If I ever get pregnant.
“These clothes are so cute,” I say wistfully, as I finger a pair of jeans. Elastic waistbands on jeans are such a brilliant idea. They look so comfy. Why can’t those go into fashion? How come everything that’s fashionable necessarily has to be uncomfortable? “Pregnant women are so lucky.”
“How are things going with that?” Mia asks gently. She knows all about our consultation at the fertility clinic.
I shrug. “We’ve got our follow-up appointment at the end of the week. But…”
“But?”
But I don’t know if Will’s sperm are going to be good enough to get me pregnant.
But I’m not that excited about having sperm inserted into my uterus with a catheter.
But I’m scared that considering how busy Will’s been recently, he’s not going to be able to make our appointment.
But if Will can’t even make it to one appointment, how are we going to have time for a baby?
Yeah. But.
“I’ll let you know what they say,” I tell her.
“Is Will still crazy busy?” she asks.
I nod. “This new case he’s been assigned is the worst. I honestly don’t know when he sleeps. Two nights ago, he didn’t come home at all. If he were a different guy, I’d be sure he was cheating on me.”
“Will would never,” Mia says instantly. She’s so freaking loyal to him—I swear, sometimes I think she likes him more than she likes me.
“No, he wouldn’t,” I agree. “But that doesn’t make it that much easier on me.”
“Did you find out what the case was?” she asks.
I shake my head. “He’s being really secretive about it, actually.”
She grins. “Let’s have dinner—the four of us. I’ll pump him for details.”
“Sounds good,” I say.
Although there’s a part of me that doesn’t really want to see Mia and her husband Paul together right now. After all, he married her right away, while Will’s been dragging his feet. He’s got a nine-to-five type of job with no weekends. He also apparently impregnated her without any difficulty.
And also, he can walk. But that part isn’t a big deal.
_____
Because Will’s got a crazy day at work today (what else is new?), we agree to meet at Dr. Powell’s clinic for our follow-up appointment. I go straight to the clinic from Reid’s office hours, where after twenty minutes of biology, we ended up spending another half hour talking about the Hanford Corporation. Reid is so passionate about this—it gets me excited too. He’s organized rallies before, mostly during his college days. He told me that he fought to get the college’s minimum wage staff workers higher pay—he stood on the street for over forty-eight hours in the snow in protest. “I yelled so much, I lost my voice,” he told me. He said he got pneumonia from being out in the cold so long (likely wearing shorts and sandals), but, “We won, so it was totally worth it.”
I admire the hell out of him for that. I thought Reid was just another laid back stoner, but he isn’t. He’s really upset about the horrible way the Hanford Corporation treats animals and he’s determined to change things. And I’m going to help him. I also offered up Will’s help again, but Reid said they’ve already got some female lawyer helping out who’s super passionate about the whole thing.
At the time, I was so angry about what the Hanford Corporation was doing to those poor animals that it was all I could think about. But right now, sitting in the waiting room of the fertility clinic, all I can think is, “Where the hell is Will?”
I didn’t expect him to be early. I didn’t really even expect him to be on time. But he’s now ten minutes late, and they say if he’s twenty minutes late, they’re going to have to reschedule. I have texted him like ten times, which I didn’t want to do considering I know he’s probably driving, and he can’t read texts and drive with hand controls in midtown traffic, but I’m too aggravated to care.
Where the hell is he? He knows how important this appointment is.
Just when I’m staring at my phone so hard that my head is starting to throb, it buzzes with a text: “So so sorry. Traffic awful. Just parked.”
Yeah, right. Traffic.
About a minute later, Will bursts into the clinic, looking like he just ran a marathon. I leap up the second he wheels in and say to the receptionist, “He’s here! He’s here!”
When I turn to face Will, I’m ready to give him a piece of my mind, but it’s hard when I see how he looks. He looks exhausted. I’ve barely seen him the last week, so I didn’t entirely notice it. He’s got those purple circles back, and his eyes are slightly bloodshot. He has even allowed his legs to get off-kilter in his footrests, which is really unlike him. I wonder how much sleep he’s gotten this week.
“I’m really sorry,” he murmurs to me. “Don’t hate me.”
“I don’t hate you,” I say. I reach out my hand and he grabs it. “Are you okay?”
“A little tired,” he admits.
A nurse leads us back to the office where we met with Dr. Powell about three weeks earlier. As nervous as I’d been back then, I’m a million times more nervous today. I’m guessing we’re going to schedule that insemination thing today. It’s something I’m not looking forward to, but it’s a necessary evil if I want to get knocked up.
As soon as Dr. Powell enters the room, I quickly tell her, “I’m really sorry we were late.”
“It was entirely my fault,” Will adds. “I got caught in a meeting with my client and then I was stuck in traffic.”
Dr. Powell regards Will for a moment, as if his excuse is completely unacceptable to her. But she doesn’t toss us out or anything, at least.
“Anyway,” Dr. Powell says, settling down into her chair. “Let’s discuss the results of the sperm sample.”
“You got enough of it?” I ask.
“There was enough to analyze,” she says. “That wasn’t the issue. The problem was quantity. And quality.”
Will’s eyes widen. “Was it… bad?”
“Mr. Kaplan,” she says, “your sperm count was four million.”
Four million? That sounds… great. That sounds like more than enough sperm to fertilize one little egg.
“Normal is at least forty million,” Dr. Powell says. Oh. “So four million is very low. And the quality and motility was—I’m going to be blunt here—very poor.”
Will is just staring at her, his eyes glassy.
“So what about the intrauterine insemination?” I ask, since Will has clammed up.
“Forget that as an option,” she says. My stomach sinks. “It won’t work with such poor quality sperm. No chance. I would go straight to IVF—in vitro fertilization.”
“I don’t know what IVF is,” I admit. “I mean, I’ve heard of it, but…”
“Basically,” Dr. Powell says, “it will involve retrieval of eggs from your ovaries, where they will be combined with your husband’s sperm in a laboratory, then inserted back into your uterus.”
For reasons that I will never understand, I blurt out, “He’s not my husband. I mean, we’re not married.”
Will looks at me and he seems so incredibly hurt. Honestly, I don’t know why I said that. Although the truth is, he’s not my husband. We’re not married.
And the very worst part is that in this moment, I can’t help but think to myself that maybe that’s not the worst thing in the world.
_____
Dr. Powell spends the next fifteen minutes talking to us about IVF. It sounds awful, especially for somebody who hates needles like I do and isn’t particularly fond of doctors. At the very least, Will is going to have to inject me with hormones to stimulate egg production and there will be a ton of blood tests involved. Also, the eggs are going to be retrieved using a giant needle.
She had me running for the door at “giant needle.”
If all that isn’t enough, IVF is super expensive. With medications, one cycle costs about $20,000. Will kept saying
that cost is no object, but seriously? That’s a lot of money for something that might get us nothing. It’s like being in Vegas and laying down $20,000 on black.
“I just don’t feel like I can do this,” I say to Will during the drive home. He’s actually driving me home, then going straight back to the office.
“Yeah, it’s a lot,” he agrees. He sighs. “I’m sorry, Libby. Obviously, this is because of me. You’re probably completely normal.”
“We don’t know that,” I say. Actually, Dr. Powell recommended I have a full work-up prior to undergoing IVF. I just nodded my head to get out of there.
“I’m sure you are.”
“You can’t be sure.”
“Why wouldn’t you be?”
“Well,” I say thoughtfully, “I was having sex with a guy once and the condom broke, but I didn’t get pregnant.”
I had been twenty-three years old when that happened. At the time, I was beyond relieved. But now I’m thinking to myself that maybe there was a reason I didn’t get pregnant. Maybe I’m infertile.
“So…” I see Will’s left hand gripping the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles are white. “Do you want to think about adoption?”
Adoption? Honestly, that was something I’ve never thought about, even during my two years without birth control. It seems so odd to think about bringing another person’s child into my home to raise as my own. What if that person wanted them back? “I don’t know about that,” I say.
“Um,” Will says. “Do you want kids?”
“Yes,” I say instantly, without even thinking about it.
We slow to a stop at a red light, but Will doesn’t take his eyes off the street. “So you don’t want to do IVF and you don’t want to adopt, but you definitely want kids. So where does that leave us exactly?”
Good question.
“Look,” I say, “I just… I don’t want to think about it right now. We’re not even married yet.”
“Right,” he says quietly. “I know.”
We don’t talk again until Will pulls up in front of the building to let me in. I had offered to take the subway home, but he absolutely insisted on driving me like he always does. Even though it’s in the opposite direction of his office and he looks like he’s practically falling asleep at the wheel.
“Maybe you should stay home,” I say to him. “You look really tired.”
He shakes his head. “No chance. I’ve got to be in court again tomorrow.”
“Oh,” I say.
“Libby…” He bites his lip. “I love you so much. You know I do, right?”
I nod. I do. I really do.
He takes a deep breath. “Do you still want to marry me?”
“Of course I do!” I cry. “How could you ask me that?”
“Okay, good,” he says. “If we both want to get married, then to hell with this New York marriage license and waiting in line at City Hall. My next really important court date is December 12, and I’m going to put in for a few days off right after that so we can fly to Vegas and get married.”
Vegas. I haven’t been there since Will and I were together. Actually, we don’t go many places that you can’t drive to, because he hates flying. Flying is a ridiculous hassle if you’re in a wheelchair. Since he can’t walk through the metal detector or stand up for the full body scan, he has to get frisked. And his wheelchair gets stowed under the plane like luggage, leaving it vulnerable to damage or even getting diverted to an entirely different place. In order to get on the plane, he has to transfer to something called an “aisle chair,” which is a wheelchair narrow enough to fit down the plane’s aisle, which the staff has to push for him since it has no pushrims.
The last time we flew, they couldn’t locate an aisle chair to get him off the plane, so he had to sit there in seat 7B, waiting. The stewardess seemed baffled when he refused her suggestion that someone just help him walk the short distance to the end of the aisle. “It’s only about ten feet,” she told him. People sometimes don’t seem to comprehend that he can’t walk at all, even with help.
So the fact that he’s suggesting hopping on a plane to get hitched in Vegas makes me feel like he really, really wants to get married.
I reach over and squeeze his hand. “Are you sure you can do that?”
“I’m allowed to take a vacation,” says the guy who hasn’t taken a vacation in at least a year.
“Let’s do it then!” I say excitedly.
Oh my God, we are finally going to get married! We’ve got a date! (Sort of.) I’m so freaking excited.
As for the baby thing… well, we’ll figure all that out later. If we love each other, I’m sure it will all work out.
Chapter 14
Will and I have tickets for the latest superhero movie tonight. Superhero movies are our thing. But because there are so many of them, we’ve agreed on a few basic ground rules for superhero movies:
No 3-D versions of the movies.
Only Marvel Comics movies.
No rebooted series.
No movies featuring Ben Affleck.
The last rule saved us from seeing both Daredevil and Superman vs. Batman, so we follow that one very strictly. The others are all negotiable.
Mia and I are meeting together at the Panera Bread by the theater for a snack before the movie, then Will and I are going to get dinner afterwards. I had been really looking forward to seeing Mia, but ever since my appointment with Dr. Powell, I’d been looking forward to it less. Don’t get me wrong—I’m so happy for my best friend and I’m going to spoil her baby rotten. But the thought of watching her go through pregnancy when I know it might not be in the cards for me gives me a deep ache in my chest.
For that reason, I’ve decided not to mention any of the infertility stuff to Mia. I don’t want to put a downer on the whole thing for her. I’ll just suffer in silence.
Mia has already ordered from the cashier when I slide into her chosen booth and put the buzzer on our table. She isn’t wearing any make-up but she looks gorgeous nonetheless. I swear, with her high cheekbones, slim build, and milk chocolate skin, Mia could easily be a model. But today, for the first time, I notice the slight swell in her abdomen. And as much as I try to ignore my own emotions, I feel a stab of jealousy. I’m nearly thirty-three years old. I want a baby. It’s so unfair that on top of all the other things that are easier for Mia because she’s married to an able-bodied guy, she also doesn’t have to go through heartbreaking and expensive infertility treatments.
But I manage to force a smile.
“I’ll go grab our food when the buzzer goes off,” I tell Mia.
“You don’t have to do that,” she says. “They can locate the buzzer and bring us the food.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Yes, that’s how it works,” Mia tells me. “They will bring us our food. Trust me.”
“Are you sure they don’t just bring you your food because you’re hot?” I say.
Mia rolls her eyes. “I’m not you.”
Whatever that means. Mia is objectively like ten times hotter than I am. The only thing I’ve got going for me is that I don’t shoot men the death stare the way she does. Also, I don’t have a wedding band, but that will soon be remedied.
A few minutes later, I discover that Mia is right—they actually do bring us our food. Also, I discover that we both are partial to bowls of broccoli cheddar soup. With a baguette.
I keep thinking about Mia’s baby. Should I ask her about it? I feel like I should. But honestly, it’s the last thing I want to talk about right now. But she’s pregnant. How can we not talk about it? It’s the (baby) elephant in the room. I’ve got to say something.
“So can you feel the baby kicking yet?” I finally ask. I try to smile when I ask the question.
“Libby,” she sighs. “I’m still in my first trimester.”
“Oh.” Well, how should I know? It’s not like I’ve ever been pregnant before. Or ever will be.
Her lip
s twitch in a smile. “Aren’t you taking biology right now?”
“Failing biology is more like it,” I mutter.
Mia raises her eyebrows at me. “Are you serious? What’s going on?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. It’s all stupid plant stuff. And then as soon as we finished with the plants, we moved on to cells. Now all we learn about is cells. It’s just hard to motivate myself to study.”
“Is there a teaching assistant for the class who can help you?”
“Yeah…” I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I figure I can’t hide anything from Mia. She always sees right through me. “At first, the TA was really helping me, but then we got distracted by this project…”
“Project?”
So I tell Mia all about the Hanford Corporation and the hazards they’ve inflicted on the environment, as well as the animal cruelty. I tell her about how Reid and Josh are organizing a rally to protest the continued operation of the company, which is no doubt thanks to some legal tap-dancing on the part of their scummy lawyers.
I realize that as I’ve been talking, Mia has stopped eating her soup and is just staring at me. I don’t think she’s ever seemed quite so horrified.
“Wow,” she breathes. “That’s… wow. Um, have you told Will about all this?”
I shake my head. “He’s been so busy with his big new case that I told you about. I didn’t want to bother him.”
“Right, the big case,” she murmurs. “Right. Did he… tell you what the case was? By any chance?”
“No, not yet.” I grin at her. “I was thinking that he might be representing a celebrity. Like maybe a Kardashian? Wouldn’t that be cool?”
“It would,” she agrees, although she doesn’t smile back.
Will arrives at Panera Bread fifteen minutes later, which is right on time. He seems slightly less tired than usual, and by the way he greets me with a long, luxurious kiss, I have a feeling he’s definitely going to be up for fooling around tonight. Which is a good thing, because he looks really adorable in the blue and black striped tie I bought him.
(Almost) Happily Ever After Page 9
