What Came First (27 page)

That night on the phone, I said, “When you said you’d stand by me no matter what—it means a lot to me.”

“I meant it.”

“I know you did.”

He took a deep breath. “And someday . . . years from now, after college . . . someday you’ll be pregnant for real. And we’ll be happy about it. And . . . I kind of can’t wait for that.”

Five years later, we got married. Another four and a half years after that, I switched from the pill to a diaphragm. I didn’t dare going straight from the pill to pregnancy: too much risk of multiple births.

Finally, after six months, I packed away birth control altogether. At first, we told ourselves we weren’t really “trying.” We simply weren’t preventing. After two years of “not preventing,” we started trying for real: first the ovulation charts, then the ovulation predictor kits. My cycles were irregular. They always had been.

“It’ll happen,” Darren told me.

“I’m sorry,” I sobbed one night. I did a lot of sobbing in those years. Even more than now, I mean.

“For what?”

“If you’d married someone else, you’d be a dad by now.”

“There is nobody else. Never was, never will be. And anyway, we don’t know that’s it’s because of you. It could be me.”

We both knew he was just saying that to make me feel better, which somehow made me feel worse.

Darren went with me to the fertility specialist, a woman that my gynecologist had recommended without mentioning that she, unlike most of her patients, was pregnant.

“We’ll have to test you too,” the doctor told Darren, resting my patient file on her enormous belly.

“That’s fine,” he said.

“But I know it’s me.” I sat on the examining table, arms crossed over my paper dress. “My ovulation . . .”

“It’s standard procedure.” The doctor placed her clipboard on the counter. “It’s entirely possible that you both have issues. It’s not uncommon.”

She waddled over to the examining table and flipped up the stirrups. “If you haven’t ejaculated in the last couple of days, you can do it right now,” she told Darren over her shoulder.

He blinked at her. “Here?”

She smiled. “Down the hall. In a bathroom. There are magazines. Or your wife can go with you. Whichever makes you more comfortable.”

Comfortable? Was she kidding? Suddenly the paper dress and stirrups didn’t seem so bad. I checked Darren’s face. He looked mortified.

“Or you can do it at home,” the doctor told Darren. “As long as you follow proper protocol and tell us ahead of time that you’re coming in.”

The clinic was a half hour from our house, forty-five minutes from Darren’s office. He’d taken the morning off to be here.

“I’ll just . . . I’ll do it now.” He stood up. I’ve never seen him look so dazed.

The doctor proceeded with the exam, which was more uncomfortable than I expected. When she was done, she tossed her rubber gloves into the metal trash can and told me I could get dressed.

“I’ll have the nurse bring you a specimen cup,” she told Darren.

“You want me to go with you?” I asked, yanking on my underpants.

When he shook his head, I felt relieved. And then I felt rejected.

He must have noticed my expression, because he said, “If I do this alone, I can pretend it never happened.”

He wasn’t gone long—five minutes, maybe a little longer. We walked out of the office without saying anything. When we reached the parking lot, I took his hand. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

He squeezed my hand. “It’s worse for you.”

He was right; it was worse for me. After five humiliating minutes in the restroom, Darren was off the hook. His sperm motility was so bad and his count so low, there was no medical procedure in the world that would make the slightest difference.

My problems, though: those could be investigated and addressed through exploratory surgery, hormone shots, intrauterine insemination, and, finally, in vitro. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Darren chose our first sperm donor, a tall, athletic, educated six-footer with light brown hair and blue eyes.

“Just like me, only better,” Darren said, forcing a smile.

“No one’s better.”

He rolled his eyes.

We tried taking the cheap route first—an intrauterine insemination in the doctor’s office. When that didn’t work, we emptied our checking account and took out a big chunk of our savings for one failed in vitro attempt and then another. I cried a lot. Darren began spending more time on his computer. He slept farther away from me in the bed.

He suggested adoption.

“I want my own baby,” I blurted—and then immediately wished I could take it back. Instead, I tried to dig myself out. “I mean, with adoption—it’s just such a long wait. And so expensive. And you can’t control what the mother did when she was pregnant or what kind of genetic issues you’re dealing with . . .”

“I get it,” he said.

The bank had run out of our tall donor’s sperm. When I asked for Darren’s input on a new donor, he said, “I don’t care. You pick.”

I found another six-foot-tall man, this one blond with green eyes, but the clinic told me that his remaining vials had been reserved for the families that had already used him and might want more children.

I thought of Darren, and my heart hurt. He’s the one I really wanted to father my children. The closer the donor matched him, the better.

“Do you have anyone who’s five foot eight?” I asked the cryobank. “Brown hair, blue eyes. Really smart, likes math and science?”

I paid two hundred and fifty dollars for sperm from a medical student identified only as Donor 613.

“Last chance,” I told Darren. “If this doesn’t work . . .” I couldn’t even bear to finish the sentence.

When my pregnancy test came up positive, I left a message on Darren’s voice mail.

He didn’t call back.

We are mostly silent during the fifteen-minute drive from the fertility clinic to the restaurant, and it isn’t until I’ve parked the car and turned off the ignition that Eric realizes where I’ve taken him—and why I spent so much time fiddling with my GPS.

“Hooters?” His mouth hangs open.

“I considered a strip club,” I admit. “But this was closer. Also classier, at least in relative terms.”

He continues to gawk—and we haven’t even left the car yet. Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea.

“We can go somewhere else, if you’d rather,” I say. “If you’re not, um . . .”

“A boob man?”

“Right.”

He bursts out laughing and opens the door. “I like boobs just as much as the next guy. Let’s eat.”

Aside from the well-endowed (naturally or otherwise) girls in white tank tops and orange hot pants, Hooters resembles the countless chain restaurants that Ian and I frequent on the weekends, with scuffed wood floors and pine walls decorated with sports banners. Outdated music plays a touch too loudly over the speakers. Big-screen TVs dangle from the ceiling and sprout along the walls, flashing images of baseball, boxing, soccer, track, and even shuffleboard.

“I don’t suppose you have a children’s menu,” I joke to the pretty hostess, who is much too short to be carrying breasts that size.

“We do!” she chirps. “Plus kids eat free on Sundays!”

We follow her through the half-full dining room. To my surprise, I am not the only female customer, though the clientele definitely skews toward men in their thirties and forties, the majority dressed casually in T-shirts and shorts, with a few sporting ties. Most of the men appear more fascinated by the televised baseball than by the girls in orange hot pants.

Our table, set with plastic orange glasses, a chunky wood condiment dispenser, and our very own roll of paper towels, is near a wall; I stand aside to allow Eric the seat with the better view. The hostess hands us laminated menus, instructs us to have an amazing lunch, and scampers back to her stand.

“You bring a lot of clients here?” Eric asks, opening his menu.

“Just the really important ones. And only when I can’t get a table at Applebee’s.”

He shakes his head and smiles. “This is officially the weirdest day of my life.”

Our waitress introduces herself by sitting sideways in a spare chair at our table and writing her name on a cocktail napkin:
AFTON
♥. I didn’t even know Afton was a name, but no matter. For my purposes, she is perfect: tall, thin, and busty (of course), with shiny black hair and big brown eyes.

“I’ll have an iced tea,” I tell her.

“Just water,” Eric says, working so hard keep his eyes off of Afton’s chest that he seems to be focusing on her forehead. Nearby, a guy built like a bouncer buses tables.

“How about a beer?” I suggest. “You should have a beer.”

“I’ll have a beer,” Eric tells Afton’s forehead.

She flashes us a big smile, stands up, and bounces away. The back of her tank top reads
Delightfully tacky yet unrefined.

“I’m going to have to come here more often,” I joke, scanning the menu, which features man food: chicken wings, burgers, seafood.

“No veggie burgers,” I say. “Sorry.”

“They’ve got grilled cheese. Good enough.” Eric shuts his menu.

“Why are you a vegetarian, anyway?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Because eating meat is unhealthy, bad for the environment, and cruel. Why are you a carnivore?”

“Omnivore,” I say.

A new waitress, this one blond, appears at the table and sits in the seat Afton vacated.

“Hi!” Her smile is very, very white.

“Hello.”

“I’m right next door.” She gestures to a table full of men. “Holler if you need me!” She takes out a pen and writes her name below Afton’s on the cocktail napkin.
CAYLA
.

“No heart next to her name?” I say to Eric once Cayla leaves.

“I’m kind of hurt,” he says.

Afton delivers our drinks and settles back into her chair, crossing her shapely legs. Eric orders his grilled cheese. I go for mahi mahi tacos. Afton playfully suggests we order chicken wings. We playfully tell her no. Well, I do, anyway; once he’s done ordering, Eric keeps his eyes firmly fixed on the paper-towel dispenser.

“Well?” Eric asks once Afton leaves and he can look up again. “Why do you eat meat?”

“Just because,” I say.

He raises his eyebrows. “Impressive reasoning. That the kind of argument you present in court?”

“I’m not a litigator. I don’t go to court.”

“Did you want to be a litigator?”

“Oh, no. I dislike conflict way too much.”

He takes a swig of his beer. “Why law, then?”

I shrug. “Why not law? I got out of college with a liberal arts degree. American literature. Not the most marketable major in the world. I spent a couple of years in advertising. The money was terrible, plus I didn’t really get the point. You know, putting all that effort into something that ultimately just annoys people.”

“Unlike lawyers.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. We’re not all ambulance chasers. I mainly practice estate law. Wills, trusts, that sort of thing. I help people plan for the future so their heirs can avoid conflicts later on. I like working, feeling productive. For the most part, I take a lot of satisfaction from what I do. And I certainly appreciate the financial security.”

In a corner of my brain, I consider that I am defending my career choice to a college-educated, med-school-dropout Costco checker.

I rip open a packet of sugar and dump it into the iced tea. No artificial sweeteners for me, not while I’m trying to get pregnant.

Afton comes by again and sets a few wrapped packets on the table. At first I think they are condoms (the last thing we need right now), but when I pick one up, I see it is a hand wipe. There is writing on the back of the package.
Bartender: pharmacist with limited inventory.

I check another package.
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?

And a third.
Insomnia is nothing to lose sleep over.
Obviously, that one is for me. I rip the package open.

On the overhead speakers, a Rolling Stones song gives way to Madonna’s “Like a Virgin
.
”

“Tell me about your music,” I say, cleaning my hands. “What was it like?”

Eric chooses the Pavlov wipe. “Acoustic. Rhythm-based. Kind of like Jason Mraz only . . .”

“What?”

“Not as good.” He half smiles.

“I bet you were better than you give yourself credit for.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Want to know what the bloggers said?”

“What?”

“That I was kind of like Jason Mraz only not as good.” This time he full-smiles. I can’t help but grin back.

He drinks some more of his beer, puts the bottle on the table, and picks at the label. “Your other pregnancy. I don’t know if it’s any of my business. But was it . . . mine? I mean, from my, uh . . .”