Chapter Ten
Another week of excruciating suspense passed by at a snail’s pace. It was pure torture because I couldn’t help but assume the worst—that I was totally barren because of the trauma I had suffered as a teen.
After talking to Angie about it after our next yoga class, I began to research the subject on the Internet. Some of what I read boosted my spirits, while other bits of information only made me feel more worried and pessimistic.
I was desperate for answers and frustrated by the fact that I was completely powerless to make things move any faster. I even tried calling the doctor’s office to see if they could fit me in sooner for the ultrasound, but they couldn’t do it. They were booked solid.
“You need to relax about all this,” Wes said to me one night when he came home from the gym and found me sitting in the dark, at the desk in the spare bedroom with the laptop open in front of me.
“I can’t,” I replied, not turning around or rising to greet him, because I had just clicked on an interesting link I wanted to follow. “I’m just so worried that something’s wrong with me. I can’t explain it, but I have a bad feeling.”
He approached and stood behind me. “This is the age of modern medicine. I’m sure they’ll be able to fix whatever’s wrong.”
“Maybe.” I started reading the information on the website home page as soon as it opened in front of me.
Wes exhaled heavily and turned away. A moment later, I heard him in the kitchen, making something to eat. He was slamming cupboard doors.
Realizing I’d been distracted when he came in, I closed my laptop, rose from my chair, and went into the kitchen.
“How was your workout?” I carefully asked.
“Fine,” he tersely replied.
I frowned as I watched him move around the kitchen, because this wasn’t like him, to be so visibly irritable.
“You seem angry,” I said.
He glanced at me briefly and merely shrugged as he slapped peanut butter on a slice of bread, practically ripping it to shreds with the knife.
I was surprised and baffled because he never behaved this way. I wasn’t even sure what was wrong—only that his aggravation seemed to come out of left field. Sure…I may have been a bit preoccupied lately, but certainly it wasn’t enough to warrant this sudden cold shoulder treatment.
All I wanted to do was resolve whatever the problem was, so I spoke calmly. “I’m sorry if I’ve been distracted lately. It’s just that…” I moved a little closer. “I’m starting to get a bit scared that it’s never going to happen for us, that I’m never going to be able to give you children, and I know how much it means to you. To both of us. Is that why you’re upset? Because we’ve hit some roadblocks?”
Wes wouldn’t look at me as he moved to the fridge. He pulled out a carton of milk and poured himself a glass.
“I’m just getting tired of this, Claire. You’ve been completely obsessed.” He shook his head. “We don’t talk about anything except fertility and your ovulatory cycle, and all the worst case scenarios—like years going by and the two of us still being childless. ‘Oh, woe is me.’ Seriously, Claire? If you ask me, the reason we can’t get pregnant has nothing to do with infertility. It’s because you’re so stressed out about it. There’s probably nothing wrong with you. I wish you’d just relax and let nature take its course.” He rolled his eyes. “And don’t even get me started on our sex life.”
I stood in shock as he strode past me to the living room. Never once in our marriage had he spoken to me like that, nor had he ever expressed any frustration or discontent about our situation. He’d always been supportive and optimistic.
He flopped down on the sofa, put his feet up on the coffee table, and picked up the remote control. He turned on a football game.
I followed him and tried to make sense of everything he had just said to me.
“I didn’t know you felt this way,” I said.
“Well, I do.”
I was quiet for a moment while my heart began to pound. I felt completely blindsided by this sudden change in him. “I know our sex life hasn’t exactly been normal lately. Do you want to talk about it?”
He inclined his head at me, glaring. “No. I don’t want to talk to you, Claire. I just want to watch the game.”
His animosity was like a punch in the stomach. All of a sudden, he was a stranger to me, not the loving husband I knew. I was speechless.
He bit into his bread and watched the TV screen, ignoring me.
“I’m sorry,” I said, sitting down on the sofa beside him, because I couldn’t just walk away and leave things like this. We’d never talked to each other this way. Ever.
“I honestly didn’t know you were unhappy,” I said. “I promise I’ll try to lighten up, and I’m sure I’ll feel better after the ultrasound, when I finally know what’s going on. And maybe you’re right. Maybe there’s nothing wrong with me, and we just haven’t gotten lucky yet.”
Even as I spoke the words, I didn’t believe them, because my intuition had been poking at me for a while now. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong with me. I was only saying these things to smooth things over between Wes and me, because I didn’t want to go to bed angry.
“Let’s just forget about it, okay?” he said. “I’m sick of discussing it. And I don’t want to talk about our sex life either. It is what it is.”
Still in shock from this abrupt change in him, I rose from the sofa. “All right then. I’ll leave you alone.”
I walked out and he didn’t follow, nor did he come to bed that night. He fell asleep on the sofa with the television on, and that’s where he stayed.
The following morning, while we were getting ready for work, he apologized for the things he’d said, but his mood remained irritable and standoffish. I didn’t understand how he could become such a different person overnight. It was like suddenly being married to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
At the same time, I worried that it was my fault—that I had been too preoccupied lately and had missed all the signals. That my husband wasn’t happy and I’d been too self-absorbed to notice.
We didn’t speak to each other at work that day. Not once. Not even during lunch hour, which used to be the time when we met up for a chat, and flirt or sneak a kiss in the teachers’ lounge if no one was around.
That night, when Wes slid into bed, he shut off the light right away and said, “Let’s just take a break from trying this week, okay? Since you’re not ovulating anyway.”
“Okay,” I replied, feeling hurt and rejected as he turned his back on me and pulled the covers up to his neck.
Suddenly, a crushing fear came down upon me as I remembered how I had felt on the day I watched the paramedics wheel my father into the back of the ambulance. My life had fallen apart in a matter of hours and there had been no warning.
Was that what was happening now? Was the good in my life about to be torn away?
I told myself I was being paranoid and overly sensitive, and I just needed to give Wes some space. I wasn’t the only one who was worried about never having a family. He wanted children, too—as badly as I did—and I suspected he was tired of always having to be my rock.
I resolved to make more of an effort not to be pessimistic about our fertility issues, and I hoped that when I had more information from Dr. Walker—and hopefully a game plan—the pressure would ease off both of us.
The next day, I suggested to Wes that we go to a movie, which we did that night, and I also raised the idea of going away for March break in the spring. I thought it might be fun to start planning a trip somewhere exotic and romantic. Somewhere we’d never been before. Maybe a Caribbean cruise or a trip to Mexico? We could invite Angie and Scott to join us.
Wes seemed to like the idea, so it provided us with something to talk about, other than our problems conceiving a child.
* * *
On a more positive note, the ultrasound the following week did not reveal any unusual growths or tumors in my feminine parts, so that was good news.
And Dr. Walker turned out to be a lovely female OBGYN who made me feel at ease as soon as I entered her office.
She was young and pretty with long red curly hair—not much older than me—and she was the kind of person who was born to be a physician, for not only was she incredibly knowledgeable, she was also kind and caring. In the first five minutes, I felt as if I could tell her anything and confess my deepest fears. I sensed that she would be understanding and sympathetic, and offer helpful solutions.
She was completely transparent and told me what to expect at every turn from that moment on. Not only did she tell me what we were going to do, she told me why we were going to do it.
“So now that we’ve determined that there are no growths visible from the ultrasound,” she said, “we need to look for any lingering effects from that fall you had when you were fourteen. Unfortunately, that kind of scarring wouldn’t show up in the ultrasound.”
“How will we look for that?” I asked.
She leaned back in her chair in a relaxed fashion, as if we were two close friends having coffee together, and said, “I’d like to book you in for a hysteroscopy and laparoscopy. These are scopes we can do to determine if your fallopian tubes are open wide enough for your eggs to pass through each month, from your ovaries down to your uterus. In your case, there’s a chance that the trauma and surgery that occurred when you fell from the horse might have resulted in some scar tissue that’s created an obstacle course for your eggs.”
I blinked a few times. “Will I be awake for the scope?
“No, we’ll put you under, and it’s a very simple procedure. We’ll make a tiny incision right here.” She showed me the spot near her own belly button. “And then we’ll go in with the scopes and inject some dye into the tubes to see if they’re clear.”
“What if I do have scar tissue?” I asked. “What if my tubes are completely blocked? Is there any cure for that?”
She smiled warmly at me. “There are all sorts of options for every scenario, Claire, and we’ll work through it together, I promise. In terms of what I think we might be dealing with here—if that old trauma is truly what’s causing your difficulties in conceiving—how we treat it will depend on how much scarring there is. If there are only minor adhesions, we can clear it up during this procedure. Fertility drugs may or may not be needed.”
“What if it’s not minor?” I asked.
She spoke matter-of-factly, as if she weren’t concerned in the least. “Then, there are still other options.”
“Like what?”
She sat forward. “Well…we can consider IVF.”
“In vitro fertilization?” I was actually thrilled to hear her speak of it, because I had been reading up on it and I had a good feeling about it.
Dr. Walker nodded. “I take it you’re familiar.”
“Yes, I’ve been doing research. It’s when you harvest the woman’s egg and inject the father’s sperm to fertilize it. Then you put the embryo back into the woman’s uterus so that the egg can implant there.”
“That’s right,” she replied, looking impressed. “But with IVF—just like in a natural conception—not every embryo implants successful and results in a pregnancy. For a woman your age, it’s about a fifty-fifty success rate. That’s why we try to enhance those odds by freezing surplus embryos so that we can try again later if the first one doesn’t take.” She smiled at me. “But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We don’t even know if that will be necessary. We need to get a look at your fallopian tubes first. Then we’ll be able to formulate a plan. I’m going to try to get you in before Christmas.”
We chatted for a few more minutes, then I stood up, feeling rejuvenated and far more positive than I had in months. I felt as if Dr. Walker was an angel sent from heaven, delivering a big, fat basket of hope to my doorstep.
I couldn’t wait to go home and tell Wes. It had been a while since we’d done anything celebratory together. I decided to pick up a bottle of wine on the way home and cook his favorite meal.