Mixed Blessings (17 page)

But today all he was going to do was the pelvic, to check for growths, cysts, infection, or deformities, and then they would draw blood to check for HIV, low-grade infections, and to check her immunity to rubella. He also wanted a complete blood count, and he would be doing cervical cultures after the pelvic, to check even further for infections. Sometimes a simple infection was the key to the whole problem.

It seemed as though they had a lot planned, although the only tests they were doing that day were simple ones, but at least she finally felt as though they were doing something to find out what was going on in her body. She smiled to herself as she remembered what Andy had said to her the night before.

He had told her about a problem he'd had with his nose when he was a child. It had gotten terribly stopped up, until he could barely breathe, and his mother had taken him to a specialist, to check his adenoids and tonsils.

"And you know what it turned out to be?" he asked solemnly, as he lay in bed with an arm around her.

"I don't know . . . a sinus infection?"

"Much simpler than that. Raisins. I'd shoved a whole bunch up my nose a few days before, and they just kind of sat there all warm and cozy, and grew, and I was afraid to say anything to my mother. So when you see the doctor tomorrow, sweetheart don't forget to tell him to check for raisins." She smiled again as she thought of the story, while the doctor examined her, and it reminded her again of how much she loved Andy.

But Dr. Johnston did not find any raisins. Nor did he find any deformities, or tumors, or cysts, or any sign of infection. Everything checked out perfectly, and Diana was relieved, as a technician came in to do the blood work.

And once she was dressed, the doctor explained that he wanted her back in ten days to do the tests he had already discussed with her, and that they would tell them exactly when to time their lovemaking this month, at the fertile time, and he wanted her to use an ovulation kit the following week to check her urine for a surge of luteinizing hormone, or LH, which would occur just before ovulation. It sounded very complicated, but actually, it wasn't. It was just new. And he wanted her to continue taking her temperature, which she had done anyway for the past six months, and even that drove Andy crazy. He said it was like living with a hypochondriac, with a thermometer shoved in her mouth every morning. But as always, he was a good sport about it, if she thought it would help them get pregnant. I' Before she left, the doctor also suggested to Diana that she and Andy slow down a little bit, if they could, take some time off from work, spend time doing the things they liked to do, even if it meant sacrificing time with friends or work-related projects.

"Stress can play an important part in infertility too. Try to wind down as much as you can, both of you. Get lots of fresh air, eat well, sleep." It was all easier said than done in the modern world, and he knew it, but he also thought it was worth saying. He had said again that more than likely there was nothing wrong with either of them, and all they needed was a little more time and things would happen naturally. But if there was a problem, he assured her, they would find it. But as she left his office, feeling hopeful and excited and nervous, she remembered something else he had said, that roughly fifty percent of the couples treated for infertility gave birth to healthy babies, but there were others, healthy themselves, with absolutely nothing wrong with them, who never got pregnant. It was something she would have to face, if it ever came to that for them, but she didn't know how she would do it. Just being there, talking to the doctor about the various possibilities, the tests she might have to face, made her realize for the first time just how much she was willing to do to have a baby.

She would do anything, short of stealing one.

She was exhausted as she drove home, and for a minute she was tempted to go to the office, but she had taken the day off anyway, and it was alter one o'clock, and she remembered what the doctor had said about not pushing herself. So she decided to go shopping instead, and as she walked through Saks, she felt deliciously guilty. She called Andy from the store, but he was out to lunch, and eventually she went home, and decided to make him a really fancy dinner.

He called her at three o'clock, and he could hear the lighter tone in her voice when she answered. At least they hadn't found anything terribly wrong with her yet. And maybe it was his fault. Actually, for the past month or two he'd been beginning to think so.

"So?" he said, sounding warm and sexy over the phone. "Did they find them?"

"Find what?" She sounded puzzled.

"The raisins. Didn't you tell him?"

"You silly . . ." She told him all about the questions they'd asked, the exam they'd done, and the tests that lay ahead, none of which sounded really awful. She'd been really alraid that the treatment would be ghastly, but so far none of it sounded too daunting.

"So you go back in two weeks?"

"Ten days, and meanwhile I still take my temperature every morning, and start checking my urine with the kit next week."

"Sounds complicated to me," he said, wondering what the future held for them, and especially for him. Maybe the tests would be worse for him when they got to them. He still thought the whole thing was unnecessary and more than a little scary. But he was willing to go along with it, for her sake.

"By the way," he said, after she'd explained it all to him, and told him everything she could about Dr. Johnston, down to the shoes he wore, and the list of diplomas on his office wall, "you're not going to believe this."

"You got a raise," she said hopefully; he worked like a slave for the network.

"No, but it's coming, according to sources close to the top. 

But this is pretty good too. Try again.

"The head of the network got arrested for exposing himself in the cafeteria," she said, closing her eyes and thinking creatively.

"Very nice . . . I wonder if there's anything to that? No, I'll tell you myself, since you'll never guess, and I have to be in a meeting in two minutes. Bill Bennington is marrying his little lawyer friend on Labor Day, at her parents' summer house at Lake Tahoe. Can you believe that? I almost choked when he told me. I was eating a corned beef sandwich with him downstairs, and I thought he was kidding, till I saw his  face. Can you believe it?"  

"I hope so. He'd better be anyway. The wedding's only about seven weeks away. They're going fishing in Alaska on their honeymoon."

"Yerghk! You'd better talk to him."

"I'd better get my ass to my meeting. See you later, sweetheart. I'll be home around seven." And as always, he was true to his word, and she had a terrific dinner waiting for him. She had used one of Eloise's French recipes, and played around with it a little bit. She made leg of lamb with a light garlic sauce, string beans, and wild mushrooms.

And for dessert an apricot souffi that was perfection.

"Wow! What did I do to deserve all this?" he asked happily, as they finished dessert and she poured him a cup of cofiee. She was feeling better than she had in a long time, and he could see it.

"I just thought it would be fun to have a nice dinner, since I was a lady of leisure today."

"Maybe you should stay home more often." She liked doing that, but she liked working too. Unlike her sisters, she had conflicts about that, and knew she might still have, even if they had a baby. But she didn't have to face that yet, all she had to do was "relax and slow down," according to the doctor. She told Andy about that, too, and he liked the idea, and immediately suggested they go to Santa Barbara for the weekend.

"I'd love it." He'd also made a date with Bill Bennington and his bride-to-be that week. Suddenly life felt like more fun, and she wasn't sure why, except that she felt sure that the doctor was gong to find a way to help them have their baby, and that cheered her.

They had a good time that week, and they were crazy about Bill's fiancae, Denise Smith. She was everything he said she would be, and she invited them to her place for dinner the following week, but Andy was surprised when Diana put her off with vague excuses. But later on she told him that she would be ovulating then, she had to go to Dr. Johnston for tests, and they had to make love on schedule. She didn't want to add to all that the strain of a social schedule.

"Maybe it would be a relief instead of a strain," Andy said testily, but Diana still didn't want to go, and they made plans with Denise and Bill for the following week instead, although Andy was still annoyed about it. But Diana was busy pursuing their baby.

She continued to take her temperature religiously every morning before she got up, and she began using the LH kit as she'd been told to, and the test turned blue on exactly the day the doctor said it would, and that afternoon she went to his office for him to check the mucus in her cervix. He said it looked fine to him, "Very nice and friendly," as he put it, and Diana laughed nervously. He suggested that Andy and Diana make love the following morning, and Diana was to come in as soon as possible afterwards for the postcoital test that would show how Andy's sperm were behaving.

She went back to work late that afternoon, and had coffee with Eloise, and that night she brought Andy up to date on the latest developments, and told him they'd have to make love the next morning.

"What an ordeal," he said jokingly, but as it turned out, it was. He'd had indigestion the night before, and he really didn't feel well when he woke up. He thought he was getting the flu, and he didn't think "things were going to work out," as he put it.

"But you have to," Diana said tensely as they lay in bed, and she tried to help him. "This is the day I ovulate, and I have to have the postcoital test today. I took my temperature and it's way down, which means I'm probably ovulating today. I Andy . . . you have to." She looked at him accusingly, and he wanted to tell her to go to hell, but he didn't.

"Great. Thanks for the important message from my sponsor." He rolled over in bed then and masturbated for a while, and finally brought some life into things and then rolled over and made love to his wife, but there was nothing romantic about any of it. It wasn't even pleasant.

And then, without another word to her, he got out of bed and went to take a shower. It wasn't much fun this way, feeling pressed about what day and what time you made love, or even how. And they were both tense and quiet with each other over breakfast.

"I'm sorry," Diana said softly.

"Don't be," he said from the other side of the paper. "I just don't feel great today, that's all. Forget it." He hated making love to her like that, on command, and he was still nervous about what they were going to do to him, or what they would discover.

But the postcoital test, as it turned out, showed that his sperm appeared to be normal. They were swimming around happily, and he seemed to have a pretty dense sperm populalion, and high motility, all of which was excellent, according to the doctor.

Dr. Johnston also wanted to do an ultrasound on her, to clarify a number of important points that were crucial to her evaluation. He needed to know about the thickness of her uterine lining, the size of her follicle, and if her body was responding to her own production of hormones. And he assured her that the scan wouldn't be very unpleasant, and it wasn't. And she was relieved that so far everything appeared to be normal.

And when she returned again two days later for yet another ultrasound scan, to see if the follicle had ruptured and released the egg, he was able to tell her that it had, and they were another step further.

Bill and Denise invited them out to dinner again the next day, but Diana was so exhausted from the strain of worrying about all of it, and getting to the doctor three times that week for tests and scans, that she just didn't feel like going out, and in the end, she urged Andy to go out without her. She just wanted to go to bed and relax, and she was praying that this month she might have gotten pregnant. Nothing seemed to matter anymore except that. Even her job was less important to her now.

But at least now she could talk to Eloise. But even her friends and family seemed less important to her as they forged ahead with the doctor. Their whole life seemed to have a single purpose to it now, even more than before. Sometimes she felt as though she were losing sight of Andy.

On Monday she went back to the doctor again, and had blood drawn to check her progesterone levels during the midluteal phase, seven days after ovulation. Her temperature had gone up immediately after the LH surge, which was normal, and indicated that she had ovulated. And now all they could do was wait, and see if she was pregnant.

It seemed an interminable ten days while they waited, and she could hardly keep her mind on anything. It also seemed crazy to think that things were going to be different this month. They hadn't given her any medication, all they were doing was gathering information. But her hopes were high anyway, and she began to feel nauseated two days before she was due to get her period, and her hopes skyrocketed on the morning it was due and she didn't have it.

She called Dr. Johnston from the office that day, and he told her to wait a day or two, her body wasn't a machine, and there were variations in the norm. And that night, she got her period, and lay in bed and sobbed after she discovered it. She was crushed and now she wondered what tests they would have in store for her. The whole thing was becoming more and more depressing.

And when she called the doctor the next day, he suggested that Andy make an apporntment to come in. So far, all of her tests had been normal.

"Great. What does that mean?" Andy asked testily when she told him that night that he needed to call Dr. Johnston for an appointment.

"That he thinks it's my fault?"

"What does it matter whose fault it is as long as we find out everything's okay? I don't care if it's your fault or mine, maybe it's no one's fault, maybe nothing's wrong. Maybe everyone was right to begin with, and all we need is time. Don't be so uptight," she told him gently, but he was even more annoyed when he called for the appointment and they told him to bring a vial of fresh semen with him. And he had been told not to have intercourse for three days before taking the sample.