A Peine For Your Thoughts

Here’s Part IV of my Friday series “Inconceivable,” which chronicles our bumpy ride to baby bump. If you missed any of the past installments, Part I is here, Part II is here and Part III is here. Thanks for reading!

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When Drew and I first discovered we would not be having children the normal, old-fashioned way, the few people we told always had this to say: “This will bring you two so much closer. It’s going to be such a blessing in your relationship.”

We were already pretty close, so I couldn’t wait to find out what the process of becoming closer would be like. My visions usually involved candles and tiny tables the likes of which we don’t own, with Drew and I subbing in for Ridge and Brooke in long-ago scenes from “The Bold & the Beautiful.” Drew would look at me, his green eyes flickering with the candlelight. He’d take my hand, and we wouldn’t even have to speak. That’s how close we’d be. We’d just communicate telepathically, and in those brain-to-brain conversations, we’d tell each other how lucky we were to be each other’s soul mates.

In reality, we were coping with the news individually in the best way each of us knew how. I was researching and reading and talking and thinking and journaling and taking deep breaths, while Drew was resolutely not doing those things. Or he was doing them very quietly, to himself.

Our appointment with the infertility doctor was set for two weeks from the day we’d been hit with the IVF bomb. In the grand scheme of life, this is a short time. But when your reproductive future sits fatly waiting for you at the end of that short time, you discover it is absolutely packed with longer-than-normal hours just begging to be spent wide awake as your vision of your family shimmers and changes right before your eyes. It was a time for me to envision every single possibility that life could throw at us, including surrogacy and international adoption, and a time for Drew to wait to hear what the doctor had to say. Our newfound infertility “closeness” had planted us on either side of the Grand Canyon.

That didn’t stop me from trying to build a bridge to bring him over to my side. Our nightly walks with Truman became bombing raids during which I’d aim and fire knowledge and thoughts and feelings I’d acquired throughout the day.

“Did you know IVF has about a 70% success rate? But if it doesn’t work, we really have to think about other alternatives. I saw a website that listed childlessness as an alternative. As if anyone needed to be told that was an option. Ridiculous, right?”

“So, you know, if this doesn’t work, do you want to think about adoption? I think international adoption would be our best bet. I was thinking a baby from China might be best. I mean, it wouldn’t look anything like us, but it would probably be really smart and probably wouldn’t come from a mom who did drugs while she was pregnant.”

“Except wait. What about opium? Is that still a big deal over there? Or was that only with rice field workers?”

“Does this feel a little like it’s the first thing you couldn’t study your way out of? I was thinking that I’ve never had something happen that I couldn’t work harder to overcome. You can’t just work harder at infertility. What do you think about that?”

“I was reading about this girl who got all hooked up for her procedure and they did a last minute pregnancy test and she was pregnant! But she’d already had the IV! They had to take it back out of her! I’d hope they’d figure that out before they stuck me with the IV. I hate needles.”

“Oh but speaking of needles, do you have any idea how many we’re going to need for this? So many.”

Somewhere in the middle of hitting him with this emotional barrage, it would occur to me that Drew wasn’t really “sharing” much. He always gave perfunctory responses to show he was listening, but he wasn’t engaging, and I certainly couldn’t read his thoughts with my brain. Or maybe I could, and I just didn’t want to acknowledge that they were screaming, “Shut up already, Taryn!”

So, like the pushy woman I am, I always asked, “What’s wrong? Why don’t you want to talk about this?”

“I just don’t see there’s anything to talk about yet. Why get all worked up when we haven’t even met with the doctor? Shouldn’t we meet with him first and then have all these discussions?”

There we stood, him on one side, going about his life for two weeks, putting the issue to the back of his mind until something concrete could be discussed, me on the other, arms crossed, babbling thoughts, feelings and information to myself. We had never been farther apart. For the first time, I understood what it was to feel alone sleeping right next to someone else.

In reality, we were two spoiled newlyweds. We’d had hard stuff happen to us individually. I’d been laid off. We’d had problems with friends, problems with family, problems with life. But they’d never happened to both of us at the same time. One of us was always able to help the other in the way they needed to be helped, because it wasn’t really our problem. It was my problem, or his problem. I loved him and knew that he needed space. He loved me and knew that I needed hand-holding, back-rubbing, listening.

But infertility was our first problem together. It wasn’t mine and it wasn’t his. We both suffered. We both grieved. And for the first time, we both needed each other in the very different ways we always had, at the exact same time.

In the end, the person who helped us bridge the gap was the last person we ever suspected. His name was Gus and he was a compact, tanned man sitting behind a desk covered in papers and a large plastic replica of a uterus. Our appointment had finally arrived, and because it was toward the end of a work day, we’d arrived in separate cars. When he motioned us back to his office, I sat on the edge of my seat, list of questions in one hand, notebook and pen in the other, anxious to take note of every single thing he said. He looked quickly at our file and then smiled at us.

“You will require IVF. But I will get you pregnant.”

We both just stared at him. I thought about writing that sentence down, but realized I’d never forget it. We looked at each other, as he looked at us expectantly, eyebrows raised, as if to ask, “What else do you need to know?”

“But what about surrogacy? Or do we need to think about adoption? Just as a back-up plan?”

“No. I will get you pregnant.” He said it the way I said I would make dinner. As if it was the most obvious, ordinary thing in the world. Which, for a reproductive endocrinologist, I suppose it was.

Drew and I looked at each other again, stammered out a few questions just to keep our seats at the head of the class and then said the only thing we could think to say, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. You can schedule an appointment with the receptionist.”

And just like that, we were standing in the hallway, waiting for the elevator, me with my notebook and pen still in hand, both of us with our eyebrows still somewhere up near our hairlines.

“So,” Drew said.

“So,” I said. He turned to face me.

“Was that the weirdest 15 minutes of your life?”

“Umm, yes. Yes it was.”

“OK. Well, I guess I’ll see you at home.”

“See you at home.”

And just like that, we weren’t an infertile couple dealing with a tragedy in opposite ways on either side of a giant crack in the earth.

We were a couple who was going to get pregnant.