Comments (0) Friday 6th August 2010
One year ago.
Text message, 10.59pm:
‘Hello, Emma Maddison born tonight. 3.3kg. All resting and well. Bel and Dan.’
God damn.
Awesome.
Absolutely awesome.
So it is possible to have a baby through IVF.
* * * * *
Monday 26th July 2010
One year ago.
Suse rises a few minutes before I do. She quietly potters around the kitchen. I go to the toilet, still in a sleep haze. I walk into the bathroom, and then I see it.
The negative test.
We’ve been good. For the last three weeks, we’ve been good. We’ve enjoyed ourselves and loved each other. I’ve been out of town for two of those weeks, and there’s a cliché reserved for just such occasions.
But the fact is, we’ve been in a good place.
Our counsellor, June, says that we are a couple of extremes. By that, she doesn’t mean that we are two wild humans. She means that, as a couple, we swing on a pendulum. When we’re on an upswing, and things are good, they’re really good. But when they’re not… they’re not.
I walk into the living room. There I see Suse, her face tired and drawn. She sits in front of morning television, chewing on porridge. She doesn’t even pretend to be watching.
“Did you see?” At first I can’t tell if it was her who spoke. But there’s no one else around.
I nod. I walk up to her and take her into a hug. She relents, and I feel her body melt into mine.
“Even though it was the blocked side, I still had to hope. Each time, every single time, I can’t help it.”
“I know, love,” I say, “I know. Do you think I didn’t know what the pimples were about? Do you think I didn’t think it too?”
She sighs, exhaling softly.
“Am I that obvious?”
“Well if you are, then I am too.”
I look at her eyes, drawn and sad. It’s like I’m watching the pendulum itself, it’s swinging back that quickly.
* * * * *
I sit in the study, completing chores. Nothing particular, just tidying up things from last week.
And then I hear it.
The soft sobs from the next room.
I walk out down the hall, and see my wife, in the same place that she was this morning. Half the day has gone, and lots has happened. But in mind, she’s remained here the whole day, just like this.
She lets out muted sobs, quiet helpless sobs. I’ve seen my wife cry a lot in the last six months. I’ve cried a lot myself. I never thought I’d become a crying expert, but I do know the character of my wife’s pain. And here, right now, there is no anguish, no sharpness, no anger to her pain. Instead, I see a softness, a hollowness, an emptyness. Quiet, tired hiccups.
These are her sorrow tears.
She sits, her head lilted to the side, her shoulders fallen, staring at the blank screen ahead. I walk to her. She barely sees me. I slide onto our couch, and I take her head, resting it against my shoulder. She falls into me. It never ceases to surprise me how well we fit. Me, all short limbs and stocky Cornish trunk, her, long flowing gracious appendages. And yet, we fit very snugly. Somehow, I was designed to fit this glorious woman.
She buries her head in further, her tears blotting against my shirt. We sit there like this, for about twenty minutes. Her tears flow smoothly as I stroke her hair. I never thought I could be this comfortable around someone else’s grief. I guess you learn it when you have to.
After a while, her shoulders stop bobbing, and the streams dry up. Like I said, these are her sorrow tears. There is no crescendo here. Eventually they dissolve to nothing.
“What are you thinking?” I whisper.
“That I’m a barren old woman.”
“Nothing’s changed, honey,” I say. “Nothing’s changed. We’re in the same place as we were yesterday.”
“I know,” she whispers, a couple more sobs breaking through. “It’s just harder to see that today.”
My own tear falls, as the pendulum brushes my cheek on the way past.
* * * * *
Friday 2nd July 2010
Gestation: 40 weeks – DUE DATE
One year ago.
I try to do the right thing.
For the sake of Cheryl, and the lab, and everyone else who makes the rules, I go lube-free. Not even saliva. I watch mediocre, boring porn. I flick through the magazines, each time finding a ripped tab where a good bit was likely to have been. The only magazine intact is “MILFs in Heat”, which has been left untouched for good reason. I find myself looking around the room, trying not to imagine the spills that have occurred already this morning, let alone this week. It’s a fucking Friday. Although nothing looks perceptibly dirty, I can’t help imagining the cleaners coming in on Saturdays.
If this sounds gross, it’s because it is.
At the seventeen-minute mark, I finish. As I do, I hear Cheryl in my head, practically yelling: “Make sure you don’t spill any! There’s a lot of sperm in the first bit!” That alone is enough to make me go limp. In every sense of the word.
I’m lost for words as to describing the experience. To bring yourself to the point of climax, only to stop in the seconds before, stick the end of your dick in a clear plastic container that it barely fits, and then wait, is kind of like… sticking your dick in a clear plastic container and waiting. It’s like… It’s like going on a roller coaster ride, and in the seconds before the last rush, the last descent before home, knocking yourself unconscious, and then expecting to enjoy it. No then expecting to remember it. No, then expecting to sit a maths test.
No, no it’s not. It’s like sticking your dick in a clear plastic container and waiting. It’s like nothing else. It sucks. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed masturbation less in my entire life.
I bring the container up to eye level, examining the milky material. Having never before ejaculated into a container, I have nothing to compare it against. But I get a creeping feeling. Something’s not quite right. It’s too clear. It’s…
I stop for a second, before realising with horror – that I’m not done.
There’s more to go.
* * * * *
I look down at my bruised and battered penis, chafe marks already present. As a circumcised male, I seriously do not understand why anyone would masturbate without lubricant. It’s like shampooing your hair against concrete. Why the fuck would anyone – anyone - rub their hair against concrete, for even a minute, let alone seventeen minutes?
That’s my point.
I look at the screen, by now another bored woman, looking even more bored than the last. It’s like a bore competition. The magazines are crap. All of them. I can’t do this like this.
So I relent. I use saliva. I look at the bored women, but I use saliva. I flick through the mags, and I use saliva. And then I stop with the porn. I think of being anywhere other than in the wank room. And honestly, I close my eyes and I think of my wife. I think of my wife, with me, at home, in our own home. I think of my wife.
You give me MILFs on heat? Seriously? Have you seen my wife?
And that does the trick. Six minutes later, that does the trick. After twenty-three minutes, I’m done. I’m over. Again, I have to knock myself unconscious at the top of the roller coaster, waiting for it to finish without any further help. But I think, mostly, I am done. I am done. I am finished. But I am certainly not satisfied.
I look down to see my shrivelled and bruised penis, having not been in such bad nick for twenty-two years. I consider calling my Dad.
But I don’t. Instead, I clean up as quickly as I can, and I exit.
Suse is sitting there, waiting. Her look changes to concern when she sees me.
“Thank you Cheryl,” I say. I give her the sample, meekly, feeling a little defeated. No slamming on the desk for me. She takes it in her purple glove.
“How did you go?” she asks.
“As well as I could, I guess.” I wait for her to tell me that none of my sperm have heads.
“If you could go next door now for payment, please? Enjoy the rest of the day.”
“I might begin to now.”
Suse takes my hand in hers. We walk out the door, me in a cowboy swagger, trying to avoid contact with my undies. It’s impossible.
How was it?”
“Horrific.”
“Are you chafed love?”
“Yep.”
“How was the bottom drawer?”
“There was no bottom drawer. There was no drawers at all. Just “MILFs in Heat.”
“It didn’t cut it?”
“No honey. When you’re dry wanking into a plastic jar in hospital, MILFs don’t cut it. In fact, nothing cuts it. Nothing.”
We head towards the maroon desk to pay for my two-hundred buck jerk off. As I swagger down the hall, it suddenly dawns on me why everyone walks out looking just like this.
* * * * *
Friday 2nd July 2010
Gestation: 40 weeks – DUE DATE
One year ago.
I enter Room Two, locking the door behind me. As I turn, I immediately wish I was in Room One. I don’t know exactly what I was expecting. Maybe that there was going to be some sort of oasis behind these doors, that perhaps the luxury of the women’s maroon counter may have been splashed around a little in here.
But it hasn’t.
It’s just like out there.
Only smaller.
And while I know that Room One would be nothing more than a mirror image of this, all the same, I wish I wasn’t in Brian’s express aisle. The room is triangular in shape, with only enough space for a red plastic couch and a 34cm television.
There is a small toilet through a door off to the side, with a sink and huge roll of paper. I look at the cabinet below, panicking at the sight of a tiny pile of magazines, and no drawers.
There is no bottom drawer.
I pick up the magazines and find that there are four in total: two ‘Ralph’ magazines, one Penthouse, and the final, called “MILFs in Heat”. They are tattered and used, pages are missing and loose, and other pages are folded and stuffed in underneath.
I mean, these things are old.
The television looks like something we had on our first computer, something called a Microbee, which used cassette tapes. I don’t even think they make TVs this small anymore. The rubbish bin – more adequately described as a disposal unit – sits pride of place, right next to the TV. It is three times the size of the screen, and, by the looks, is almost full.
* * * * *
There is a set of instructions laminated to the top of the television. They state:
“Switch TV on (if button doesn’t work, switch on at power point)
Push TV/Video button
Press stop button when finished
If you have any difficulties, please inform reception.”
Yeah right. I’m sure Cheryl is just dying to know.
I turn on the TV. Snow fills the screen, all thirty four centimetres. I press the TV/Video button. I can make out a woman dressed in a nurse’s outfit and a man, if I get close enough. At least they’re keeping it in theme, although she looks nothing like Cheryl without the purple gloves. I try changing the channel up and down, before fully comprehending that this is it. The woman bobs up and down looking bored.
Now, I wouldn’t call myself a porn authority, but this is ridiculous. Two men’s interest magazines, MILFs on heat, a torn and tattered Penthouse, and a bored nurse on a screen slightly bigger than my iPod. I’ve seen more compelling material on daytime television.
This is going to be a challenge.
* * * * *
To be continued…
Friday 2nd July 2010
Gestation: 40 weeks – DUE DATE
One year ago.
“Mr. Davis?”
The guy in thongs groans in the effort of getting out of his seat. He slinks across to the counter, one of his thongs almost falling off. I mean – it’s winter in Melbourne. Wear socks.
“You’ve been here before?”
“Yep.”
She hands him a jar and a bag. “Room Two,” she says. He drags himself up the hall, and into Brian’s old room.
Trench coat guy leans in towards me.
“I left my form behind as well,” he says, smiling nervously. “My wife is having to bring it in now.”
“Mine’s on the floor in the study,” I reply.
“Mine’s on the couch by the front door.” I nod my head, smiling back.
“I guess I was a bit distracted this morning.”
“Me too,” I say. “A little stressed.”
Every single guy who comes in here has been asked to abstain for the better part of a week. I now get why there’s a Perspex windshield.
“It’s nice of them to have the full selection of women’s magazines,” I say
“Best of 1994, I guess. I think the good one’s are kept elsewhere,” he says conspiratorially.
We give each other a brotherhood look – one of shared anxiety. It’s not cool to admit that this is a confronting process. But for some of us – Trench Coat Guy and me – this ain’t our high point of the day. Thong guy is a different breed. As is Brian. Thong Guy and Brian are in one clan, Trench Coat Guy and I are in another.
“Mr. Jensen?” Trench Coat Guy stands with a jolt, before walking over to Cheryl. “Have you been here before?”
“No,” he says, nervously. Cheryl leans in and whispers something to him, handing him a jar. He nods, listening hard, before turning. He gives me a look, and I nod back. “Into Room One, Mr. Jensen.”
He disappears very, very quickly.
I sit there alone in the waiting room. And I realise that I never saw anyone emerge from Room One. Is there a back door? Is there a cleaner who does a quick reckie in between patients, like happens in hospitals between patients? Is there a bed? Sheets? How big is the room?
A couple of friends have had a semen analysis. One of them said to look in the bottom drawer, because that is where they keep the good stuff. I contemplate how many drawers there are, before realising with deflation that the part of me that was curious to see what this was all about never even woke up today.
I think he was left behind in that dream.
Room Two’s door flies open, and Thong Guy emerges, dragging his feet even more. If he was relaxed before, now he’s almost comatose. Although, I’ve got to hand it to him – that was quick. I look at my watch, like it was my job to time him.
He must have been in there for about four minutes. Wow.
His sample hits the bench like Brian’s did, like it’s his clan’s secret handshake. He signs a form – at least he’s asked to sign a form – and then he saunters out.
I sit for a moment longer, thinking about the cleaner that must be in there, let in through the back door, cleaning things up. But thirty seconds later, Cheryl leans forward.
“Mr Nethercote?”
No time for cleaning.
I guess I’m in the eight-items-or-less queue.
* * * * *
“Have you been here before, Mr Nethercote?”
“No,” I say quietly, before realising I’m the only one in the waiting room.
“So here’s your jar,” she said, handing me a sterile urine pot. “Here’s a placemat for the couch,” she says, handing me a man-sized tissue, “in case of spillage, and here’s your specimen bag. Any questions?”
“I’m in…”
“…Room Two.”
“Okay.” I shift awkwardly. “And I’ve been told that it’s okay to use saliva?”
“If you must.”
“If I must? Well, I guess I can try without. I mean, you want a sample, right?”
“Just don’t get any in the jar.” I look at her confused. “Any saliva in the jar.”
“Oh,” I say, smiling slightly, “I thought…” I stop dead, looking at Cheryl. This isn’t the place for banter. They’ve got Perspex.
“If you run into trouble, we can just book you another appointment. Or next time, your wife can come in with you.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Well, you forgot the slip.”
“I did.”
She takes a deep breath. “Look, there are special condoms you can use.”
“Really?” I say, genuinely intrigued. “I didn’t know about them.”
“They’re forty-five dollars. People only really use them as a last resort, or in emergencies.”
“That’s what I’ve heard about condoms.”
She shoots me a steely gaze.
Right.
No banter.
* * * * *
To be continued…
Friday 2nd July 2010
Gestation: 40 weeks – DUE DATE
One year ago.
I sit on a couch, alone in a room. I can hear muttering close by. Then I hear laughter. I look around, but Suse is nowhere to be seen. The room is empty. And then, from the left, an older lady with straight, grey hair, cut into a bob, enters the room. She perches herself on the edge of the couch, and then holds up a sheet of paper in an outstretched hand, looking at it over the top of her glasses.
A little smirk comes onto her face before she places a consolatory hand on my knee.
She’s wearing purple gloves.
“Mr Nethercote,” she begins, “there seems to be a problem with your sample.”
I look at her, hoping for something to come out.
It doesn’t.
“You see,” she continues, suppressing a grin, “your sperm have no heads. Every single one of your sperm is just a tail. No head. The problem is you. You’re the problem. Your sperm are retarded.”
I let out a noise, a gasp as I wake. Or I wake to the gasp. I’m not sure. I look around the room, disoriented. The clock says 2.33am. My arms and torso are bathed in sweat, as is my groin, where my headless sperm remain, locked away. As my eyes adjust, I make out Suse in the bed beside me.
Sleeping quietly.
I get up, changing my long-sleeved shirt for a T-shirt. I walk to the kitchen for a drink, empty my bladder, and return to the darkness of the room. The woman appears in my head again, smiling.
I guess masturbating into a cup is playing on my mind.
It’s a pretty curious day when my most important job of the morning is to jerk off.
And on top of that, today is our due date.
Our due date.
Today, our baby would have been born.
Today is going to be interesting.
* * * * *
Suse and I enter the hospital’s familiar back entrance, take the familiar lifts, walk around the familiar corridor, and down past the familiar seats. We approach the front desk, the cloned woman glued in place.
“How can I help?” she asks. It sends a cold thought straight through my soul.
“I need to give a sample this morning.”
“Next door,” she says, not looking me in the eye. “In Andrology.”
We apologise for our existence, before leaving the maroon, semilunar desk and walking ten metres down the hall. We enter a small waiting area, the front desk to a laboratory.
There is a counter with a bell, and down a short, tight corridor there are two more doors that I spot immediately: Room One, and Room Two. They have the universal male toilet symbol on them; although I’m guessing that there’s more than just a toilet in there. Directly behind the counter, there are three chairs haphazardly shoved against the wall. Two of them are occupied by men. Both of them sit awkwardly, crossing and uncrossing their legs.
One of them is wearing a trench coat.
I shit you not.
The counter has a Perspex shield, with a small slot at elbow height, as you’d expect in a bank – or in lab that is concerned about armed robbery. The Perspex is covered in A4 sheets of information, each curling at its edges; taped in place for years. Scattered around the walls of this tight little space are worn posters, which cheerily advertise venereal diseases, prostate cancer, and other myriad afflictions to really set the mood. There is a solitary framed picture above the chairs; a painting that someone has discarded from their holiday house.
I look at the two men. They are each flicking through last decades women’s magazines; the ones that been discarded from the slick, female friendly desk just ten steps back down the hall. I turn back towards the counter.
And then I see her.
Sitting behind the Perspex is an older woman, purple gloves on her hands, her grey hair cut into a bob. She smiles slightly. A shiver runs down my spine.
“May I help you?”
“I’m here for a semen analysis,” I say, trying to pitch my voice somewhere between embarrassed whisper and soulful declaration.
“Join the club,” she says, without looking up. As well as being the woman from my dream, I think she might be the clone’s mum. “Path slip?”
“Oh, shit.” I look at Suse.
“Where is it?”
“On the floor of the study.”
“I’ll be back in fifteen minutes. I’ll be waiting out here.”
That solves that one. Ten minutes ago, on the way in, I suggested to Suse that I’d like her to be in the room with me, should I need… support.
“You can’t be serious.” She said. “You’re landing this on me, in the car on the way to the hospital?”
“I just thought that…”
“…I don’t want be in that room where men masturbate all day.”
“I don’t really want to be in a room where men masturbate all day either, honey.”
There is a silence.
“I don’t think I’m comfortable with that.”
“Well this is hardly the most comfortable day of my life either.”
The discussion stopped dead. The man in the lift, in the wheelchair, missing a leg, put paid to that.
And before we could resume discussions, Ol’ Purple Gloves is asking for a slip.
Suse kisses me quickly on the lips.
“Good luck, honey,” she says. And then she leaves the dirty Perspex room quicker than I’ve ever seen her move anywhere.
Ever.
I look back at the woman behind the counter. She hands me a clipboard.
“Fill out the paperwork, Mr Nethercote, and tell me when you’re done.”
I sit in the empty chair between the man in the trench coat, and a guy wearing thongs. The guy in the coat is talking urgently into his phone, while the guy in thongs flicks happily through a copy of Women’s Weekly.
With that, a door flies open. A man emerges from Room Two, swaggering like a cowboy, in a way that none of us sitting-folk are. He places his yellow-topped container on the counter with a thunk, like you would an empty pot after you’ve just skulled a full beer.
“Thanks, Cheryl,” he says, without even braking stride.
“See you next time, Brian,” she says.
Oh fuck.
* * * * *
To be continued…
Monday 14th June 2010
Gestation: 37 weeks, 3 days
One year ago.
I pick up the phone and ring.
“Hi there, I was just ringing to find out about the Victorian IVF treatment cycle costs.”
“Yes?”
“Well, I’ve just been trying to get some information about how much my Private Insurance will cover me for. And they suggested that I talk to you, as they weren’t able to tell me anything more than the item numbers.”
“Sure. What would you like to know?”
“Well, they’ve told me that they won’t cover item numbers 13200, 13202, 13206, 13209, 13221, 13290, or 13292. But they will cover 13212, 13215 and 13218. But they couldn’t tell me what all of those meant. Seems that they don’t go beyond numbers.”
“That would be right,” says the voice at the other end. “Well, I could go through all of the numbers, but the long and the short of it is that they don’t really cover for anything. The things they will cover you for are retrieval of eggs, preparation of frozen or donated eggs and transfer of embryos. But only if you are an inpatient. They can’t cover for outpatient work.”
I process this fact. “Which is basically everything, right? Pretty much all of this stuff is done as an outpatient, right?”
“Yep.”
“So why am I paying a premium for Private Health Insurance for IVF cover?”
“In case…” There is silence at the other end. “In case your partner needs inpatient work.”
“Which we’ve already said is bugger all of IVF.”
“Yep.”
I sigh, feeling a headache coming on. With ample due diligence, Suse and I ensured that our Obstetric cover included IVF cover.
We just never asked what that means exactly.
Answer: fuck all.
“So what don’t they cover for?”
“They won’t pay for ovulation monitoring services, or oral induction medications. They won’t pay for ongoing planning and management by your specialist, and they won’t pay for assisted reproductive supraovulation,”
“Sounds like something out of a Marvel comic book.”
“Yep.”
“And they won’t pay for any of your requirements either, sir. Preparation of semen, collection of semen, or analysis and storage of semen.”
“Right. Collection of semen has it’s own item number?”
“Of course. Everything has an item number.”
“But separate from analysis and storage.”
“Yep.”
“And preparation of semen also has an item number?”
“Yep.”
I pause. “Do I not prepare and collect the semen myself?” There is silence at the other end. “I mean, I’ve been told that I need to get a sterile pot, and deliver my sample to you guys in it. I prepare the sample – as I have been everyday for the last twenty years in my testicles – and then collect it in a pot. Which I give to you guys. And then you analyse it and store it.”
There is a laugh at the other end. “It’s not exactly what those items numbers are about. But I get your point.”
“No seriously, what are those numbers about?”
“I’ll let you check that out. It’s all on the net.”
“Okay.” I pause again. “And so what do you think about the whole funding issue? The Government having dropped funding by two-thirds six months ago?”
“I think it’s disgusting. Personally, I do. I think it’s immoral.”
“And the Police Check we have to do?”
“Again, I feel for you guys. You don’t need a Police Check for anything else. You don’t need a Police Check to be treated as a criminal in jail.”
“No kidding.” I rub at my brow again. “So, the take home message is that we’re paying for Private Health Insurance that covers us for pretty much nothing. Everything else is covered by Medicare. And with this, the Government dropped funding by two-thirds, just six months ago.”
“Pretty much.”
Pretty much.
* * * * *
I later look up the item numbers. They are as follows:
PREPARATION OF SEMEN for the purposes of artificial insemination
SEMEN, collection of, from a patient with spinal injuries or medically induced impotence, for the purposes of analysis, storage or assisted reproduction, by a medical practitioner using a vibrator or electro-ejaculation device including catheterisation and drainage of bladder where required.
As for item 13290, under general anaesthetic, in a hospital.
* * * * *
So, if I required someone to use a vibrator to get a sample of my sperm, I would have to pay for it.
My Health Insurance would only cover me if this was done under anaesthetic. If I’m awake during the experience, they expect me to pay.
They are smarter than you might think, these guys.
But I think I’ll save everyone the bother. I think I’ll prepare and collect the sample myself.
No really, I don’t need to be paid $48 for it.
I’ll do it for free.
Really.
* * * * *
Wednesday 9th June 2010
Gestation: 36 weeks, 5 days
One year ago.
“Hello, Doris speaking,” says the spritely Asian girl through the end of the phone.
“Hi there, I was just ringing up,” I say, hearing my voice waiver slightly, “as this was the number on the top of the pathology slip…”
“…For a semen analysis?”
I pause for a moment.
“Ah, yes.”
“I’ll put you through to Cheryl.” Happy, chimey muzak pipes through the end of the phone. Clearly, I’m the umpteenth male to have rung up today sounding awkward.
Clearly, I need my sperm checked.
“Hello, Andrology, Cheryl speaking.”
What a way to answer the phone.
“Hi Andrology…”
“…Cheryl.”
“Yes. Hi Cheryl, my name is Mark, and I’m ringing about a test I need done…”
“A semen analysis?”
“Is it that obvious?” She laughs kindly. “I mean, I think so. It seems to say SA and IBT.”
“Yeah, a semen analysis.”
“Sure, but what’s the IBT bit?”
She sighs slightly. “It’s just part of the analysis.”
“Okay, but,” time to pull out the card, “I’m a doctor, and I’m just interested in what the IBT bit is?”
“It’s an immuno-B assay.”
“…Right.” No response. “ ‘Immuno-B test’, I guess? IBT?”
She sighs again. This time it’s an ‘I don’t get paid enough for this shit’ sigh. “I guess,” she says finally.
“Great. Okay.”
“So, anyway, we’re pretty booked up for the next few weeks. The first available is on Friday 2nd July.
I flick to my diary. “What time?”
“Anytime you want. Open slather.”
I blink at the use of the phrase.
“Okay. Open slather on the 2nd of July,” I say, blinking. “Maybe, 9.30am?”
“Do you want to do it here, or do you want to bring it in?”
“You can bring it in?”
“Yep.”
“Right. In anything in particular?” Rag? Tissue? Hand?
“A sterile specimen jar will do.”
“Just any old specimen jar?”
“Any sterile specimen jar, yes. You just have to bring it in within an hour. Don’t cool it, don’t heat it, just keep it in your pocket.”
“Okay, then.” I’ve been a doctor for twelve years, but all the same, this is weird. “And if I…”
“…Do it in here?”
“Yes. What’s the time… how long are the appointments?”
“As long as you need.”
“Really?”
“We’ve got several rooms, so you’ve got as long as it takes. It’s not like we’ll come knocking on your door after ten minutes, or anything.”
“Okay,” I say.
“The IBT is to see whether there are any antibodies to your own sperm,” she says, thawing a bit.
“Cool.” It comes out before I can stop it. “I mean, not cool. You know.”
“I know.” She sighs again.
“And, I guess there’s abstinence times?”
“Three to five days. No more than five days though. After that, things become stagnant.”
Stagnant. She’s describing by sperm as stagnant.
“No stagnance.”
“Well…”
“A little stagnance. Just not too much. I get it. And lubricant use?”
“No lubricant allowed.”
“Mmmm,” I say. “That’s going to make things a little unpleasant.”
“If you must use lubricant,” she sighs again, “just use saliva. A lot of the lubricants have spermicide in them.”
“Okay then.”
We pause, it seems, waiting to see if I have any other stupid questions.
I think I’m done.
“So the cost is $198,” Cheryl continues. “Of which, Medicare gives back $65.”
“$130 out of pocket.”
“Yep.” Leave the pun, Mark. Just leave it.
“And Health Insurance?”
“I don’t think they provide anything.”
“Yeah, right. They only cover inpatient stuff, and I guess this is outpatient. Although, if I come in and do it there, maybe that counts as an inpatient stay. Imagine! They pay for me to use your facilities, but not if I use my own.”
“Imagine.” All monotone. “Just come up to Andrology on the fourth floor. At 9.30am on the 2nd July. You’ll either have a jar, or you’ll use our facilities.”
“Thanks, Cheryl.”
“See you then,” she says, trying to sound light. She hangs up.
Not even allowed to use lubricant.
Now that really is a two-hundred buck jerk off.
* * * * *
Tuesday 25th May 2010
Gestation: 34 weeks, 4 days
One year ago.
We walk into the room, and as we do, I hold my breath.
Suse has finally had an improvement in her chicken pox rash, more than two weeks after it initially began. Fifteen days of scratching like a mangy dog, in return for trying to do the right thing by an as-yet-unconceived child.
She hasn’t seen either of my brother’s new babies yet. And I know how hard it has been for her, how emotionally challenging, to have both of her sisters-in-law pop out a second child this May.
“Hello!” my Mum says, welcoming us in. Everyone stands. We enter the hotel room, filled with grandparents, parents, a sister, and, now – an uncle and an aunt. My Mum takes Suse in a hug, and then does my Dad. Both unspeaking in their love; both understanding how hard this is for her.
“Come on over and have a look,” says my sister-in-law excitedly, directing the comment straight at Suse.
I pause for the reaction.
“I’d love to,” Suse says.
I take a breath.
“Nice digs,” I say to my brother.
“Yeah, they like to ship you out of hospital as soon as possible. Don’t know that this is the hotel I’d choose, but it does all right.”
“It’s nothing on the Sofitel,” yells out my sister-in-law.
“Well, the room is smaller, sure, but the meals are okay…”
“…Yeah, but they make you pay for the movies,” she says in her Texan twang.
“It’s the little things, isn’t it?”
“I know!” she says.
I look across at my Mum, as she sits perched on the edge of the bed. She has a broad smile across her face, her head cocked, as she looks over at her youngest grandchild. I follow her eyes, to see what he is doing that is so cute.
And then I see it. There is Suse, already in the chair, holding Zach. She has him in the crook of her arm, her finger in his mouth, sucking, and stroking his soft brown hair.
And then she looks up at me and smiles.
* * * * *
I look out the window at the neon world beyond. We sit in Chinatown, around the corner in the CBD, chewing away on lemon chicken. Neither of us says anything for a couple of minutes; silence the indication of the quality of the food. It really is that good.
Suse looks up, licking her fingers.
“You were okay in there, hon?” I ask. “It wasn’t too close to the bone?”
“No,” she says, simply. “Something happened in there with Zach. I had a little moment with him. I spoke to him, and he spoke back.”
I look at Suse, curiously, knowing that this is something that my rational mind is never going to get. But that it is true. “And he told me that there was a little girl waiting, waiting to come down.” She takes another bite of her food. “And so I told him that I was ready.”
She looks up at me, like it’s the darndest thing.
Like it happens every day.
“I think it’s over, Mark. I’m over it. I’m done. The wound is healed.” She nods, confirming the fact to herself. “Something profound happened in there. And I really am done. I’m ready to move on.”
I look at my wife, not quite understanding. Never fully understanding. Never really comprehending this marvellously complex, beautiful, exquisitely frustrating, lovable soul that I’ve found to match my own bizarre, eccentric, inexplicable ways.
I guess that’s what we call marriage.
* * * * *
Friday 21st May 2010
Gestation: 34 weeks
One year ago.
“Kirsty and Nathan have just gone over to China. Did you know that?” I look up from my steak sandwich, across the table, and the beer. It’s a Friday afternoon.
“No.”
“To pick up Alfie. From China.” I do that thing where I frown, hoping that it might help me to understand a little better. It doesn’t. “They’re adopting.”
A flash goes through my head of all the times I’ve seen Kirsty in the last three years. Which is not often – they are not close friends – but often enough to have left a lasting memory. In all the times I’ve seen them, I’ve never seen Kirsty with a full head of hair. She’s either had thin, sparsely growing hair, or being wearing a bandana. And each time, every single time, she has been smiling. At weddings. At barbeques. Wherever.
Despite her obvious lethargy, and pain on movement, she has always been smiling. And so has Nathan.
“Really?”
“Yep.”
“So they couldn’t have kids? After chemo?”
“I don’t know the whole story, mate, but I think it’s a fair assumption.” I chew on a chip. “They got on a plane on Monday, to head over there. To meet their new kid.”
I sit and digest.
“Fuck, that’s brave,” I say eventually, sighing. “So brave.”
“I know. I don’t even know how you’d contemplate it.”
I sit some more. “I guess you contemplate it when you have no other choice. And then you choose to adopt a child, and you choose to love him like he’s your own.”
“Yeah, sure. But can you imagine getting off a plane to go and meet your own child?”
“No, I can’t,” I say, a little too easily.
I return to my chips.
* * * * *
That’s what I say. But in my head, it goes more like this:
“Yeah, sure. But can you imagine getting off a plane to go and meet your kid?”
“No, I’d prefer not to. I’m not at that stage yet. We’re not at that stage yet.
“But yes, I can imagine getting of a plane to meet my new kid. From another mother. From another country. I haven’t before now, but I can.”
All too easily.
And it scares the shit out of me.
* * * * *
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