What Came First (25 page)

He is silent for a moment, and then he laughs. “Um . . . okay . . .” His voice is froggy.

“Actually, that’s not quite accurate. What I meant to say is that I’m surging. My hormones are surging. I am not ovulating yet, but I will be soon.”

He cleared his throat. “Cool.”

“Did I wake you?” According to my computer, it is now 2:20.

“No, I was, um . . . well, yeah. It’s my day off, so I got up at like five and went surfing.”

“That’s, um, nice.” Tuesday he surfs. Wednesday he donates sperm. Just a typical week.

I continue, “I’ve scheduled our appointments for tomorrow. For your donation and my insemination. You said you could make yourself available.”

“Yeah, sure.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll just call in sick.”

“Terrific.”

Surfer. Slacker. Failed musician. This is the man I’ve chosen to father my child. Ah, well, it worked out well the last time.

I say, “Your results came in. Did they tell you? For HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C . . . and whatever else they tested. All negative. So we can move ahead. Thank you again. For getting the tests.”

“Sure, no problem.”

I give him directions to the clinic. “It’s best if you’re early. Say, fifteen minutes?”

“Sure,” he says.

“Because you never know with traffic, and if you miss the appointment, I might have to wait until next month.”

“Got it,” he says.

He’s late. Or, late for being early, at any rate. Two minutes before eleven o’clock, I stand on the steps in front of a tall, shiny building in Irvine, the climbing sun stinging my eyes. The Orange County Center for Reproductive Health is on the fifth floor. It will take us at least three minutes to ride the elevator.

My obstetrician referred me to OCCRH last fall, when I told her that I was considering another child, ideally from the initial donor. A fertility clinic would have the necessary equipment for sperm washing and freezing. Plus, they would be prepared to address problems in the event that I had trouble conceiving. I’ve been here twice before, once for a physical exam to assess, as much as possible, my reproductive health, and again to discuss insemination options.

“My only real fertility issue is that I don’t have a man,” I joked to the doctor during the second visit.

His brow furrowed with concern. “At forty-two, you are by definition a low-odds, high-risk candidate.”

I will no longer attempt humor with him. But no matter.

After Eric does his business in the bathroom today—assuming he shows up—his semen will be “washed.” Washing uses centrifugal force to extract the sperm from the surrounding fluid, making it both sterile and more concentrated. If today’s intrauterine insemination doesn’t take, I’ll have a couple more shots with frozen samples, though the odds of success will be cut in half.

I’ve been trying not to think too much about what comes next, but here it is. At three o’clock, the doctor will thread a catheter through my cervix and into my uterus. He says it won’t hurt but will merely be uncomfortable—which, as anyone who has ever been to a doctor knows, means it will hurt. He will then inject Eric’s washed sperm, which will have about a 12 percent chance of fertilizing my egg. Compared to my usual odds of zero, that’s not so bad.

I am scrolling through my BlackBerry’s contact list to find Eric’s number when he comes bounding up the steps.

“Hey.” He smiles, and a huge knot dissolves in my chest. With the sun in my eyes, I could almost mistake him for a cute, arty college kid. Partly, it’s his style: longish hair tucked behind his ears; a faded, short-sleeved plaid shirt open over a T-shirt; faded Levi’s; green Vans. Even more than that, though, it’s the way he carries himself, his shoulders free of tension, his grin quick and easy, his thumbs looped into his front pockets. When I was in college, I never went in for the free-spirited arty types, though in retrospect maybe I should have.

Alone in the elevator, we stand shoulder to shoulder and stare at the glowing control panel.

“How was traffic?” I shoot him a side glance.

He shrugs. “No worse than usual.”

“And your work—they were okay with you missing a day?”

He digs his hands deeper into his pockets. “People call in sick all the time. It’s no big deal. They’ll get someone else to fill the shift.”

The shift. That’s right: he’d be paid hourly. I had already promised to pay him the going rate for his sperm donation: three hundred dollars. Should I offer to cover the cost of his lost wages as well?

At the fifth floor, the elevator chimes and the doors open to a young, somber-looking couple holding hands. We change places with them. The elevator doors close, and they disappear.

At the check-in desk, Eric stands back while I tell the receptionist his name, and she hands me a clipboard with papers for him to fill out. It is a bit like taking Ian to the doctor, as long as you don’t consider what we’re here for.

“The bill goes to me,” I tell her in a low voice. “Laura Cahill. My address is in the file.”

Her face neutral, she makes a note.

Eric and I settle ourselves in matching blond-wood chairs with blue upholstered seats. Lake paintings cover the waiting room’s greenish-blue walls. They are meant to be calming. They do not work.

“I feel like I should buy you a drink first,” I blurt.

He looks up from the clipboard. “Gotta admit, I could use one right about now.”

Across the room, a very pregnant woman sits next to a pudgy man, both wearing gold bands. She catches my eye and smiles. I smile back and cross my arms so she can’t see my bare left hand.

When Ian was a baby I wore a ruby-and-gold ring my father (my stepmother, really) had given me when I graduated from high school. It didn’t look like a wedding or even an engagement ring, but placed on the proper finger, it seemed to ward off disapproving stares. I haven’t worn it in years, and not just because I didn’t like feeling married to my stepmother. At a certain point, people just assumed I was divorced—which, of course, I am. I’ve never tried to pretend that my ex-husband was Ian’s father, but if people make the connection, I don’t go out of my way to correct them.

I reach into my leather bag, touch paper, hesitate.

“I brought the contract we discussed.”

I’d e-mailed Eric a copy of the agreement, which laid everything out in crystal-clear terms (at least for anyone who reads legal documents all day). Once Eric made his deposit, he would be out of the picture entirely. Should the insemination result in a pregnancy, the embryo and resulting child would be mine and mine alone; Eric would have no rights or responsibilities.

“Do you want to sign it now, or . . .”

He looks up from the clipboard and hesitates. “We should probably just do it now. Because if we wait until after . . . well, you might not want to shake my hand.”

It takes me a moment to realize what he just said. I slap my hand over my mouth. My shoulders shake with laughter.

The pregnant lady across the room looks at me funny, but I keep on laughing until there are tears in my eyes.

Sometime later, a blond, heavyset nurse with a baby voice leads us into an examining room, where more lake scenes decorate powderblue walls. One of the paintings features a moose; another shows two deer and a bunny.

“You can take a seat over there, Mrs. Fergus,” the nurse tells me, pointing to a corner chair.

“We’re not married,” I say.

“Oh! Sorry. I didn’t mean to assume anything.”

“This is a private sperm donation. It should be in your notes.” Still standing, I point at her clipboard.

“I’m sure it is,” she chirps, without checking.

I settle into the corner chair. The nurse takes Eric’s temperature and blood pressure—which is thankfully normal. I wouldn’t want him having a heart attack in the middle of—you know.

“The doctor will be right in,” the nurse tells us, and we smile and nod even though we know she’s lying.

Eric remains perched on the examining table. “So,” he says.

“So.”

He swings his feet and drums his fingers. The paper on the examining table rustles as if a mouse were scampering across it.

He takes a deep breath and then exhales. “This is awkward.”

“Extremely.”

He tilts his head and squints at the wall. “Do you like the lake paintings?”

“No. They are generic and contrived. They should have just gone with ocean paintings. At least it would make sense, given that we’re near the coast.”

“Or they could have pictures of chickens,” he says.

“Chickens?”

“Yeah. Sitting on eggs, waiting for them to hatch. That’s what this place is about, right?”

“You sure do like chickens,” I say.

“Have you thought about names?” Eric asks.

“For the chickens? Oh!” He means for the baby. I shake my head. “It’s a little early. I don’t want to jinx myself. If Ian had been a girl, I was going to call him Eleanor, but now I’m not sure.”

“Eleanor?”

“You don’t like it?”

“It’s—you know. Whatever makes you happy.” He mouths “Eleanor” with obvious distaste.

“What about Ian?” I ask. “The first time I told you my son’s name, I got the impression you didn’t like it.”

“I never said that.”

“Do you like it?”

He waits a beat too long and then says, “Sure.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

He bites his lip. “It’s just a little, you know.”

“What?”

“Nothing. It doesn’t matter what I think.”

“But what do you think?”

“It’s just . . . a lot of vowels. But as long as you like it. And Ian likes it.”

Ian wishes I’d called him something else.

“What about Jake?” I ask. “You like that?”

He sits up straighter. “
Jake
. Now,
that’s
a name.”

There is a rap on the door, and Dr. Goodman walks in. He is in his early sixties, with a generous shock of silver hair and Buddy Holly glasses. He wears a blue lab coat over a black henley shirt and khakis. His Nikes squeak against the floor.

“H’lo.” He glances at us and then hunches over a file and flicks through some pages.

“The private sperm donation.” It is a statement, not a question.

“Yes,” I say. “Eric Fergus. Dr. Goodman.” Eric holds out his hand, but Dr. Goodman continues to study his notes as if he’s cramming for a test he knew was coming but hadn’t taken the time to prepare for.

“The lab faxed over your results,” he tells Eric, without looking up. “All good. Though as I told Ms. Cahill, I’d feel better if we were freezing your semen and waiting six months to test again for HIV.”

“But you also said that my fertility is declining by the day,” I reminded him. Given his chosen field, you’d think he’d be a little more diplomatic.

He looks at me. “It’s a matter of pros and cons. So you recorded an LH surge yesterday, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, then. Assuming all goes well, we’ll see you back here this afternoon for the IUI.”

He turns to Eric. “So, Mr. Fergus, you are the father—or rather the donor—of Ms. Cahill’s first child, correct?”

“Correct.”

“And that has been confirmed by a DNA test?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, then.” Dr. Goodman sits on a stool. “Mr. Fergus, when was your last ejaculation?”

“Excuse me?”

“He wants to know when you last had sex,” I say.

“I understood the question.” Irritation tinges Eric’s voice.

“Doesn’t have to be intercourse,” Dr. Goodman says. “Any ejaculation during the past forty-eight hours could compromise your sperm count.”

“No one told me that,” I say. “When I called to make the appointment, no one said anything about—”

“I have not ejaculated in the past forty-eight hours,” Eric interrupts, flushing slightly.

“Excellent.” Dr. Goodman makes a note on his chart. “And Ms. Cahill, if the IUI is successful, this will be your second pregnancy, correct?”