Dating Big Bird, page 20
“I am Dr. Vishnu,” he said, reaching out to shake my hand before he sat down behind his desk. “And you are”—he glanced at my file, which he’d brought with him—“Ms. Franck.”
“Ellen.”
He nodded. “Ellen.” He was a small balding man with gigantic glasses, and as he scanned my file, his giant leather chair dwarfed him in the same way that Karen’s giant chair dwarfed her. “Tell me, Ms.—Ellen—why you have come.”
Had he not seemed so genuinely curious and had I not been so nervous, I might have been glib, or tried to be funny, or shifted into excessive self-deprecation. But there was something—a warmth, a kindness—in his eyes and in his voice that melted me, and so I just said this:
“I want to have a baby.”
Suddenly the enormity of what I was doing—sitting in a fertility doctor’s office and starting the huge grinding wheels of procreation in motion—hit me, and I panicked.
“I think I want to have a baby,” I stammered. “I mean, I know I want to have one. I’m just not sure I want to do it today.”
He grinned. “Yes, well. That is a good thing, as I am completely booked today.”
We both laughed, and I relaxed a bit.
“What I meant was, I’m not sure I’m ready to do it immediately. But I want to get started on the process.”
He nodded and looked back at my file. “You are—not married, and not with a partner?”
“Correct.” I was tempted to clarify the fact that I was not a lesbian—wasn’t that the obvious stereotype?—but since it didn’t matter, I let it go.
“And you have decided on artificial insemination by a donor of known or unknown origin?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“A donor of known origin would be a friend, or an acquaintance, or someone with whom you’ve made an arrangement to become pregnant. A donor of unknown origin would be, most simply, an anonymous sperm donor.”
“Oh. Of course,” I said. “Unknown, then.”
“Tell me. You are familiar with this process? The steps involved before artificial insemination can take place?”
Ever the good student, I nodded: I’d done my homework.
“I’m down to two potential sperm donors.”
“Very good. Now let me explain. We will examine you to rule out any problems regarding fertility. If there are problems, of course, we will advise a course of treatment and proceed accordingly. This is to prevent you from wasting time and money on inseminations if you are not able to conceive.”
Neither Lynn nor my mother had had any trouble conceiving, so I looked at him expectantly to tell me the rest.
“After that you will discuss with a counselor here your decision to have a child independently—psychological considerations and also practical considerations: employment, financial planning, medical insurance, day care. Once you have gone through these steps and everything is in order, we can then approach the final stage of insemination.”
I let out a deep breath, then looked at an arrangement of family photographs on the credenza behind him. They were of his wife and his children—two sons and a daughter who were, judging from the latest snapshots, almost grown.
“Do you have any questions for me? Something you would like to discuss that I can help you with?”
I wanted to ask him a thousand questions—Should I wait? Will I ever meet anyone? Will I ever be happy?—but all I could do was shrug.
“What do you think I should do?” I whispered.
He smiled sympathetically.
“I mean, if I were your daughter—if she were in my position, what would you tell her to do? Would you tell her to do it now, or would you tell her to wait?”
“Technically at thirty-five—almost thirty-six—you are by no means at the end of your fertility cycle, though problems and complications with fertility do increase with time.”
I wanted him to continue, I wanted him to tell me what to do, for someone older and wiser to tell me that no matter what I decided, it would all be okay—but I knew he couldn’t do that. No one could. And that was life, plain and simple.
“I am advising only that when you are certain of your decision, you act sooner rather than later.”
Which is what I did.
I set up a schedule of examination and follow-up appointments with Dr. Vishnu’s secretary over the coming weeks. During this time, I met with a reproductive counselor and discussed the practical and financial considerations of my decision.
Did I have a source of income and a suitable place to live?
Yes.
Did I plan on returning to work immediately after the baby was born? If so, what childcare arrangements would I make?
No, I did not plan on going back to work right away. The voluntary six-month leave I was currently on would either be extended another six months or would become permanent, so it would be me taking care of the baby.
Did my family and friends approve of what I was doing?
Pause.
Did my family and friends know what I was doing?
Not yet.
Because …?
Because … I didn’t think it made sense to tell them anything until there was something to tell them.
So when and if I became pregnant …?
So when and if I became pregnant, I would happily spread the news.
Did I know yet what I would tell my child about the circumstances of their conception and birth?
No, I did not.
Did I feel confident that in four or five years—or whenever the time came—I could come up with a viable explanation?
Yes.
Was I comfortable with what I was doing—that is, did I feel completely sure I was making the right decision to become pregnant by the sperm of an unknown donor?
Yes. Would it have been my first choice, however? No.
All that was left to do now was to come to a final decision about the sperm donor.
A new feeling of resolve had set in by then, gradually calming all the different emotions that were roiling around in my head. Once in a while I’d think about the office—how Karen’s spring line was being put together now without me; what pandemonium had taken place there just before “Fashion Week” last month—but I felt very removed from that world. It was hard to believe that over a year had passed since I’d first run into Amy, and it was hard to believe the magnitude of the changes that had occurred since then. I’d broken up with Malcolm; both Lynn and Karen had each had her second child; I’d created mammo, and would probably never have to work again.
By Thanksgiving I’d decided on the architect-to-be. I was ready to take the final step without hesitation or ambivalence.
The order for the sperm was placed through Dr. Vishnu’s office.
And at the precise moment of my next ovulation cycle, on a clear cold early December morning, I raced up to Eighty-first Street and Park Avenue.
As fast as the legs of my gum-ball machine full of eggs would carry me.
19
Aside from the morning sickness, and the weight gain, and the swollen hands and feet, and the fact that I can’t stay up past nine anymore, and the early-morning insomnia, and the occasional panic attacks I get when I think about the amniocentesis I’ll have to have and when I wonder about the huge leap of faith I’ve made—I’m having a relatively easy first trimester.
Believe it or not, my test was positive after only one insemination. This surprised me and made me revise a few aspects of my new nine-month plan, since I’d padded it with several extra months of insemination attempts. Dr. Vishnu was surprised, too—so surprised, in fact, that when he called to tell me the news, he went on and on about how getting pregnant at my age on the first round of assisted-pregnancy techniques was highly unlikely. I assumed he was paying me a compliment, or at least trying to, by making me feel good about the apparent viability of the few old eggs I’d had left. But even if he was simply being scientific, the speed and ease with which it had happened made the whole thing seem destined.
I waited awhile to tell my parents—my mother, actually—until the week between Christmas and New Year’s, when we all descended on my sister in Maine. I dreaded taking both of them on at once, and since I knew that my father was ultimately the easier of the two to tell, I decided to get the worst over with first. One afternoon when my father was napping, I got my mother alone in the kitchen while she was making a salad. It was dusk then, and the house was unusually quiet.
“I have something to tell you,” I said.
She looked up at me from the cutting board with her Who died? face. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing’s the matter.”
“You’re not sick, then.”
“No. I’m not sick.” I edged a step or two closer to her along the counter. And then I told her.
Everything.
My obsession with Nicole and Amy’s obsession with Isabel. Lynn and Karen’s pregnancies. Arlene Schiffler’s column and the deadline it inspired. Internet sperm bank-browsing. My breakup with Malcolm. Walking along the beach after David’s birth. My decision to become a single mother by choice and Amy’s decision not to. The sperm donor selection. Dr. Vishnu and the insemination. The day I got the phone call that it took.
And as I talked I watched her face fall. And fall. And fall some more.
Long ago, if I’d ever thought about what it would be like to tell my mother I was pregnant, I probably would have envisioned myself in a pretty kitchen in a pretty house in a pretty suburb, my husband in the next room, a wedding ring on my finger, and her face: happy, excited, relieved. I’m sure she had imagined a scenario like this, too, which was why she was rendered completely speechless. For a moment, anyway.
“I don’t know what to say,” she eventually managed. “I’m in shock.”
I leaned against the counter and crossed my arms in front of me. I’d expected this reaction. It was always about her, it seemed; always about how things affected her. She had never been able to hear anything Lynn and I ever said without taking it personally.
The silence between us was thick with disappointment and disapproval. “Okay …” I said. Meaning: And what else?
She threw her hands up melodramatically. “When is this … when are you due?”
“September.”
“And you’re prepared for this? For all the responsibilities and problems that come with having a baby?”
“Joy comes with it, too,” I said. But suddenly I could feel the bottom start to fall out of my insides and the doubt rushing in like air after a vacuum.
She conceded the point with some reluctance. “And the joy.”
“As prepared as anyone ever is, I think.”
“Because you’ve taken on a huge commitment. That’s a lot for one person to cope with. Alone.”
I winced at the word, but I was determined not to let her pessimism infect me, defeat me, the way it had so many times before.
“Look, I know my life hasn’t always turned out the way you expected,” I said slowly, feeling my way around the words inside my head. “That I haven’t turned out the way you expected.”
“And what way is that?”
“Normal. Like all your friends’ children. You know, living nearby. Married. Kids.” I answered her without a second’s hesitation, and it surprised me. And saddened me, since I realized that one of the things I still wanted most was for my mother to approve of me, to like me. “My life hasn’t turned out the way I expected it to either. I mean, I never, in a million years, expected to make a decision like this. To have to make a decision like this. But then again, I feel lucky. Because it’s a decision I could make: I’m going to be able to have a baby after all.”
“Alone?” she repeated.
“Yes,” I said. “Alone.” I stared her down but felt increasingly guilty as I watched her eyes fill up with tears, and it was only then as she reached for a dish towel to wipe them away that I realized she was afraid for me. We were not a particularly fearless lot, our family; did not often believe in a benevolent future, though we did have our rare moments of hopefulness. And this, as it turned out, would be one of them.
“I may not always be alone.”
She shrugged. True.
“And besides: I’m not alone. I have a few really good friends. And I have Lynn. She’ll help me.”
“Of course she will.” She turned away to wash her hands at the sink, but I could tell from the way she tried to hide her face from me that I’d hurt her feelings without meaning to.
“And maybe, if you feel you want to, you could help me.”
She turned back around. “You want my help?”
“Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?”
“I’m just surprised, that’s all. I can’t remember the last time you asked for it.”
I thought a minute. I couldn’t either.
She wiped her eyes again, then put the towel down, and then she hugged me. And in that one moment, in that one familiar instant of standing in the kitchen by the sink with my mother, each of us trying to understand the other and once, in a blue moon, succeeding, I knew the flood of doubt had been pushed back. Maybe she had never been able to say the right thing at the right time, but I had always believed that in the end, my mother would stand by me. And knowing that she’d be there to teach me how to feed and bathe and diaper a baby, that she’d be there to teach me everything she knew about being a mother—however imperfect I may have thought her mothering skills were (was there a daughter on earth who didn’t think her mother’s mothering skills were imperfect?)—I felt less alone than I had in a very long time.
August 30 was my due date, at least by Dr. Vishnu’s calculations.
I’d told Lynn, of course, the week before, when I’d gotten there ahead of everyone else. She and I had just exchanged presents—I gave her a mammo necklace of course (in white gold), and she gave me a silver locket, inside of which was a teeny-tiny photograph of the Pickle and the Monkey, who looked very distinguished for all of his four months. When I broke the news, she started tiptoeing excitedly around the house, giving me her favorite early-stage sweatpants and pulling whatever pregnancy books I didn’t already have off the shelves. Which I brought home and added to my already-extensive collection.
I’ve gone back to those books, and except for the husband stuff, they make sense. Every night I get into bed and read one, and then I even fill out a diary page in the What to Expect When You’re Expecting “Daily Pregnancy Journal” that Amy gave me a few days after I told her. She’s given me a whole bunch of other things too since, I suspect, she still feels a little guilty for not getting pregnant, too—like a black Lycra four-piece essential leggings-skirt-tunic-dress Pregnancy Survival Kit and two stuffed dolls: one Barney and one Big Bird, for old times’ sake.
A month ago, right after New Year’s, she and Barry got engaged, and while I wasn’t beside myself with joy, I tried to be, and I think I was almost convincing. At least, I hope I was. He really was nice, and he was clearly head over heels in love with her. I even offered to help her go looking for a wedding dress once my all-day morning sickness subsides, but she reminded me that she still has her old one. Good thing she held on to it.
A few weeks ago I started looking at larger apartments and cribs and strollers and changing tables and nursery wallpaper and color schemes, but I became completely overwhelmed. I asked Renee if she would make all these decisions for me so I could just go about the business of being pregnant without any additional stress, but she said since I’m going to have a baby I better stop being a baby and do it myself, and that she has enough to do preparing to be my birth coach.
I guess she’s just saving all her nurturing skills and moral support for the delivery room.
Karen is back at work now. I called her recently to tell her my good news, though I assumed she’d already heard it from Simon. While she wasn’t about to start trading pregnancy war-stories with me or offering to share baby clothes, she did say that if I ever needed anything—anything—she would always be there to help me, and I believed her. Simon calls once in a while with gossip and news from the office, and last week I recognized his handiwork when I saw an item in the New York Observer with the boldfaced subhead “Karen Skipps a Meal at the Grill Room.”
Arlene Schiffler, of course, has a new column, “The First Year of Motherhood”—and when I need a good laugh or after I’ve had a good cry because I’m afraid of doing everything I have to do alone, I’ll buy the latest issue of Glamour or reread a grotesque diary entry from an earlier month to Amy over the phone until the panic and terror and fear of the unknown subsides. Comfort seems to come from the oddest places these days, but when it does, I’m usually far too grateful to question it.
Or already asleep.
Malcolm called one night, out of the blue, during the second week of February. I’d been standing in the middle of the living room wondering if there was some other configuration of furniture that would miraculously provide enough extra space for a nursery so I wouldn’t have to move, when the phone rang. Ten months had passed since we’d spoken, and while I used to occasionally rehearse a script should he ever call again, when I finally did hear him asking me how I was, I had no idea what to say.
We made small talk for a few minutes—I told him I was on leave, and he told me he was teaching at Columbia now instead of the New School. Then he told me that he’d thought a lot about me and our relationship over the months we’d been apart, and asked if we could get together and talk. And because by this point I thought seeing him and talking to him couldn’t do me any harm and could only do me some good—closure and setting things right between us and all that other therapy-speak stuff—I agreed to meet him for a drink at the Cedar Tavern in an hour.
It took me almost that long to figure out what to wear, since everything I owned was already a little tight and would only make me look fat, though not necessarily fat and pregnant. But I quickly realized that it didn’t matter what I wore, so I ripped into the Pregnancy Survival Kit and put on the leggings and tunic. Then I grabbed my keys and my coat and quickly walked the few blocks to meet him.
