by Nancy Thayer
But now she knew that furled passageway led to more secrets, secrets she could only imagine, something more serious than the pleasures of sex, something even homelier and more regal: the beet-red womb rooted deep within, life’s home.
And what else? She was so ignorant. Her ovaries, her tubes, those mute accessories that she had carried with her all her life, uncaring. They were up inside her, too, under her dumb friendly tummy. Were they at fault? Was something wrong? Could they be cured? Or were they simply on a slower schedule than Sara’s—was she rushing them? Would this intrusion damage them, offend them, cause them to withdraw deeper into their wordless dark world?
The door opened. A man came in. It was not the doctor of the previous day. This one was taller, and younger. He was wearing a blue smock, gray flannels.
As his colleague had done the day before, he passed down the length of the table without looking at Sara’s face, without speaking to her, and he pulled up the stool, positioning himself between Sara’s naked spread legs. He grunted orders to the nurse.
“I’m nervous,” Sara said. “I hope this doesn’t hurt.”
No one answered. Sara couldn’t believe it. No one replied. She glared at the nurse, who smiled briefly at Sara.
“I’m going to blow dye into your tubes to see if they’re open,” the doctor said suddenly, and without warning began to insert items into Sara’s vagina. “It won’t take long and it will tell us if your Fallopian tubes are open for the eggs to get down into the uterus.” He seemed to be reciting the words wearily, by rote, an automaton who had done this procedure so often he had become mechanical in its performance. “Okay, let’s go,” he said to the nurse.
The nurse approached Sara and said, “We’re going to take an X ray now. Hold your breath. Don’t breathe again till I tell you.”
Dutifully Sara held her breath. She felt the mute blunt movement of hard metal inside her and then a hot cramp of pain shot through her lower abdomen.
“You can breathe,” the nurse called from somewhere in the room. She disappeared, came back. “Here,” she said to the doctor.
“Mmmm,” the doctor grumbled to the nurse. To Sara he said, “The dye has gone through your right side but not your left. We’re going to do it again.”
What does that mean? Sara wondered. Would they have to use more force? It had hurt only briefly the first time—would it hurt longer this time? And why was only one tube open, was something wrong with her? She began to shake. “I really am getting nervous,” she said. “I have a friend out there, do you suppose she could come in and hold my hand?”
“Won’t be necessary, we’ll be through in a minute,” the doctor said.
“I’m feeling a little dizzy,” Sara said. “And—it’s strange, my hands feel all tingling. My head’s tingling, too.”
“Oh, Christ, she’s hyperventilating,” the doctor said to the nurse. “Give her some smelling salts.”
“Smelling salts?” Sara asked aloud. She felt like Alice in Wonderland, with everything getting curiouser and curiouser. She thought only old ladies with “the vapors” used smelling salts; she didn’t know they were even in use anymore. “What will smelling salts do?” she asked.
“They’ll just shock you a little,” the nurse said.
Sara jumped at that. Shock. She thought of electric shock. She did not want to be shocked.
“I don’t want smelling salts,” Sara said firmly.
“You’ll have them whether you want them or not,” the doctor said brusquely.
Sara nearly rose off the table. Only the knowledge that her lower body was filled with metal tools and God knew what else—she didn’t!—kept her from getting up and walking out. How dare he speak to her that way! What was his problem? What kind of doctor would speak that way to a patient? By coming here, by lying down on his table, she had given him the power to perform a certain procedure on her—she had not thought she was also giving him the power to tyrannize her.
In her rage, she burst into tears.
The nurse approached Sara and said quietly, “I’m just going to wave these over you quickly, you’ll just get a little smell of ammonia, it will just be a little shock, nothing that will hurt you, just enough to clear your head.”
The nurse waved the salts at such a distance from Sara’s face that the sharp and not unpleasant odor was more tantalizing than shocking. Sara took a deep breath.
“I’m all right now,” she said, but she was still trembling with anger.
“Let’s get this over with,” the doctor said.
Sara glared at him, but of course he could not see her glare; his head was bent between her legs.
“We’re going to do another X ray,” the nurse said. “Hold your breath. Don’t breathe until I tell you.”
Sara held her breath. Once again a sharp pain bit into her abdomen, more forcefully this time, so that she felt her body naturally, automatically recoiling, contracting at the pain. But it didn’t last long, it really was no worse than a menstrual cramp—she had had much worse cramps than this.
“You can breathe now,” the nurse said. She disappeared from Sara’s side, reappeared holding some slides for the doctor to see.
The doctor removed his equipment from Sara’s body and rose. “Your left tube is blocked,” he said and walked past her to the door.
“Wait!” Sara called. She twisted on the table to look at the man.
“Can’t you—can’t you do the procedure again to open the tube up? I thought that was why I was here, so that you can open up my tubes if they’re blocked. I want to get pregnant,” she admitted.
“You can get pregnant. You’ve got one working tube. You can talk to your doctor about it,” the doctor said, and left the room.
“Are you all right?” the nurse said, hurrying to Sara as she pulled herself into a sitting position and swung her legs around to the side of the table. “Don’t try to walk just yet, not till you’re sure you’re not dizzy.”
“I’m not dizzy, I’m confused,” Sara said. “Why couldn’t he—he was in and out of here so fast. He didn’t explain—I didn’t have time to understand. I don’t understand. If I’ve got one tube blocked, why that means that I’ve only got six months a year when I can get pregnant. Right? Don’t the ovaries alternate in producing eggs?”
“Well, that’s what we used to think,” the nurse said. “But now I guess the theory is that we don’t know. Sometimes the right ovary can produce the eggs for months at a time, sometimes the left. They don’t automatically alternate every month.”
“Then—then that means that my left ovary might be producing the egg but it can’t ever get down because that tube’s blocked,” Sara said. “Oh, can’t the doctor come back and open up my left tube?”
“No, dear, it would be too uncomfortable for you,” the nurse said. “He did as much as he could today. Now we need to get you moving along. Can you stand?”
Sara was almost in tears again. She was sure the doctor had left her with one tube blocked because she had been such a cowardly patient.
Somehow she knew she had failed. Somehow she failed again, to do what was necessary to get pregnant. If only she had been calmer, braver. She could not bear this kind of judgment, it was a judgment that cast a shadow over her entire life.
“Could I please speak to the doctor?” Sara asked.
“He’s busy,” the nurse said. “Your gynecologist will explain things to you.” Her impassive face made it clear that she didn’t want to discuss anything with Sara. She took Sara by the arm and led her back to the changing room. “You can pay the bill at the desk before you leave,” she said.
Sara changed back into her street clothes and found her own way out to the waiting room. She smiled at Julia, spoke with the receptionist, and calmly left the office. Not until she was seated in Julia’s red convertible did she burst into tears again.
“It was so humiliating,” she cried. “It was so awful. I was so awful. Such a coward.”
“What happene
d, honey?” Julia asked. She started the car so the engine could warm them up as they sat.
Sara explained what had happened.
“Doctors can be such insensitive assholes,” Julia said. “There should be a law: no man can put his head between a woman’s legs without first introducing himself.”
Sara laughed. “True. But I still feel at fault. I don’t know why, but I got spooked. I suddenly got scared, started shaking, got all nervous—”
“I’d love to stick some metal up that guy’s penis and see how calm he’d act,” Julia said.
Sara smiled. “So would I, actually,” she said. She sat a moment, envisioning—the power of it, to be probing into someone’s delicate sexual and reproductive organs. “Julia,” she went on, “do you think I’m not a natural woman?”
Julia burst out laughing. “Yeah,” she said. “I think you’re synthetic.”
“No, really,” Sara pressed on. “I haven’t gotten pregnant easily, I can’t even have an examination easily. Maybe I’m secretly frigid. Do you know even Queen Elizabeth gave birth in less than a year after her marriage?”
“What does Queen Elizabeth have to do with this?” Julia asked.
“I mean—she appears so proper, but—”
“Oh, honey, sexual passion and love have nothing to do with reproduction. Women get pregnant when they’re raped by maniacs. The body is just so perverse. Everyone’s is. You’re a natural woman, for heaven’s sake. I’ll tell you what you are, though, that’s hurting you, you’re getting paranoid about all this. You’re putting too much on yourself. Why are you doing all this cha-cha-ing around to the doctors? Why not just relax and enjoy yourself? You’re young. You’ll get pregnant eventually. Why not go off to some desert island this winter with your yummy husband and fuck your head off? I mean, I’ve heard the harder you try to get pregnant the less it happens.”
“I’ve heard that, too,” Sara said. “Perhaps you’re right. I don’t know. I know I’m not keen to see any other doctor for a while. Although Dr. Crochett’s nice enough.”
“Well, you ought to tell him about your experience at the clinic,” Julia said. “That shithead shouldn’t be allowed to get away with brutalizing women like that.”
“You’re right. I’ll tell Dr. Crochett,” Sara said.
But she knew she wouldn’t be able to do that. What if Dr. Crochett and the laboratory doctor were best friends? Certainly they knew each other, Dr. Crochett had sent her there. What if she complained and Dr. Crochett talked to the lab doc and said that Sara was a recalcitrant patient? What if Dr. Crochett decided there was no use treating her, since she freaked out at the slightest operation?
Sara leaned her head against the car window and closed her eyes. Suddenly she was overcome with exhaustion. It was all so complicated, this trying to get pregnant—all so unnecessarily complicated! Her anger made her feel weighted down, the situation made her feel helpless. She wanted to sleep.
“I’ll get you to the airport,” Julia said now. “We’ll have some coffee while we wait for your plane.” Without waiting for a reply, she put the car into gear and pulled away.
Steve met her at the Nantucket airport. During the flight Sara had decided how much—or how little—she would tell Steve about her experience. She wanted so desperately for her getting pregnant to be a joyous occasion, an event of love and delight. She did not want to drag it down with dreary tales. She did not want to appear dreary to her husband—it would be too much for any man to have to bear, to have a wife who was not only infertile but also cowardly and gloomy.
And, at the sight of her husband, her spirits lifted. Oh, she loved him so much! And it was such good luck that they had found each other in this world, such good luck to have every day with each other. Steve crossed the small airport waiting room in three strides and encompassed her in a bear hug. He smelled of fresh air and sawdust and sweat. He was delicious, he was wonderful, he loved her, she was safely home in his arms, everything was possible.
As Steve drove her back to their house, she chattered about Julia and her escapades, and Donald James’s gossip, and gave him only a superficial and cheered-up version of her visit to the lab.
“So what happens next?” Steve asked. “I mean, if you’ve got one tube blocked?”
“I don’t know,” Sara answered. “I have to talk to Dr. Crochett. He did tell me that twenty percent of all women who have this procedure get pregnant that month. It’s supposed to be therapeutic as well as diagnostic.”
“Well,” Steve said, and took Sara’s hand. “That’s good news.” He looked at her and smiled. “Thanks for doing all this stuff,” he said.
“Sure.” She smiled back.
It was Steve’s lunch hour, and once at home they heated up a can of chili, covered it with grated cheese, and sat companionably together in the kitchen. They talked about their past day apart and Sara was in two worlds at once; part of her aware of the thick pad between her legs at this unusual time of the month; she was bleeding slightly from the morning’s procedure. She didn’t want to mention this to Steve; it wasn’t the right sort of thing to discuss over a meal, and she didn’t want to seem to be asking for pity. But she could not escape her awareness of it, of how her lower body felt, of all she had been through that morning, of the things she had left unsaid.
Steve leaned back in his chair. He studied Sara; she could tell something was up.
“Yesss?” she asked. Perhaps he was thinking of going to bed right now. God, she hoped not, she really wouldn’t enjoy it right now. But she knew that at least one tube was open.…
Steve grinned. “What would you think about going to New Orleans for the Super Bowl? It would be expensive, but how many times do you get to see the Patriots play in the Super Bowl? Several of the guys have been talking about going—I think it would be a lot of fun. What do you think?”
Sara looked across the table at her husband, who was tipped back in his chair, his arms stretched up so that his hands were crossed behind his head. He was wearing grubby old work jeans that were more brown than blue now and several plaid flannel shirts under a torn wool sweater. Through all the layers of clothing his healthy muscles and strong frame showed; his body looked as thick and hard and impermeable as steel. Like Superwoman, she could see through those clothes to the flat stomach, the tight muscles that lay under his hairy chest and abdomen.
“Oh, yes, the Super Bowl!” Sara said, and suddenly, to her surprise as much as Steve’s, she was in a rage. “Well, why not? Why not spend time and money to watch a bunch of men smashing into each other? You can’t really hurt men, can you? Not where it counts. Their private parts will be protected, you can count on it. No matter how they bash each other around, they’ll still be able to make babies. No one’s going to fool with their penises!”
Steve looked at Sara as if she had just lost her mind.
“Sara,” he said with concern, “what are you talking about?”
Sara looked at her husband in dismay. What had she been talking about? She lowered her head into her hands, hiding her face, which contorted now as she began to cry. Steve rose, came around behind her chair, put his hands on her shoulders.
“Sara?” he asked.
“Oh, Steve,” she sobbed, “it was so awful. It was frightening and humiliating and unpleasant and you talk about the Super Bowl.”
Steve tried to embrace her, but she remained rigid, crying into her hands.
“I didn’t know,” he said. “I didn’t know. You didn’t tell me. You seemed okay.”
“Well I am okay,” Sara said. “And it wasn’t anything drastic, it wasn’t that bad. But it was bad. And I had to do it, all by myself, I had to lie there with a strange man doing things to my … and you weren’t even thinking of me, you were out in the fresh air, building houses, talking to your friends about the goddamned Super Bowl!”
“Well of course I was thinking about you,” Steve said. “Sara, of course I thought about you this morning. You know that. But you sounded fin
e when I spoke with you yesterday, and you told me before you went up that it was going to be a piece of cake. Those were your exact words, remember, ‘a piece of cake.’ ”
“Well, I was wrong,” Sara said. “And if you’d had any imagination, any sensitivity—I mean, I told you what they were going to do, I told you they were going to force dye through my Fallopian tubes. You might have thought about it a little, that it would be unpleasant for me, that it might hurt.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” Steve said, rubbing her back and shoulders. “I didn’t mean to be callous.”
“Oh, I know.” Sara sighed, wiping her tears with her hands. “I know you didn’t. And I’m sorry to blow up at you. I think I’m getting mad at you because of the way the two doctors treated me. They were so brusque and insensitive. They made me feel like—a piece of meat.”
“I’m sorry,” Steve said again. “I wish I could have been there to help you.”
“And I wish, I really wish, that you had to bear just some of the bother of this!” Sara said. “I think that if you just had to, oh, say, go have some strange woman handle your penis, look at it, stick something in it, decide whether it was a good penis or not, then you’d understand a little more.”
Steve’s hands stopped caressing her back. Sara could feel how startled he was at her words, how he had withdrawn from her, puzzled by her anger.
“Well, Sara, it’s not my fault that the human reproductive system is the way it is,” Steve said. He crossed back to his chair and sat down. His expression was bleak.
He thinks that what I’ve just said to him is horrible, Sara thought. She felt she had overstepped some boundary in their marriage. She felt he would never understand how it was for her, that no man could ever understand how it was for women. There he sat with his intact and solid body, insulted by the mere thought of someone messing around with his reproductive organ.
