Baby Steps (17 page)

“Nudists!” Jessica exclaimed. “How wonderful!”

I rolled my eyes and went back to get a sandwich, but Jessica waved at the little group.

“Hellooo!”

They waved back, obviously happy to encounter a group of strangers, and then one by one, a group of grown men and women waded out of the lake. Every one of them stark raving naked, and obviously completely unmotivated to put on any clothes.

Welcome to my adolescence,
I thought to myself.

Before I knew what was happening, the group of nudists had joined us around the campfire, dripping from their swim, not even a hand towel in sight. Jessica was full of questions. She was captivated. Where did they live? Were they
always
naked? Did they drive here naked? One of the men explained that they were usually prepared in, for example, their cars.

“We keep a little towel in the back, to pull over ourselves in case we get stopped. Out of respect,” he explained. I tried not to look at his penis hanging down between his legs, dripping lake water. I wished I had a towel I could give him.

When lunch was over and it was time to get back into the raft, I was relieved, but it's not like the incident scarred me. I was all too familiar with nakedness by then. And it was all probably good for me, all in the service of teaching me that bodies were not to be ignored. That life has a way of revealing itself, whether we like it or not.

My mother always told me how beautiful I was, and so I thought it must be true. I had an awkward stage like every kid, but when I turned sixteen, I became slim and attractive, and I stayed that way for a very long time. Blond hair, pale skin, blue eyes, long legs—my German heritage was good to me, and I took it for granted. I loved to move and exercise and I loved to eat good food. I relished life and assumed my body would always be there for me.

I was never skinny, but I appreciated my body, even as I went on and off diets in an attempt to look thin in the manner that was fashionable. I got a lot of positive reinforcement for my body in my career,
too. People would say they loved that I had a “real” body, so I didn't care much about “skinny.” I looked voluptuous and that was fine with me, especially because it meant I could continue to savor good food and fine wine. My body always did what I needed it to do, and I felt good, so there was no problem. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was aware that my mother had health issues: she was overweight and had thyroid troubles, hip problems, and a disorder that gave her tremors. I also knew my father had a heart attack in his forties. But what did any of that have to do with me?

When Ron and I fell in love, we were having plenty of passionate sex, and because we had both agreed that we weren't opposed to the idea of creating a family, we didn't use birth control. Our relationship was new and exciting, and we were open to the joy of finding out I was pregnant, even though we weren't really “trying.” We weren't that couple with the charts in the bathroom taking my temperature and timing our liaisons. Heck, we weren't even married. But every so often, one of us might say, “Let's buy an EPT test!” and then we would laugh and kiss and be half clothed in the bathroom while I peed on the stick, and then we would have sex again while we were waiting. It was sexy, the idea that he might impregnate me. It was exciting and sensual. But the result was always negative.

Still, that didn't deter us. I didn't see the signs of my own body's dysfunction. I still believed that if you have sex enough, you get pregnant. You love, you make love, and you make a baby. It's nature. It was a romantic and exciting time, but months passed and then a year, and eventually, in the back of my mind, a tiny alarm signal began to sound. Why wasn't it happening? I tried not to think about it, but part of me already knew.

Then I took my trip to Cambodia.

When I found out I couldn't get pregnant the “normal” way, after that devastating doctor's visit with Ron, I began to feel like less of a
woman. How could Ron still want me? What man wants a woman who can't bear his child? Worse, how could I feel like a woman myself? My body had betrayed me.

What good could
possibly
come from a healthy, active thirty-four-year-old not being able to conceive a child? Even my mother, with all her body issues, was able to conceive me normally. I didn't inherit my defect from her. My body was
healthier
than hers, or so I'd thought. What was wrong with me, that I couldn't manage this basic, simple, totally natural biological process? Why couldn't I just decide to be a mother?

Ron and I talked it over. We grieved together, separately. Ron didn't know how to help me, and I know he was frustrated, too, because he felt like he should be able to do
something
to make this happen for us. Of course, he did do something, by agreeing to pay for the IVF process. Still, it wasn't the dream. The days of spontaneous, giggling, passionate sex faded, replaced by a new kind of penetration: those terrible shots, popping pills, following doctor's orders, trying to do everything right.

“Babies are supposed to be made out of love,” I said to Ron.

“Our baby
will
be made out of love,” he assured me. “The method doesn't matter. Only the result.”

But to me, it did matter because I knew I was
infertile.
The word rattled around inside my body, which felt hollow and empty, like a shell; like something dead that couldn't produce life. Like a beaker in a lab; a vessel rather than a living, breathing, reproducing organism.

Broken.
The word echoed in my mind all the time.

The morning the nurse called to give me the results of the blood test after the embryo transfer, I was sitting in a white chaise longue on the bottom floor of our home, thinking, daydreaming, wondering, trying to be calm. I was in a sort of dark reverie, imagining a future without a baby, or the long road that might lead to one if this try
didn't work. Having an actual baby, even being pregnant, felt remote and impossible, a fading glimmer.

Then the phone rang. The nurse said something into my ear. I wasn't sure I had heard her correctly. I asked her to repeat it. She said it clearly, emphasizing each word:

“You are pregnant.”

“What?”

At first, I couldn't believe it. I didn't feel pregnant. I hadn't experienced any intuitive tickles or feelings of psychic knowing. I stared down at my stomach. I closed my eyes and tried to feel the existence of another life inside me. It was an unreal moment. I sat very still for a long time. Then I carefully laid my palm on my stomach. I couldn't believe it. But I'd known all along that I was really just that empty vessel. And now . . .

Not empty?

I wondered how many babies. My palm moved over my belly in gentle circles, my first maternal act. I knew they had implanted four. Four successful embryos had developed from the eight eggs they had extracted. How many babies? I would find out soon enough. I let the quiet and the knowledge sink slowly in, filling me with a calm sense of wonderment. Pregnant. Pregnant.

Then I thought of Ron. He had to be the next to know, of course. He had hoped and longed and despaired right along with me, and I wanted him to share in this intimate new knowledge. I wanted him to know we had done it at last. As he had said, “The method doesn't matter.” We had done it. We had made a baby. Should I wait until he got home from work? Should I throw him a party? Where was the ticker-tape parade? I felt like there should be at least confetti, raining down from the rafters.

The house seemed immensely quiet in the face of this grand news.
I felt the sudden need to speak. It couldn't wait. It couldn't wait another minute.

He picked up on the third ring.

I blurted it out, without a lead-in: “I'm pregnant!”

“What? You are? Really?”

“I'd better be. We just paid twenty thousand dollars.” The bitterness in my voice surprised me. In the moment I'd expected to be only about joy and celebration, I recognized that disappointment was mixed in, too. I was still grieving the loss of the fantasy, that love + sex = baby. But what did it matter? A baby is a baby is a baby. “No, that's not what I mean,” I corrected myself. “I mean, Yes! Yes, yes, yes. We did it.”

Over the next few weeks, the reality sunk in and the bitterness mellowed. I began to feel my body in a different way. I began to move differently. Ron treated me carefully, gingerly, like I was made of glass. I felt like I looked different than before. I would stare at myself in the mirror, looking for a sign, trying to pinpoint what had changed. I thought everyone would be able to tell, but nobody said anything remarkable. Nobody said, “You look different. What's changed?” Nobody said, “Hey, are you
pregnant?”
Nobody knew.

It surprised me, every time I went out in public. How was it not obvious that I'd become someone entirely different? That my body was preparing me to become a mother? But then I would remind myself not to jump too far ahead, not to take anything for granted. I knew the journey wasn't over yet. I had nine months to go—to keep this baby alive inside me.

That's always the reality, every day, when you've done fertility treatments. There is always the possibility that it might not work, that you might not be able to carry it all the way. When you get pregnant by having sex with your partner, the element of loss isn't in the original
equation. If a loss happens, it's a shock. But with IVF, the element of loss is with you from the beginning, a specter following you around, and all you can do is hope that it never materializes. We both knew it, but neither of us ever said it out loud.

At my first prenatal checkup, Dr. Sahakian was firm with me. “This pregnancy cost you a lot of money, Lis, so be careful,” he said. “You don't need to do a lot of exercise. Just take it easy. Rest a lot.”

He didn't have to tell me twice. For the first few months, I carried my pregnancy around with me like a jewel in my pocket. I walked carefully. I rested. I marveled. I meditated. I protected my belly, my hands always hovering, stroking, patting, shielding. I whispered to my unborn baby in the dark. And I hibernated like a bear. Although I never had morning sickness, I was incredibly tired. Sometimes I would go to bed at eight and sleep until ten the next morning. I felt good. I kept getting happier. Fuller. Wider.

Every time I wondered whether something would be okay for the baby, I called Dr. Sahakian. He was probably sick of hearing from me, but I wanted to follow every rule to the letter. I was on a mission and I wasn't taking any risks. Was it okay to dye my hair? Bleach my teeth? Ride on an airplane? Yes, it was all okay. Everything was okay. Slowly, I began to believe it:
I'm going to be okay. Maybe this is really going to happen.

This was a wonderful time in my life. I felt cozy and drowsy and content all the time. Every morning, I would wake up late, take my golden retriever, Homer, and my growing belly outside, walk the quarter block to the beach, slowly walk down the sand to Cold Stone Creamery, get an ice cream that was probably about five thousand calories, then walk back very slowly, gliding along the sand languorously, luxuriously, telling myself to keep every step smooth so I wouldn't jolt the baby. After this exhausting expedition, I would go home and take a nap.

I kept a book for my baby during this time. I wrote in it every day: what I did, where I went, what I saw. I wanted her—I just knew she was a girl—to know what it was like, but I was also willing her into being. Every entry was another bet that she would make it. Everything I did, I did with the deliberate assumption that she was coming. No matter what. There was no other option. I wouldn't let another option enter my mind.

When I wasn't napping or strolling or eating, I was randy. My body had never felt so sensual and sexy. I loved my growing curves. There was just something so juicy and velvety and lush about being pregnant, and I wanted Ron to see it, too. I wanted him to desire me, to be unable to keep his hands off me.

But he was less sure about this part. He was so afraid of hurting the baby or doing something wrong that he was scared to touch me. I felt hurt and frustrated by this. Why didn't he want me? I was so round and soft, and I wanted to share my body with him. Instead, he was protective of me. I wondered, in my insecure moments, if he desired me anymore. Was I getting too fat? Had he lost his lust for me because of the IVF? I think that he just didn't want to hurt me or the baby. The whole experience seemed precarious and against the odds, not to mention so expensive, that the very thought of sex seemed like an invasion or a terrible risk to him. This was hard on us at the time, but we persevered because we both knew what was at the end of this race. We would both win this prize.

Meanwhile, I kept reminding myself that we had a wedding to plan. I would go on wedding-planning binges, and then I would pull back and say I wasn't ready. My friend Lash had been helping me plan my wedding when I was only a few weeks into the pregnancy, but then I decided we should postpone, because I wanted to be able to have champagne at my wedding. When we resumed wedding planning a few months later, I decided I didn't want to get married when I was
obviously pregnant. I would go on to postpone the wedding several other times. Ron and I still called each other “fiancé”/“fiancée,” but marriage just seemed less important than focusing on getting through the pregnancy. Ron had been married before, so it didn't matter very much to him. He didn't need that piece of paper to feel committed to me. I felt like it was just more pressure I didn't need, so finally, we decided to wait. (We might just do it yet . . . one of these days!)