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By Mark Nethercote, September 30, 2011 10:00 am

Monday 20th September 2010

One year ago.

Suse strides over to the bench, sitting down hard.  I follow.

“Hello?” Suse says.

“Hi there, Susan, it’s Shelley here.”

“Hi Shelley.”

“Have you got a minute?”

“Yes.”

“Look,” she says, pausing again, “I can’t tell you this officially, as the analyser is still not functioning.  But your beta-HCG level is positive.”

We both sit there for a moment, before looking at each other, our eyes wide.

“Sorry?”

“It’s just the progesterone level that isn’t through yet.  But the beta-HCG, the actual pregnancy test, is positive.  And… Well, we don’t like to give out the result until we have both, but, unofficially, it’s really the beta-HCG level that counts.”

We both sit there, a little stunned.

“So, that’s good, right?” Suse says eventually.

“Yes.  Absolutely.  And the level is nice and high.  Like really high.  It’s 703, and we like it to be above a hundred.  So you’re definitely pregnant.”

“So, unofficially, you’re telling us we’re pregnant?”

“Unofficially, yes, I am.  I just didn’t want you to be waiting till tomorrow to find out.  I didn’t think that was fair.”

“No,” I pipe in, “we were just talking about that.  We were about five minutes off ringing back.”

“Well, there you go,” she says laughing, “I beat you to it.”

We all go silent.

“So, where to from here?”

“Well you know, you still need your ultrasound at five weeks to check that it’s not an ectopic, which will be a week from now.  And, like I said, I’ll give you a call tomorrow to confirm.  To re-confirm.  But for now, it’s congratulations.”

“Thank you, Shelley,” we say together.  “Thank you.”

“Okay, talk to you tomorrow,” she says, hanging up.

I sit there, still.  Still dazed, before Suse falls into my arms.  I hear her begin to cry, and instantly my own shoulders begin chugging, convulsing, as the tears drop from my eyes.  Suse throws her legs over mine, hugging herself into me.

“We did it, honey,” she mews, barely able to speak. “We did it.”

“We did it.”

“We did it!”

“I know.”

“How are you?”

“Stunned, you know.  A bit shell-shocked, really.  I’d been bracing myself for the worst.”

“Same!”

We fall silent, staring out over the water, watching the swans as the silently float around.

“Oh my god,” Suse says, exhaling heavily.  “It wasn’t all for nothing, you know?  The herbs, the acupuncture, the hypnosis…”

“…The candle.”

“The specially concocted pre-conception recipes.”

“The meditation.”

“Ella saying I was pregnant.”

“Meg’s dream we got pregnant on the first round of IVF.”

“The Garfield doctor telling us someone had to be lucky first time.”

We both watch as the birds draw up against one another, rubbing their backs together.

“I was trying not to read too much into it all,” I say, my voice cracking.  “I was trying not to get too excited, you know, to not see too many signs.”

“Me too!”

“A winter baby.”

“Just like we imagined.  Just a year later.”

“Unofficially, that is.”

“Yes, honey.  Unofficially.”

We grip each other tight, and I place my palm against her belly, again imagining the cells multiplying, becoming a baby, a childhood lived out over seconds in my mind.  I smile.

“It’s poetic you know,” Suse says eventually, “that, in the end, it’s unofficial. The whole thing, the whole damn thing, until your child is in your arms, on the day that they are born, is unofficial.  Isn’t it?”

I look at my wife, and I smile, shaking my head slightly at her insight.

I watch as her brow furrows into that familiar frown.  “She said the level was high, right?”

“Yes.”

“Does that mean it’s twins?”

I laugh so hard that I almost fall off the bench.

THE END

To be continued in three months…

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, September 29, 2011 10:00 am

Monday 20th September 2010

One year ago.

I pace around, chasing my own tail.

I’m beginning to get dizzy.

Suse bursts in.

“Let’s go for a walk to the gardens,” she says, sounding almost light.

“Good thinking,” I mumble.

We walk out, along Punt Road, down under our bridge, and along the bike track.  We leave the din and congestion and smell of the evening traffic, crossing onto Morell Bridge.  I look at the lattice work, the ornamental Victorian lights, thinking of a simpler time in which this was built.

“What are you thinking?” Suse asks.

“I’m pissed,” I say.  “I’m frustrated.  This is a test that takes ninety minutes to run, and we’ve been waiting all day.  You went in at 9.30am, and we have to wait for six hours?  For what?  So that it can get to tonight, to now, to this point where they won’t be able to tell us tonight?”

We go silent.

“I have to know tonight, honey,” Suse says, slightly desperately.  “I can’t cope having to wait another day.  What am I going to do if I don’t have the result tonight?” she says, her voice rising.

“You’ll just have to cope,” I say testily, “just like I will.  We’ll just be left in limbo for another fucking night, just like the last eleven months.”

We let go of each other’s hands, waiting at the lights.  I walk off ahead, without the green man’s permission, and in through the garden’s wrought iron gates.

Suse catches me, taking my hand into hers.  Through all of this, we’ve tightened as a team.  People say that IVF will make you or break you as a couple.

If nothing else, through all of this torture we’re closer than ever.

As we walk, I squeeze my eyes tight, thinking of the last month, of the last year. Lighting the candle and surrounding it with salt to cleanse the house.  Our fertility ritual under a full moon in Fiji.  The boats that Suse made, to float away the spirits of past pregnancies into the sunset.  Our counselling with Jules.  All of Suse’s medical trials;  her trouble with both shoulders, her ectopic, her blocked fallopian tubes, her brush with multiple sclerosis and a spinal tumour, and then her varicella reaction.

And then I think of this last month.  Of all of her pregnancy symptoms.  Of the incident with the dishwasher.  Of Meg’s dream that we would get pregnant this first time.  Of Ella’s comment in the car.  Of what the Garfield doctor said about someone having to be lucky.  Of that feeling I’ve had, ever since we lit the candle two weeks ago.

That something has got to go right for us.

I open my eyes, and I contemplate the opposite.  The reality of where we are right now, somewhere on the road of IVF, trying to lift our feet into the next heavy step.

We continue along quietly.  The gardens now surround us, the smell, the tranquillity, the soft air.  We walk down our curve, winding right around the lake.  We walk along the path, and as we do, I see Suse’s shoulders rise, the weight lifted slightly in the presence of nature.

“If it gets to five, I’m calling back,” I say.  “I’m not…”

“…It’ll be okay,” Suse says, once again composed.  “She’ll call.

She squeezes my hand, and we walk some more.  We round the bend, past the lawn, the lake in front, a couple of birds fluttering at its edge.  As if on cue, as we pass the park bench, the phone rings.

* * * * *

To be continued…

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By Mark Nethercote, September 27, 2011 10:00 am

Monday 20th September 2010

One year ago.

The hours pass slowly.  I start the plumbing job, but having never done anything like this before, I have trouble judging how long it’ll take.  Added to this it is uncertainty of whether it will another minute or another hour before I’m cradling Suse in the bedroom with bad news, while water slowly fills the house through a leaky tap.  So I sort of start, and then I stop, and then I start again.

I end up not doing it.

Meantime, Suse sits in the lounge room, watching internet TV.  She devours several episodes of marginally talented singers standing in front of cruel judges and a loving audience, while shoving Rice Bubbles continuously into her mouth.

I check my watch at decreasing intervals.  I feel like a relative, having learnt of a disaster in a foreign land, awaiting confirmation of death.  Each time the phone rings, I jump up from my desk, running into the lounge room.  We both stare at the mobile phone screen, at the various names that appear, none of them Shelley.  We let them all go through to message bank.

“I’m going to ring,” I declare, finally, at 3.07pm.

“She said she’d ring us,” Suse protests weakly.

“You don’t want to know?”

“Not really,” she admits meekly.

“Well, I do,” I say.

I pick up the phone, and dial.  The phone peals five times before it answers.  I feel my heart in my mouth.

“Hi, You’ve called Shelley from Monash IVF,” begins the recorded message.

My heart starts again.

* * * * *

I return to my job of doing nothing in particular. Seconds take far longer than they should.

Never before have I been so inefficient at being inefficient.

It crawls all the way to 4.12pm, before the phone finally rings.  I run out to find Suse there, the shrieking of a contestant’s final flat note cut dead with the pause button.  The mobile rings again, the ‘old phone’ ringtone breaking the silence, sounding like something from a Hitchcock movie.  We both look at the screen to see the name: ‘Shelley’.

Suse answers on speaker phone.

“Hello?”

“Hi there Susan, it’s Shelley here.”

“Hi Shelley,” she says, sounding like the scolded child, about to be punished.

“How are you?”

“Okay.”

“Have you got a minute?”  She sounds apprehensive.

It’s bad news.

Fuck it all.

“Yep.”

“Look…” she says, pausing, “your result isn’t through yet.  They’re having some troubles with one of their analysers.”  I take a gasp.  “So, I’m just ringing to let you know that I haven’t forgotten about you.”

“But the result will be through today,” Suse says, as statement more than question.

“Most probably.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll give you a call when it does.  Just hang in there, okay?”

“Okay.”

The phone goes dead.

“You’ve got to be kidding me, don’t you?” Suse says, her head falling into her hands.  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

I stand.  And I walk out of the room and into the study.

Looking for something expensive to throw at the wall.

* * * * *

To be continued…

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By Mark Nethercote, September 26, 2011 10:00 am

Monday 20th September 2010

One year ago.

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By Mark Nethercote, September 23, 2011 10:00 am

Sunday 19th September 2010

One year ago.

We’ve stopped having sex.  Since the reimplantation.  They say that you can, that there’s no risk in doing so, but, where’s the guarantee?  Is there a money-back warranty if they’re wrong?

No.

You just never know.

“Do you think we should?” one of us has invariably asked.

“I don’t know,” the other has said.

Really, it’s a small price to pay.  Anatomically, the uterus is closed. Physiologically, the embryo will be well-implanted by now, if it is ever going to be.  It’s not like I’m going to knock it out.  Is it?  That doesn’t make sense.  Does it?

If abstinence can infer a safety effect, we’ll be abstinent.  When shit like this has happened to you, you stop being logical.  You lose objectivity.

Frankly, you go a bit nuts.

If anything could possibly help, then you do it.  Even if it doesn’t make sense.  Shit, we’ve got a candle burning in the middle of the kitchen table.

We’ll do whatever it takes.

Whatever it takes.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, September 14, 2011 10:00 am

Sunday 12th September 2010

One year ago.

The fucking candle went out.

We were up to the fourth one.

The first one, as I said, was from the two-dollar shop.  In fact, that’s not true, it was from ‘Cheap Prices’ in Station Street.  $3.50 for that one.  It burnt well, nicely, cleanly, for four days.

The next one was from ‘Ishka’.  It was a proper candle – you know, a scented one that was handcrafted in Australia for five times the price.  It even came with instructions on the base, in case we didn’t know what to do with one of these new-fangled contraptions.  They implored that we keep the wick trimmed and never leave it unattended, like it’s a pet or something.  It filled the house with the stink of vanilla for days, and burnt all the way to the bottom, outlasting it’s expected life by thirty-six hours after lighting the third, giving us a double glow for all of that time – and increasingly questioning our risk of twins.

Eventually it burnt out, but not before I’d whipped back to ‘Cheap Prices’ and bought them out of their unscented, six-inch variety.  A total of seven candles is what we’ll need to make it through to judgement day – the pregnancy test in just over a week.

“Should we light a new one?” Suse asks in the middle of the afternoon.

I look at it for a while, as it burns high and bright, the lake of wax growing deep.

“Nah, we’ll do it tonight,” I say, “It’s still got a couple of centimetres to go.  We don’t want to give anymore encouragement for twins.”  She smiles.

We potter around.  Suse cooks while I construct Ikea products.  It’s a typical Sunday afternoon.  Having screwed and tapped and rivoted for just over an hour, I emerge from the study, walking back into the dining room.  Immediately I notice an anaemic hue to the room, the warm, jaundiced light having gone.  As I round the corner, I look at the table.  I see the candle is out, the flame dead.  A brand new one, the resuscitation device, sits three centimetres to its left.  I let out a gasp.

“What?” Suse asks from the stove.  I hear the clang of a saucepan lid.  “I knew it, I fucking knew it!” she yells, grabbing at the matches from the cupboard.

She runs over, lighting a match as she does, touching it to the new candle.

“No, no, no!  Not that way!  Re-light the old one.”

“There’s no wick left!  It drowned, just like I new it was going to,” she mumbles, slightly desperate.

We stand still for a moment, frozen in shock, like parents having just found their child blue.  I grab the lit match from her hand, trying to revive the submerged wick, burning my finger on the growing flame.

“I said that’s not going to work!” Suse says.  I drop it.  I pick up a pen and dig it into the setting resin, trying to unveil the wick.  Still no luck.

The barbeque match lies on the top of the deadened candle, curling up, lighting the length of the tinder bright.  A pool of wax forms around it, next to the drowned wick.

I take the new one.  “Hold it!” I say to Suse.  She grips it in her palm and we tip it, lighting the virgin candle from the flame.

We put it down.

A candle has been burning continuously for ten days.  From before the reimplantation.  Each new wick has been diligently lit from the one before, all from the original flame.  Until now.

“Do you think it means something?” Suse asks.

“No,” I say with irritation, images of asphyxiated, brain damaged infants floating through my mind.  “Of course not.”

“Do you think it means our embryo didn’t make it?”

“No!” I say, even more forcefully.

We both stand there, staring at the innocent candle.  I feel sick to my stomach. Six minutes is all it takes for brain death.  Six minutes.  How long was this candle out for?

Two rational humans stand side by side, both lost for words, wondering on the fate of an unborn child.

Based on a candle.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, July 28, 2011 10:00 am

Friday 30th July 2010

One year ago.

Suse still hasn’t got her period.  Her breasts are still tender.  She feels like shit;  lethargic and irritable.

“The only thing that would make this okay, would be being pregnant,” she says.

She’s pre-menstrual, but more than that, she’s pre-pregnant.

That’s the bitch about all of this.

She doesn’t want to be waiting for another period.

She wants to be waiting for a baby.

* * * * *

Meantime, I head off to work.  I’ve got a week working in the neonatal ICU before I start working for NETS, the Neonatal Emergency Transfer Service.

There are gluttons for punishment, and then there’s me.

As the final six months of my six years of Paediatric training, I’ve had this set up for a while.  But the timing is just priceless.  If I can’t have a baby, then I’ll surround myself in everything to do with them.  I’ll work in a place where every single employee and every single visitor is totally devoted to the brand new babies that have just arrived into this world.

That’ll help.

Still, all the same, it seems to work for me.  I’m as busy as hell on the first day, and two hours in, my phone beeps.  I check it, and find a text from Bel and Dan:

‘We are downstairs having a coffee.  We’re sure you are flat out, but give us a call if you are on a break.’

I juggle the thought, before deciding to run downstairs.  There I see them sitting in the café, staring off into nothingness, lost in thought.

“Hey guys, how’s it going?”

“Just had to come in to check on things.  They’re a little worried about the heart rate.  They say it’s sitting a bit high.”

I look at both of them.  Given what they’ve been through in the last two years, this isn’t fair.

“Can’t this baby give you any piece of mind?”

“Clearly not,” says Dan.  “He’s determined to give us grief right up until he’s born.”

“He’ll be right.  He’s just trying to give you grey hairs.”

I look at both of them and smile.  I can see both of their shoulders drop at the reassurance.   “Seriously, this sort of thing is routine.  Totally routine.”

I wouldn’t have a clue.  I know nothing about what the CTG looked like, what they found on examination, or any of the medical staff’s concern.

But sometimes, it’s all people want.  All they want to hear is that everything is going to be all right. Whether you’re a friend, or a doctor or both.  Even when you can’t be sure.

That’s all they want to hear.

* * * * *

I rush back to work, having left them both with higher shoulders than before.  I think of them all through the day, hoping they remain upbeat.  It’s a battle when they’ve been beaten down so long.  After four egg harvests and countless rounds of disappointment, your shoulders have trouble going up anymore.  It’s barely worth raising them before you know they just have to go back down again.  ‘But not this time,’ I say to myself, ‘not this time.’

The day flies by, and as I finish work, I dial Suse.

“Hey love,” she answers.  It’s like there’s been a shower, and her voice has come out.  “I got my period!”

The clouds have parted and the sun is out.  There’s even a rainbow.

If you can’t have a baby, then sometimes, a period can be the next best thing.

It’s time to start a new month.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, July 8, 2011 10:00 am

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.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, July 7, 2011 10:00 am

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…

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By Mark Nethercote, July 6, 2011 10:00 am

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…