How it was for Me

This is a chapter from my memoir. It records my experience with infertility.

The Baby Factory

Groggy and bleary eyed on this cold, dark January morning, I awoke at 4 am to drive the 35 miles downtown to the fertility clinic for the final procedure; our last feeble attempt at conception.  The Lodge freeway is empty this early and I drive in isolated silence, except for the low hum of the heater fan, squinting as the bright street lights flash intermittently into the car.  Entering the inner city of Detroit travelers are not greeted with a friendly, “Welcome to the City of Detroit” sign,  but by the sudden appearance of  dark, broken down and abandoned homes that line each side of the road. Once upon a time these were grand two story bungalows teeming with light and overflowing with the bustling daily life of the families who lived there. Now, like my hope of ever having a baby[,] they are abandoned, boarded up and burned out.

I exit the freeway and pull into the entrance of the monstrous fortress that is Hutzel Hospital. In the parking structure I drive in circles, around and around and around up to the sixth floor. Finding a slot I park and look for the security guard  before getting out of the car to begin the 15 minute walk into the fertility clinic; past the empty reception desk, down the glaringly bright, long and winding corridors passing doctors and attendants floating by like silent ghosts who don’t notice me. I squeeze into the elevator around the corner of a gurney with a patient on it looking to the side in self-conscious silence, her red hair with grey roots all amiss and her hospital gown off one bare shoulder with tubes coming out the top. Respecting her dignity I pretend not to see her and look above the door at the row of descending floor numbers.  The elevator stops, the doors open and the gurney jerks and rattles as it is pushed out by the aide. Relieved to be alone in the elevator the doors close and I feel a lurch in my stomach as I arrive at my destination. The nurse greets me at the reception with a petulant swish of the sliding glass window.

“Hi, Diane.  Meet me at the door and I’ll let you in.”

She then leads me through a maze of exam rooms to the one I am in now.

Waiting for the doctor I sit on the examination table naked from the waist down covered by a paper sheet and looking at the dreaded barbaric metal stirrups at the end of the table. The room itself is remenisant of a modern torture chamber with its cold, hard, medical machinery; tubes, arms, and pointy things jutting out that make you wonder what kind of a ghastly procedure they perform with that. A tray of precise instruments placed in a neat row next to the exam table calls to mind a scene from a slasher movie where the villain snaps on latex gloves and after thoughtful consideration chooses just the right torture instrument for the job.  This is the place where seven years and twenty thousand dollars have brought us as Andy and I have tried to have children.

Journal entry: October 5, 1991

Three and a half years of trying and no success. Today was the worst yet. I started my period. I was three weeks late and I began to hope again. My period is never late. I’ll be 35 this month and I thought, [[what a wonderful birthday it would be. I would always remember my 35^th birthday because that was the year I got pregnant. I was wrong. And, to top it off we had planned to have dinner with our friends who just had twins. After crying for an hour straight I looked as bad as I felt. Steve was the best man at our wedding; we had to see them sooner or later.  I put on a brave face and barely survived the evening.  If they only knew what their happiness cost me; how excruciatingly hard it was for me to be happy for them.

Journal entry: May 9, 1992

Today is Mothers Day. After a long battle my sister-in-law is pregnant. She’s lucky. They said she could never get pregnant. I won’t forget the look on my brother’s face when he told me; a sheepish combination of pity and apology.  At least he didn’t add insult to injury by offering any of the false encouragements I’ve received from other well meaning preggers; your time will come, just relax it’ll happen, have you tried drinking a beer before sex? In their defense there are no good options for a remark to someone in my position.   My last partner in arms is gone, I am truly alone now.

Journal entry; February 9, 1993

Today we did our last artificial insemination. Nine in all at five hundred dollars each and nothing to show for it. Five years of trying and no pregnancy at all. I spent all morning on the phone with the insurance company shuffling through medical reports stamped; Diagnosis: Unexplained infertility. I slammed the phone down after arguing with another stupid bureaucrat  trying to explain what artificial insemination is and why we need to do it so they would pay the bill and call off the collection agency.  So humiliating! Why does a lowly paper pusher have the right to know that yes, my husband and I are frickin losers who can’t have kids!

Journal entry:  September 10, 1993

Our first attempt at in-vitro failed.  After two months of preparation, two weeks of loupin shots in the thigh followed by two weeks of painful perganol shots in the hip, we harvested six embryos vaginally via needle and ultra sound, real fun!  All fertilized successfully with Andy’s sperm in a Petri dish. Three of them were placed in my fallopian tube via laparoscopic surgery the next day. Then we waited for a month and a half while I endured painful daily shots in the hip of thick oily estrogen.  It didn’t work. I can’t go through this again. My life has become a living hell.

Journal entry: January 8, 1994

They’re going to insert the last three embryos tomorrow. I don’t want to do it. Don’t want to face the final disappointment. I will but this is it. I will no longer do this.

The doctor breezes into the room smiling in her starched, white coat made brighter by her jet black hair. She is a friendly and understanding woman but I still can’t help feeling like a laboratory rat as she kindly explains what she is about to do with the giant syringe she is holding in one hand.

She instructs me to lie down and put my feet into the stirrups. I do as she says and I feel like I’m doing the crab walk with no pants on as I try to figure out what is the most comfortable way to put my feet in the stirrups. After a few tries at positioning I opt to stick them through the hole.

                “Scooch your bottom down to the edge of the table.” She says.

                I scooch to the edge.

                “Ok, let your legs fall back.” She says, and I try but what feels like a wide spread isn’t enough.

                “A little more, just relax.”

I spread farther and it feels as if a cold blast from an open door during a winter storm has hit my most vulnerable parts.  The doctor positions the warm spot light and I thank God for this small comfort that will help me get through this. I flinch at the pinch of the speculum as the doctor works the screw and I feel it expand inside me opening and exposing, for all to see, the vaginal path that leads to my inner most soul, where my dreams, my secrets and my fears reside.  Staring up at the common white ceiling tiles I feel humiliated and broken.

“I am going to insert the syringe now, through the cervix so you will feel a cramp.”

I grip the sides of the table as the needle announces its arrival with a cutting pain that invades my holy sanctuary of failed conception.

“Try to lie still while I push the embryos out of the syringe. I want to give it one good push to make sure they don’t stick to the needle.”

I grip the table again.

“Ok, all done.”  She says as she quickly and mercifully removes the syringe and then the speculum. I snap my legs together and wrap the stiff scratchy paper sheet tightly around my legs.

“I’m going to go look at this under the microscope to make sure the embryos made it inside the uterus. Keep your feet on the table and your knees up. I’ll be right back.”

A few minutes later she returns.

                “Ok, they are not on the syringe so they are inside you now. If they are going to implant they will do it in the next hour so I want you to lay here and try not to move to give the best chance of implanting. I’ll dim the lights and maybe you can catch a cat nap.” She said with a kind smile.

“Ok, thank you.” I reply

“The nurse will be back to check on you.”

“Ok, thanks.” I said.  

Laying there in the dim light I am feeling the walls and corridors of this giant institution close in on me as if I am sinking further and further crushed by the weight of the bricks and mortar disappearing into nothingness.  A lonely tear escapes out of the corner of my eye and runs down the side of my face and settles in a pool at the base of my ear lobe. Should I move to brush it away? I decide not to as it begins to tickle and itch. More tears begin to fall and follow the same path as the first one flowing now like a dripping faucet off my ear lobe onto my hair that lies on the vinyl table. In resignation I raise my hand and brush the tears away. I feel the flinch of a muscle in my abdomen and wonder if I’ve disrupted the implantation.

And, so this has been our sex bed; a vinyl covered table, cold latex covered hands, a syringe for a penis and a test tube for a womb.  I should be home in my own bedroom with the red silk drapes glowing in the moonlight, in my own warm bed with Andy under the soft down comforter feeling his hand holding mine in the afterglow of lovemaking.

Even this precious memory is tainted with the effect of years of love on a schedule accompanied by thermometers, ovulation schedules and emotionless quickies.  The thought of it conjures up a fear of failure and repulsion of lovemaking that viewed out of context could be confused with rape.  We have reached the edge of nature’s rhythms and have fallen off the deep end into this artificial baby making factory.

Once my refuge, my sanctuary and my salvation, nature has let me down with an unforgivable betrayal.  There are no answers for me in clear blue skies, no guidance from the leaves rustling in the breeze, no comfort from the steady earth under my feet, just a cold bitter wind filling the empty space in my barren womb where my babies should have been.

If I had known that the only baby I would ever care for would be the last maybe I would have cherished it more. If I had known then that I would never have children I would have felt lucky to have had the experience. But not being able to tell the future it was that first experience that caused me to want to have children. That kept me going longer than I probably should have trying to replicate the experience. It was worth fighting for. 

 My first babysitting job was for a six week old baby. I was eleven years old and I got the job by chance. On a hot summer night Myra and I were meandering up and down the streets of the neighborhood with nothing to do. As we passed our neighbor Judy’s house we could hear her new baby Cheryl crying all the way out to the street. We turned our heads toward the house attracted by the pitiful wails when our friend Chuck appeared behind the screen door holding the distressed baby with a look of panic on his face.

“Hey, you guys I need help!” He pleaded as we ran up to the house.

“She won’t stop crying, what do I do?” Just then Cheryl thrust vomited over Chuck’s shoulder and resumed wailing.  Myra and I responded in tandem, “eeeew!”

“What’s the matter with her?” I asked as Myra and I entered the house.

“I don’t know but you take her.” Chuck demanded as he held her out to me.

I awkwardly took the baby not sure how to hold her squirming body. She was so tiny and light that I was able to cradle her in my arms without dropping her. Her little round face was all scrunched up and beet red, mouth wide open and wailing.

Putting a diaper on my shoulder he advised, “You’re gona need this.”

“She won’t eat and she’s not wet, but she won’t quit crying.” Chuck blurted out in frustration.

Myra was laughing as she cleaned up the vomit and asked Chuck,

“Why are you babysitting?”

“Because Judy couldn’t find anyone else and my stupid mom made me so they could go to Bingo.”

                “I’m going to take her back to the bedroom where it’s quiet.” I said and headed down the hall.

In the nursery the shades were drawn and the dim night light cast a gentle glow in the room.  I held Cheryl over my shoulder and pressed her gently to me. I walked around the room bouncing her and talking gently to her. “It's ok baby, it’s ok, shhhh.” I circled the room repeatedly and her crying slowed. No one had ever told me what to do with a baby it just seemed to come natural to walk and bounce.  As my eyes adjusted to the dark I noticed the crib, the changing table with the tiny clothes and diapers folded in a neat piles. It seemed holy and special and ultimately important. I thought, this is the baby’s room and I am taking care of the baby. Breathing in the calming scent of Johnson’s baby powder I continued my sojourne around the room resting my head gently against Cheryl. Little by little I felt her relax and mold to my body.  We were as one and I loved the feel of her. We bonded. She became so quiet I wanted to make sure she was ok and lifted her a bit to take a look. She started to cry again, the bond was broken, so I put her back on my shoulder immediately holding her close feeling the bond until she went to sleep. I gently and carefully laid her down in her crib and she started to fuss a little so I gave her the pacifier that was there and she took it. Looking up at me I gazed into her eyes and said, “Shhhh, it’s ok little Cheryl.” And sucking her pacifier her eyes closed lazily and the sucking became intermittent and then stopped. She was a sleep. A feeling of joy overwhelmed me as I looked down on the sleeping baby. Her features had smoothed and I could see what she really looked like. A wisp of blond hair, dew drop skin, a button nose, and rosy cheeks. Such a precious little creature, a living doll! I was in love.

Chuck came into the room and said,

“Myra had to go home.” Looking at the baby in the crib, astonished he said, “What did you do?”

“I don’t know I just held her.”  Looking at the baby shaking my head in a daze of euphoria.

“You have to stay here until Judy gets back.” He demanded.

At eleven o’clock Judy was not back and I had to go home.  Chuck reluctantly said, “Ok, I’ll see ya tomorrow. But I’m calling you if she starts up again.”

The next day Judy called me and asked me if I would be her babysitter. Without hesitation I said “yeah!”  And, every Friday night that Summer I held and quieted Cheryl. We communicated through looks and touch[[,]] creating our own personal language that no one else knew.  That fall Judy started dating a new guy and his sister took over babysitting the girls. I was terribly disappointed and sad but my Friday nights were quickly filled with games of kick the can, kissing boys and hanging out at Southland Mall watching hippies ask for spare change. And, besides I was going to have my own babies one day and they were going to be just like Cheryl and I was going to be a great mom.

The nurse knocked gently on the door then entered.

“Your time’s up, you can go.”  Then hesitating in the doorway she reached into her pocket and said, “I thought you might want this. It’s the tube that held your six embryos.”

I held out my hand and she placed it in palm of my hand. I picked it up and looked closely and contemplatively at the tiny clear tube that was two inches long and no larger than the width of a needle.

The tube blurred in my vision as jealousy reared up clouding my optic nerves.  I thought, how such a tiny tube could hold my six babies when I couldn’t hold any of them at all.  I angrily tossed the tube in my bag, got dressed and walked out vowing never to return here again.

  I was at work by eight am and was quickly absorbed into the mind numbing number crunching of media budgets, endless meetings, ringing telephones and my boss’s unrealistic demands. I was spit out at seven pm exhausted and once again driving in the dark on the Lodge freeway toward home. I followed a long ribbon of red tail lights bringing up the rear at the end of the rush hour traffic.

Nearing home an accident had blocked the main road so I turned down a side street taking a short cut that would lead to my neighborhood. Large delicate snowflakes had begun to fall and land gently on the windshield quickly dissolving into droplets of water. I turned on the windshield wipers and suddenly exhausted I pulled over to side of the road and turned the car off. I just wanted to sit quietly for a moment and watch the snowflakes floating down out of the infinite dark sky. I rolled down the widow and stuck my[[ gloved hand out to catch a few on my black leather glove. I looked closely at their frosty patterns standing out against the black leather resembling tiny monotone kaleidoscopes with endless centers. I dropped my hand to my lap, rested my head on the back of the car seat and stared ahead. My eyes were drawn to a large picture window in the house across the street from where I was parked.  A golden block of light spilled out of the curtain[-]less window onto the accumulating snow on the ground. The family that lived there still had their Christmas tree up in the corner of the room and were casually coming and going, in and out of the room. A little boy in pajamas was jumping up and down in front of the tree and when his mother motioned with her hand he fell into a sitting position.  The snow was falling heavily now glittering in front of the lighted window.  The charming tableau resembled a Christmas snow globe featuring a happy family settling in at the end of the day.

I thought of the tiny tube that I had tossed in my bag so early that same morning. I reached for my bag and superficially rifled through the contents but I couldn’t find it. I thought, when I get home I’ll pour everything out and then I’ll find it. I drove home went straight up stairs to my bedroom and poured the contents of my bag onto my bed. Dropping to my knees beside the bed I sifted through everything and carefully checked the surface of the comforter. When I couldn’t find it I grabbed my bag and felt carefully and thoroughly around each seam and crevice inside the bag. I repeated the whole process again.  It was gone. The only evidence I had of the existance of my babies.  It had disappeared along with any chance I had at creating my own snow globe scene.