“Why not my egg?”
“You can get pregnant—but fertility declines with age. Your eggs are older, they’re less viable.”
Less viable. Less potent. In another life I wore La Costa el Algodón mini-slips to bed to entice my husband; his very touch sent shivers through me. I ached for him and for our lovemaking long past the expiration date for romance in a marriage.
For the last two years, our sex life has been a means to an end and we’ve willingly traded in our shared need in the night for baby making. Between pregnancies that failed, an ovulation thermometer surfaced on my bed stand. That became our measure of seduction and tenderness. The cycles, the injections, subcutaneous and intramuscular. Before that, I used to make him laugh.
“So we’re one of those hapless couples without a baby, despite every measure we took. Only luckier because at least we haven’t plowed through our savings before we give up,” I say.
“The pregnancies that ended, they’re a loss for me, too.” James’s voice is low. “I don’t want to give up, Elodie. You know I don’t.”
“I’ve researched how some couples adopt a baby in Russia or mainland China. One or two infertile couples miraculously became pregnant once they got back to the United States. We’ve talked about adoption and traveling to a country where the babies and little children are in need of a home.” I put this idea out partly as a magic potion and partly because adoption would be fine with me. “And we would share that experience, if we adopted.”
“Not my first choice.” James’s tone is firm. While the circumstances have changed, his attitude about adopting has not.
“Somehow it could still happen for us. We could have our baby,” I say. If only it were for sure.
Another round of in vitro isn’t happening, I know by the way he shakes his head, and I realize that I’ve taken hormones for nothing. I swallow hard. How could this be my life? I’ve watched mothers stroll along the Avenue with their small children, fulfilled, content. Some secretly doling out M&M’s, others handing out Polly-O string cheese. Mothers with their children, traveling together from playgroup to painting classes at the Four Arts, on to gymnastics at Gymboree. Over Christmas vacation they add a few days at the Breakers holiday camp, visits to the aquarium and children’s zoo. The best is when mothers come into the Literary Society with their small children for the Children’s Hour on the fourth floor. We showcase children’s book authors, Nancy Tillman, Nick Bruel, and P. G. Bell, while never forgetting Goodnight Moon or Chicken Soup with Rice. We order new titles as well as classics—the key is that they’re imaginative, adventurous, and bold. Books I would select for my own child.
Two days ago I read The Tiger Who Came to Tea to the three- to five-year-olds. There is a sister and brother who come each week. The mother sets one child on each knee as they listen. The little girl fusses with her pigtails and wears funky-print leggings and the little boy claps when I turn the pages. That is when I most want to hold my own child close as the world unfolds.
“I want a baby, too, James. With you. I don’t want a stranger’s eggs. Someone we don’t know carrying our baby, being the donor.”
“I agree it brings up another level of potential problems,” James sighs. “It’s too…”
“Unnatural?” I say. “I’m uneasy with the idea. Having your sperm shot into her body while I’d be on the sidelines.”
“Something like that. I know how you must feel.” James leans in, beseeches me. “I’ve really thought about it, scrupulously.”
I want to remind him that I have never failed at anything in my life. James knows, doesn’t he? I was a straight-A student who earned academic scholarships for both undergraduate and graduate school. I was summa at Princeton; I have a master’s degree in library science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I have finished every novel I’ve ever started reading, including The Brothers Karamazov. I’ve never cheated on a boyfriend, including in high school; I’ve never stood anyone up. I’m a dutiful daughter and genuinely adore my sister. I worked hard to become director of events—scheduling exhibitions, book discussions, and author talks. I’m upping diversity, explaining to the board why it matters to include grade schools, to offer outreach for children and adults alike. I fought the board for our Writers and Critics schedule, then chased down the talent. Wasn’t I taught by my parents that perseverance pays off? Yet not with this, not with carrying a baby to term.
Our server, still young, still potentially nosy, appears with our drinks. I measure the sugar into a spoon, only half full. Then I stir gently. I might skid off the seat; I might disappear.
“Okay, I think I get it,” I say. “We have a life. We have our love, our work. Maybe it isn’t only about having a baby. We care about each other.”
I half believe it—if only I can dispel the baby. My husband leans closer, kisses me lightly on the lips. I can taste the tannic acid from his iced tea. There is something about James today that unsettles me. Like the person I married has gone missing, replaced by this nervous version, a woebegone man.
“I married you because I love you.” James drags his chair to mine. It thumps, making a screeching sound on the patio. “I want children—at least a child. Life would feel incomplete without one. I know I’d be a great father, you’d be a great mother.”
I cough, take a sip of Voss water from my glass.
“I was just out of college when my father died. He was very dedicated to me and to my mom. I want that chance, that experience,” James says. “Look at you and your mother and Aubrey. Don’t you want to raise a child based on what you’ve had with your family, what you do for kids at the Society?”
“What happened with your father is terribly sad. I know he was outstanding. You should be a father, James.”
The umbrella over our table almost topples in a mini wind squall that’s come out of nowhere. I notice one of the bikini-clad women—a tourist—spreading her towel out on her lounge chair while the sun dips and resurfaces. Carefree, unencumbered. Why didn’t I at least harvest my eggs?
What was I thinking—what were we thinking as a couple? I don’t dare acknowledge our miscalculation, that when we were first married I was pregnant. It was too soon, so James and I made a decision together to abort. Is he remembering, lamenting that my being fertile is no longer possible? Again the anguish of knowing I’m late in the game.
“This is how I feel, Elodie. I want you that much, with children. I want to be a father.”
When he puts his hands on my forearms, they are like bricks. I try to shrug away from him. He is supposed to talk about the value of us, a “running for office” duo. James is the husband who keeps trim and hasn’t lost his hair. I do my best between hot yoga and the elliptical, the Lake Trail with my mother and mother-in-law. My hair is so glimmery lately, it’s as if I stole it from Aubrey. Both James and I exude a calm. He should make a pledge about our life together working with or without children.
“Elodie?”
He straightens up, inches away, suddenly confused. Is he mistaking the lunch with me, his wife for better or worse, with a meeting at ANVO? There at his company, he gets to push for progress without opposition, without glitches. He brought ANVO to South Florida, where it keeps growing, focusing on the commercialization of drugs in certain areas of the country or why the research on inflammatory disorders matters. I profit from his style, his conviction at ANVO. His promises, from front-row seats to Bruce Springsteen on Broadway to a surprise long weekend in Nassau to flying Mario Vargas Llosa to the Literary Society after I mentioned my hope, happen pronto. Yet he can be humble, and when we are at dinner with friends, he boasts about my lineup of writers, not his latest projects. While James views most of life as a negotiation, I don’t forget his private side. That’s what I’m after, what I need. Which James is the one sitting with me at lunch?