Good morning! We are having another dreary day and our Internet is down. Don't fear though, I am addicted to the web and have decided to take the triplets to Starbucks. I'll get them a little treat and I'll get twenty minutes (if I'm lucky) of the web. Hopefully, there won't be too many people grabbing their morning fix at 10am.
I have decided to skip over a few chapters in the book. The book is over 40 chapters and I won't be able to put all of it on my blog. The following is Chapter 7.
Chapter 7
Oops
“What?” I responded, but really wanted to scream it at him. It was bad enough that if I listened quietly, I could hear my eggs crack. I was thirty-five after all and it didn’t take a genius to know that I was O…L…D when it came to fertility. I had seen so many graphs on the Internet that showed how a woman’s fertility dropped off after thirty years old. Thirty-five, forget it. I was about as old as a dinosaur when it came to making babies. To make matters worse, I didn’t want just one.
“I made an appointment after Labor Day to get my sperm checked out. It’ll be fine,” Jack said.
The next two weeks dragged on and on. I wanted answers. No, I really just wanted to know that everything was fine. I wanted to be told that I needed to be more patient. Well, not more patient, because I wasn’t being patient at all. I wanted to be four months pregnant, not still trying to get pregnant.
When Jack walked in the door, the Tuesday after Labor Day, he looked liked a zombie. “The doctor said that 85% are dead and 15% are damaged,” Jack said in shock. I didn’t respond. I knew I should have. I knew Jack needed to hear something from me, but what. Awkward silence stood between us.
“You don’t have to marry me,” he said. “Your parents will lose some money on the deposit,” he said staring at the floor.
I realized that Jack had mistaken my silence. I never, ever for one moment, thought about not marrying Jack. Ever. I was just processing the information and trying to adjust my dream. No more children with Jack’s cherubic face and piercing blue eyes.
“No, no, that’s not what I’m thinking at all. I love you. I love all of you, bad sperm and all.” I thought I was being funny. No, I knew it wasn’t funny, but I was trying to be light-hearted. I guess Jack didn’t take it that way. The wetness coming from his eyes told me as much.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. I love you. We’ll figure it out,” I said as I moved towards him to give him a big hug.
“The doctor said that I could have surgery and try to fix the varicoceles. He said it might make it possible for us to do fertility treatments.”
“That sounds great,” I interrupted. I didn’t want to hear anymore. We had a solution.
“He said, though, that it’s not always successful.” I had tuned Jack out. I had heard what I wanted to hear. We could get pregnant after the surgery. I knew way down deep that wasn’t exactly what the doctor said to Jack, but I wasn’t going to believe anything else.
Jack had surgery ten days before our wedding, two days before his bachelor party. It was a horrendous surgery producing more pain then Jack or I thought possible.
As Jack was getting ready for his bachelor party, I suggested, “I don’t think you should take the Valium before you go out tonight.”
“Why? Lots of people take pain pills and then go out drinking. I’ll be fine, once the Valium kicks in,” he said.
“I don’t care what other people do, Jack. I only care about you. Please don’t take the pill. After you have a few drinks, you won’t feel the pain anyway.”
“You really are scared for me to take the Valium.”
“Yes, I care about you so much that I’d like you to follow the direction on the bottle. See right there is a big, red, sticker ‘No Alcohol’.”
“You’re too funny. I won’t take one, but have it ready for me when I get home,” he asked.
“Sure thing.” We said our ‘I love yous’ and Jack headed out the door.
A girl in my office resigned the preceding Monday and I was expected to do her work and mine. I had canceled my bachelorette party and worked all night and would eventually work the entire weekend, the weekend before my wedding.
Only a little over four months transpired between our engagement and wedding. I felt that we were going to one party or another almost every weekend. It was nice to be alone and doing something non-wedding related, although a movie and drinks with friends would have been better than working.
I was crashed out by the time Jack got home. I worked until midnight, thinking that maybe just maybe Jack would come home at a reasonable hour. I knew that midnight would be early for a bachelor party. However, I was happy when I woke up and he was in bed next to me.
Jack slept until about 11am, when he woke up in a horrible mood. He was acting like a caged bear with rabies, although really, he was lying on the couch, not moving a muscle, but his demeanor was horrendous.
“I can’t move,” he grumbled.
“What’s wrong? Do you want some water or coffee?” I asked and sat down on the edge of the couch and rubbed his back.
“I need valium and lots of it,” he moaned.
“Do you hurt?” I asked, knowing the answer. I had suggested that he cancel his bachelor party. He could barely walk on Saturday morning. However, he said that there was no way he was going to miss his own bachelor party. I guess my suggestion of having it after the wedding didn’t go over so well, because Jack laughed in my face.
Jack lay on our couch on Sunday, barely moving a muscle. I brought him lunch, drinks, snacks, dinner and dessert, while he was almost perfectly still. I spent the day working on mindless spreadsheets until my eyes crossed.
The weekend wasn’t exactly what I had in mind for the weekend before my wedding. I did absolutely no wedding stuff nor did I do anything romantic. I did spend most of it with Jack, taking care of him, which was romantic in its own weird way.
Our commitment to each other strengthened, while we waited for the results of his surgery. I wanted to know what Jack thought about all the potential outcomes of the surgery. What if we couldn’t use his sperm; what if we couldn’t have biological children; what if we were able to conceive one child, but couldn’t conceive another. This list went on. I thought of every possible nightmare. We could have problems adopting from a country after already adopting a child from there. I exhausted myself thinking of every potential scenario and Jack played along. He never got tired of my questions. Well, he might have, but he never showed it.
The decision tree I made in my head was in full-bloom and it was going to produce a wonderful family. In the meantime, my love for Jack grew and I couldn’t wait to become his wife.
Here are other chapters:
Here are other chapters:
No comments:
Post a Comment