because I don’t remember her going or even saying goodbye.
We went outside, still talking, giggling over nothing. It was early July and the air was warm and drowsy and I had a little buzz from several glasses of wine. We’d fallen into that kind of playful didn’t-we-have-a-fun-time-together routine that is the default for relationships that ended without really going wrong. We dated for a couple of months and drifted apart without any real reason why,