“I will promise you no such thing.” Marina laughed good-naturedly. “And if the good Lord means for you to get pregnant at ninety, you will. Just read the Enquirer, for heaven’s sake.”
“You’re a big help. This is not a freak show, Judge Goletti, this is my life … or is it? My mother called today, that’s always fun.”
“What little bits of good cheer did she share with you today?”
“Nothing much. A heat wave in New York, and a reminder that my father was my age when he was appointed to the Court of Appeals.”
“Oh, you dismal failure. I had no idea … How nice of her to remind you.”
“I thought so too. She thinks I ought to try for your job, by the way.”
“So do I. But that’s another conversation, and right now I have to get back out there, and be a judge. I’ve got a felony drunk-driving case this afternoon that I could live very happily without. The defendant walked out of his completely demolished car unscathed, having just killed a thirty-year-old pregnant woman and her three children. Fortunately, there’s a jury, and they’ll have to make the decision.”
“Sounds like a rough one,” Pilar said sympathetically. She loved their exchanges, their conversations, their friendship. She was never disappointed in Marina.
“It will be a rough one. Take care. I’ll talk to you soon. Maybe we can have lunch, if you’re not too busy.”
“I’ll call you.”
“Thanks. Bye.” They hung up, and they both went back to work.
They never had time to have lunch that week, or the following one. They were just too busy, and so was Pilar until Brad suggested they go away for a few days, to a very romantic little hotel he knew in the Carmel Valley. As he referred to it now, it was “blue week.” Her LH, or luteinizing hormones, were about to surge, and she was going to ovulate within the next day or two. And Brad thought it might be nicer to go away to deal with the event, rather than stay home and field crises on the bench, and in her office.
But by the time they got to the hotel, they had both had such a difficult few days at work, that they were both exhausted. And it was a relief to be alone in luxurious surroundings, just to be together and talk and think, without the interruption of telephones, or an avalanche of briefs and memos.
And in spite of the hectic days that had preceded their trip, they had a good time cruising the antique shops in Carmel. He even bought her a small, very pretty painting. It was of a mother and child on a beach at dusk; it had an impressionist flavor, and she loved it. She knew if she got pregnant now, that painting would always have special meaning for her.
They went back to Santa Barbara after two days, happy and relaxed, and convinced that they’d done it this time. She was almost sure of it, she told Brad. Until she got her period again the following month, and had to start taking the clomiphene. And it did exactly what the doctor had said it would. It made her feel wound up as tight as a watch spring. She was ready to jump at everything Brad said, and she wanted to strangle her secretary at least six times daily. She had to control’ herself not to lash out verbally at her clients. And she almost lost control of herself arguing with a judge in the courtroom, Just controlling her temper was suddenly a full-time job. And she had a constant sense of exhaustion from the medication.
“This is fun, isn’t it?” she said to Brad. “You must really love it.” She had been hideous to him for two weeks and she could barely stand herself, let alone understand how he could stand her. It was a lot worse than she’d thought it would be, but it was worth it if she had a baby.
“It’s worth it if it helps,” he reassured her. But the trouble was that, once again, it didn’t. They had been trying for five months by then, and the following month Dr. Ward had scheduled them for artificial insemination, the week before Thanksgiving.
They had discussed it with her at great length, before deciding to try it, and she had assured them she thought it might make a difference. What she wanted to do was increase Pilar’s dose of clomiphene that month to twice the dose she’d been taking—which wasn’t great news to Pilar—do an ultrasound just before ovulation to check the development of her follicle, give her a shot of another hormone, human chorionic gonadotrophin, or HCG, the night before she ovulated, and then perform an intrauterine insemination, delivering the sperm directly into the uterus, making the meeting of sperm and egg that much easier, and perhaps that much better.
Pilar wasn’t crazy about taking the drugs. She was already unbearably tense on the amount she was taking, but Helen Ward assured her it was worth a try, and they made a reservation at the Bel Air for two days, on what they believed were the right dates, based on what they could expect from the drugs, and what they had learned from her temperatures. And Dr. Ward warned them not to make love for three days before, so as not to deplete Brad’s sperm count.
“I feel like a race horse in training,” he teased as they drove to L.A. And by then Pilar felt almost human again. She had taken the last dose of clomiphene five days before, and she was just beginning to feel like herself again, a small gift for which she was now extremely grateful. Just having a day when she didn’t feel as though her head were going to blow off, and she didn’t have a fight with Brad, had suddenly become very important.
They went straight to the doctor’s office when they reached L.A., and the doctor did a transvaginal ultrasound to examine her ovaries, and she was pleased with what she found. She gave Pilar the HCG shot immediately after that, and asked them to come back at noon the next day, which left them a whole afternoon and night free to do anything they wanted, except make love. And they were both surprised to find that they felt excited and anxious.
“Maybe by tomorrow I’ll be pregnant,” she whispered, and that afternoon he bought her a beautiful antique diamond pin, in the form of a small heart, at David Orgell on Rodeo Drive, and then they went down the street to shop at Fred Hayman. It was an extravagant afternoon, but they were both on a high, and terrified that it might turn into a down before they knew it.
They had drinks at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and dinner at Spago and then went back to the Bel Air, and walked quietly through the gardens, watching the swans, before they went to bed. And they both lay there awake for a long time, thinking about tomorrow.
The next morning, they were both nervous when they left the hotel, and Pilar was shaking as they got in the elevator of Helen Ward’s building.
“Isn’t this stupid?” she whispered to Brad. “I feel like a kid about to lose her virginity,” she said, and he smiled. He was edgy too. He didn’t like the idea of having to produce the semen in the doctor’s office. The doctor had assured them that Brad could take as long as he wanted to, and Pilar was welcome to help. But the whole idea seemed incredibly embarrassing, and they were both dreading it. But they were both surprised by how smoothly it went once they reached her office.
They were ushered in through a separate door, into a private room that looked more like a well-appointed hotel room. There was a bed, a television with erotic videotapes, a stack of magazines to arouse their “guests,” and assorted erotic implements and vibrators designed to make the task easier than it might otherwise have been. And on the table there was a small vial for the purpose of collection.
Nothing was said about when to come out, or how much time they had, and before leaving them, the nurse asked them if they would like coffee, tea, or soft drinks. And then suddenly Pilar started to laugh as she looked at him. He looked so serious and well dressed, but she couldn’t help herself, suddenly the whole thing seemed ridiculously funny.
“It’s like checking into an adult motel, isn’t it?” She giggled and he started to laugh too.
“How would you know?”
“I’ve read about them in magazines.” She laughed again, and he pulled her down next to him on the bed with a rueful smile.
“How did I ever let you get me into this?” he said as he looked at her.
“I’m not sure. I was wondering the same thing
on the way here. And you know what?” She looked at him seriously. “If you don’t want to do this, it’s okay with me. You’ve been wonderful about all of it, and maybe I am going too far … I didn’t mean to … I don’t ever want to make you uncomfortable …” She was feeling guilty about putting him through it. It wasn’t his fault she was so old. His sperm was fine, it was her body that was giving out. And if she had let him think of children earlier, they would never have had to go through this.
“Do you still want a baby, Pilar?” he asked her gently as they lay on the bed talking, and she nodded sadly. “Okay, then stop worrying, and let’s have a good time.” He got up and put an outrageous film on the TV, and it embarrassed her, but she thought it was funny, too, and then she helped him take his clothes off. She took her clothes off, too, and began teasing him while he watched the screen, and he was very quickly aroused, and so was she, and she was almost sorry to have to waste it. He was throbbing with desire to enter her, and she held the cup as close to her as she could, as she rubbed and teased and titillated and kissed, until they achieved the desired results, and he lay spent in her arms. It had been different for both of them, but it hadn’t been entirely unpleasant.
They took a quick shower, and dressed, and rang for the nurse, holding out the cup to her when she arrived. And she asked Pilar to come with her.
“May I come too?” Brad asked hesitantly. There seemed to be nothing about this process that they hadn’t shared so far, and he wanted to be there for her, too, if there was going to be any unpleasant part of the treatment.
The nurse told him he could join them, and Pilar took off her clothes again and put on the gown, and lay down on the insemination table nervously. And a moment later, Dr. Ward came in and transferred the freshly washed sperm into a hypodermic. A small tube was then fed into Pilar’s uterus, and the sperm from the hypodermic was carefully injected, and within minutes it was over, the tube was removed, and Dr. Ward asked her to lie there for half an hour before leaving. The doctor left them alone, and she and Brad chatted quietly, and he teased her that he had thought they were going to use a turkey baster.
“I feel like the turkey lying here,” she said. The whole process had been surprisingly simple, but it seemed so exhausting. It was emotionally draining to try so hard, and strive so hard for what you wanted.
“I bet this will work,” he said hopefully, and then he laughed thinking of the movie they’d watched in the other room. “We’ll have to get some of those,” he teased, and she laughed. She was a good sport about all this, but so was he. And it wasn’t easy for either of them. But sometimes good things weren’t.
“We’re all set.” The doctor stopped in to see them again before they left, and reminded her that all her hormone tests had been normal, and her progesterone levels had been very high ever since she’d started taking the clomiphene. But she also warned them that it could take from six to ten times before it “took.” “You’re going to be seeing a lot of me, more than your friends or your family,” she had warned, but the Colemans said they wouldn’t mind it.
She wished them a happy Thanksgiving when they left, and told Pilar to keep her posted. She wanted a call from her in two weeks to tell her if she got her period or not.
“Don’t worry.” Pilar smiled. “You’ll hear from me either way!” Especially if she got pregnant. And if she didn’t, they’d have to come back for artificial insemination again … and again … and again … until it took, or they gave up. Whichever came first, and she hoped it would be the former.
She had wanted to talk to the doctor about GIFT too. It was a procedure she’d read about—gamete intra-Fallopian transfer—a process much like in vitro, but which had better results in women over forty. But Dr. Ward wouldn’t even discuss it. “Let’s give intrauterine insemination a chance first, shall we?” she said firmly. She said they were way premature in discussing such exhaustive measures. And she was optimistic about artificial insemination. With the clomiphene, progesterone levels were very high, and that would certainly help her get pregnant.
It was a long, peaceful drive home, and they felt even closer to each other after the past few days. And it was a quiet week for them before Thanksgiving. Pilar was trying not to overdo it at the office.
Nancy and Tommy and Adam spent Thanksgiving with them that year, and Todd had gone skiing in Denver with his girlfriend. But he had promised to come home for Christmas this year, so they didn’t complain about his not being home for Thanksgiving.
Little Adam was five months old by then, and he was gurgling and cooing, and he had two teeth right in the middle of his lower gum, and it was obvious that Brad was crazy about him. Pilar held him for a long time, too, and as usual, Nancy commented on how good with him she was, which always surprised her, since Pilar had never had children.
“Instinct, I guess,” she teased, but neither she nor Brad talked about their plans, or their efforts to have a baby. It was too important to them, too secret, to share with anyone. And Pilar was on pins and needles waiting to see if she was pregnant. She could barely keep her mind on Thanksgiving.
And when the young couple went home that night, Pilar was relieved to be alone again, and talked immediately about how much she hoped the insemination had taken.
“We’ll see,” Brad said, but he had noticed a funny look in her eyes that rang a chord of memory. It was a sleepy look, but she had no symptoms, no inkling that anything had changed, and he decided that, like Pilar, he was just hoping she had gotten pregnant.
Diana and Andy’s Thanksgiving had a nightmarish quality that year. Their life had been a living hell for three months, and sometimes Andy thought he wouldn’t get through it. He couldn’t talk to her anymore, couldn’t stand the bitterness and self-pity and hatred. She hated everyone and everything, and she was angry all the time now. She was angry at life, at the fates which had dealt her such a cruel hand. But there was nothing he could do. They had dealt him the same hand, too, as long as he chose to be with her. But there were days when he wondered if either of them could go on for much longer.
And things had gotten even worse in October, when Bill and Denise had announced that she was pregnant. It had happened literally the night of their wedding. Diana was horrified by the irony of it, and she flatly refused to see them anymore, which made life even lonelier for Andy.
She refused to talk to Eloise most of the time, too, about anything but work at least. And she had stopped mentioning Dr. Johnston to her completely. Eloise no longer mentioned him or her father to her at all; she had long since realized that something devastating must have happened.
Diana wouldn’t see any of their friends. And eventually most of them stopped calling. By Thanksgiving, Diana had succeeded in completely isolating them, and Andy thought life had never been more grim than it was at the moment.
And Diana had compounded their miseries by agreeing to spend Thanksgiving with the Goodes in Pasadena. He wanted to force her to cancel it, but much to his chagrin, she wouldn’t. They were the only people they’d seen in months, and they were the wrong ones.
“For chrissake,” Andy complained, “why did you do that?”
“They’re my family! What did you expect me to do, tell them we don’t want to see them anymore just because I’m sterile?”
“That has nothing to do with it. It’s just so difficult for you there. Your sisters ask you questions about getting pregnant all the time, and Sam is six months pregnant, for heaven’s sake. Do you really need to do that to yourself?” Or to either of them, for that matter, but he didn’t say that.
“She’s still my sister.”
He didn’t understand her anymore, and he wasn’t sure he ever would again. She seemed to have a need to punish herself further for what had happened to her. But the terrible thing was that she hadn’t done anything. She’d chosen the wrong form of birth control years ago and paid a hell of a price for it, and there was nothing anyone could do. It was just rotten luck. But it didn’t mean she had t
o become a rotten person.
“I don’t think we should go.” He argued with her right up until they went, and tried to get her to cancel, but she absolutely wouldn’t. And the moment they got there, she realized her mistake. Gayle was in a lousy mood, she had a bad cold, and the kids had driven her nuts all day. She’d had a fight with their mother when she suggested Gayle discipline them more, and she seemed to be annoyed at Jack for not standing up for her. So she took it out on Diana the moment she arrived, and Andy wished more than ever that they hadn’t come. It was going to be a miserable evening.
“Thanks for coming early to help,” Gayle spat at her, as she took off her coat. “Were you doing your nails this afternoon, or just napping?”
“Oh, for chrissake, what are you so worked up about?” Diana gave it right back to her, and as Sam came into the room, Andy almost groaned when he saw her. He hadn’t seen her since the Fourth of July and she looked like a cartoon of a pregnant woman. And he could see from the frozen look on Diana’s face that seeing Sam really shook her.
“Gayle’s just pissed off because Mom told her the kids were too wild. And she’s right. So are mine. So how are you?” she asked Diana, resting her hands on her enormous stomach.
“I’m fine,” Diana said icily. “And I can see how you are.”
“Yeah. Fat. Seamus said I look like a Buddha.” Diana attempted a smile, and then went off to see their mother in the kitchen. She looked better than ever that year, and she was happy to see her daughter. She was organizing everything and everyone, and loving every moment of it. And she had been so busy in the past couple of months that she hadn’t felt her daughter slipping away from her. She just assumed Diana was busy at the magazine, but noticed something she didn’t like about her eyes, and she suddenly looked much thinner.
“I’m glad you could come,” she said, pleased that all her children and grandchildren were around her. She always enjoyed having them there, even if she had asked Gayle to control them. “Are you all right?” she asked Diana.
Mixed Blessings Page 17
