One Good Egg: An Illustrated Memoir (16 page)

I immediately began conversations with Dr. Penzias’s insurance liaison. An injectible hormone cycle would run us $2,000 to $3,000 out of pocket; however, Massachusetts has generous infertility coverage.
The liaison had worked with several clients in “our situation,” a.k.a. “women without exposure to sperm” in insurance circles. Since I was self-insured and at liberty to switch my coverage, she recommended a change. I would make the change after I got my Day 3 labs back, unless my Day 3 labs disqualified me. (
GAME OVER
!!!)

The lab results were on my answering machine. My follicle-stimulating hormone level had gone up from 8.8 to 10.4, but it was well below the cutoff. I switched my coverage, and while I was on a roll, I called Tom Mecke. Apparently, my communications alert had been downgraded. It was no longer necessary for me to speak with Tom; whomever I was speaking with could arrange my withdrawal.

“How many vials, and where are we sending them?”

“All of them, please. We’re going to store them at Boston IVF, just easier . . . ” as if I owed her an explanation.

I gave her the phone number for the andrology department, and the transfer was scheduled for August 29th.
August 29th was a record hot day. I sat in front of the portable air conditioner in my studio, trying to unvisualize what was left of our microwaved sperm melting and pooling in the crevices of a taxi’s backseat.

Andrology called to say our thirty vials had arrived safely. The end of a bad chapter. Finally.

If at First Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth You Don’t Succeed

We were coming up on Labor Day weekend
, and I was getting ready to ovulate. Everything was in place for our OIOIUI (first official intra-office intra-uterine insemination): Boston IVF was open seven days a week, including Labor Day.

This time, the problem was me. I might be out of place, out of town; I’d bought tickets (my mother’s and mine) to the U. S. Open months ahead of time, and we would be in New York the first half of the weekend. I packed up my OPK and went, intending to bomb back home if necessary.

And, just in case I wasn’t already worried enough about surging, Boston IVF called to tell Lorene that if I wasn’t surging by Monday, I would need to come in for more blood work and an ultrasound.

I got the double-purple positive on my OPK at a rest area off Route 84 on our way home from New York. I practically skipped back to the car.
My first insemination, tomorrow
! There was a chance I’d eke out a conception in my thirties . . . I considered telling my mother, then thought better of it. She was what you might call
generally
supportive, not interested in the ins and outs, especially not the ins, of my project.

Inseminations took place two floors above Dr. Penzias’s office at the fertility center. It seemed like a normal waiting room from the other side of the double glass doors. We entered and I announced myself at the desk: “Suzy Becker—”

“Suzy B.?” the receptionist gently corrected, running her pen under the privacy statement on the clipboard. “Sign in here.” I signed in, and Lorene and I sat down below a poster that discouraged clients from bringing their children to their appointments, in deference to the difficulties other clients were experiencing conceiving. The sensitivity in the air was mildly oppressive.

“Michael R.? Heidi M.?” I looked. It was okay to look if someone was moving—taking a seat, selecting a new magazine, or getting up once their name was called. You just couldn’t ogle the people who were seated. What was the beginning for us was the middle or end of a long road for others.
My infertility, if you want to call it that, is circumstantial, not biological.

“Suzy B.?” Lorene and I both stood. We got lots of glances as people made their guesses.

Jackie, our inseminator, told us all about herself on our way down the hallway. She had switched from pediatrics to become an IVF nurse after her own experience with infertility, which resulted in a healthy baby girl. She was very proud of her client-success rate.

Since she was so free with her experience, I asked her about my one fear. “Does this feel like the tube test?”

“Oh, no, nothing like that,” she assured me. “You know you can take Advil, right? I personally didn’t. Remember, though,
only
Tylenol once there’s a chance you’re pregnant.”

We entered the room and she closed the door. “All right! Before we get started, I need you to positively identify the sperm and sign this release.” Jackie held up a test tube full of cloudy water with Steve’s name on it.

Positively identify? Microscope, please!
It didn’t resemble any sperm I’d ever seen. I looked at Lorene and then signed. Jackie handed me a johnny. “Undress from the waist down.” She turned her back to us, busying herself with the sperm. Then she turned around and patted the table. I laid down and put my feet in the stirrups.

Lorene held my hand. Jackie disappeared under the johnny, then bobbed back up. “Relax!” Lorene smiled. I breathed.
I am relaxed.
“Relax,” Jackie said again. “Relax your butt muscles.” The paper crinkled loudly as I dropped onto the table.

Jackie held up the empty syringe. “All done! Let’s see—56 million sperm, 40% motile—there are 21 million sperm racing for that egg. The rate of progression is 3 out of 4, 4 is Olympic. Three is almost, in training.”