Category: Fambly

As there is no motherfucking way I’ll ever be able to do it myself, I text my friend who’s a nurse:

He comes over, and I’m a giddy mess.

Me: Hiiiiiii, do you need gloves?, I have gloves, and here’s the thingy, whatdoyoucallit syringe, the instructions say—wait, here are the instructions.

Him: I don’t need the instructions.

Me: Right!, No!, you have a degree in this stuff!, you know how to flick it, air bubbles and whatnot, so the instructions, they say to use alcohol swabs, but I don’t have alcohol swabs, but I do have alcohol and swabs.

Him: That’s fine.

Me: (reading from instructions) “Choose an injection site on the stomach, preferably around the belly button, but at least 1 inch away.” (lifting my tank top) Here I guess, hahahahahahahaha, I’m freakin out.

He washes his hands and rubs an alcohol-soaked swab over a spot an inch away from my navel. I make the mistake of watching him squirt the tiny drip out of the syringe. Uhhhhhhhhh. He pinches my belly fat and sticks me. All done. High-fives. Hugs. He leaves.

He texts me a minute later from the car. Our mutual friend who gave him a ride over has just said, “I bet this is the first time you’ve hoped to get a girl pregnant.”

**********

Four people offer to accompany me to my appointment. I turn them all down. I guess I just feel like, I’m going to be a single parent, I better get used to being alone.

I show up to the clinic a few minutes early and sit in the waiting room while they thaw the sperm. The same nurse from the most recent ultrasound takes me back to a room and says, “Naked from the waist down. I’ll be right back.” I don’t like her as much as the nurse who did my first ultrasound. First-ultrasound nurse said “undress”, not “naked”. Plus, second-ultrasound nurse is just not as nice.

Second-ultrasound/not-as-nice nurse comes back in and shows me the vial. It’s tiny, an inch and a quarter long maybe with a circumference slightly larger than a pencil. She points out my donor number on the sticker and says flatly, “There’s ten million in here. That’s good.”

She explains that it’s going to be like getting a pap smear except maybe more uncomfortable because they can’t use any lubricant during insemination. I put my heels in the stirrups and slide my butt down to the end of the table. Not-as-nice nurse inserts the speculum. “Hm,” she says. She slides it out and tries a different angle. “Well.” Out and back in again. “Your cervix is really deep in there. I’m gonna use a longer speculum.”

“OK,” I say, meekly.

She tries all through the winter, across the spring and summer, into late autumn, before she stands and says, “I can’t seem to find it. I’m going to get a physician.”

Shortly, she comes back in. “I couldn’t find a physician.” I think, You’re bad at finding stuff. “So I brought the next-best thing.” It’s first-ultrasound/nice nurse!

Immediately, I feel more relaxed. She’s having some trouble locating the target too, but she sounds like she genuinely wants to know when she says, “You doing OK?” and just radiates general warmth.

“There it is!” Finally. She inserts the catheter and shoots. “Swiiimmmmm,” she calls into my vagina. Speculum out, and I’m done.

Not-as-nice nurse tells me to lie there for ten minutes, after which I’m free to go. As she’s walking out the door, she says, “If you don’t get your period, take a home pregnancy test. If it’s positive, come in and we’ll draw blood.”

I stay for 11 minutes, just to be on the safe side, and head to work.

**********

All day, I have moments when I think I could be pregnant right now. I could be walking around with a zygote inside me. Right now.

The students are dismissed early because of imminent snow. I stay and plan with a colleague, after which the snow is no longer imminent but actual, spend 45 minutes driving the 5 miles home, and curl up on the couch with the dogs.

I risk giving myself bedsores watching season 8 of Weeds in its entirety.

I haven’t done my 20 minutes of meditation in days, and I realize I may be avoiding it on purpose. I make myself sit, and sure enough, within moments, I think, “What have I done?” and burst into tears.

I’m so scared.

I’m scared of being stuck in this devil-I-know job because it’s safe money. Terrible money but safe money.

I’m scared because having a kid on my own means I’ll never have another romantic relationship. I know that’s a myth, but it’s one to which I can’t seem to unsubscribe.

I’m scared of doing this alone. I don’t think I can do this alone.

Then I remember that my friend came to my house to give me a shot and four people offered to go with me to my appointment. I have to do this alone only if I choose to.

I’m CMV-negative, so Mr. Happy Pants, a 6’4″, 205-lb, atheist, mechanical engineering postdoc who said this in his donor profile

What life lessons would you hope to pass on to your own child one day?

Work hard. Read voraciously. Be well rounded and always improve your skills in some area. Ignore television at any cost; learn to resist socialization, advertising, and propaganda; eat whole foods. Go to the mountains and the desert. Cultivate a respect for evidence and develop the power of accurate observation. Learn mathematics and calibrate your standard of “knowing” in everyday life against the mathematical one.

is out.

I’m sad about it. I wanted to have Mr. Happy Pants’ babies. To be honest, I wanted Mr. Happy Pants to be my husband.

Now I’m leaning towards a grad student in systems engineering who’s summited Kilimanjaro. His parenting philosophy doesn’t make me swoon like Mr. HP’s, and neither babykilimanjaro.com nor babysystemsengineer.com do anything for me, but he’s CMV-negative.

**********

I’m not making the decision to have a child on my own out of fear, per se, but my sense of urgency is renewed when a 41-year-old friend goes in for her 7-week appointment and they can’t find the baby’s heartbeat.

I want this. If I wait too long, it may not happen. Or it may happen and then no heartbeat.

**********

My period comes on like a earthquake. Out to dinner with friends, I find myself pressing on the flesh under my belly button and rocking side to side. By the time I get home, my cramps are the worst I can ever remember. I climb onto my bed, prop myself on my elbows and knees, and jam a heating pad against my uterus. I moan and sway there for long time. The situation is not improving. A hot bath helps, but damn if it isn’t 90 minutes before the ibuprofen starts to kick in and the tremors subside. Is my womb trying to prepare me for childbirth?

**********

Last visit, the clinic told me to come in for a baseline ultrasound on Day 1, 2, or 3 of my cycle. I’m led to a dimly lit room with black and white photos of cherubic babies on the walls. The nurse’s assistant tells me to undress from the waist down, hop up on the table, and cover myself with the drape. I go to the restroom and remove my tampon first. Worried that I’ll bleed on their table, I’m relieved to find one of these under the drape:

The nurse enters the room and tells me to put my feet in the stirrups. She slides a lubey wand up-in. My ovaries—at least that’s what she says they are—appear on a grainy screen. “There’s the right one… aaaaand left. Beautiful,” she says.

I guess that bodes well. Now I just have to order sperm.