open; the woman pushes her child out. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted,” I say, as soon as we are alone again. “To have a baby.”
“What if it’s not what I want?”
“It’s what you used to want.”
“Well, you used to want a relationship with me,” Max says, “so I guess we’ve both changed a little.”
“What are you talking about? I still want a relationship with you.”
“You want a relationship with my sperm. This . . . this baby thing . . . it’s gotten so much bigger than the two of us. It’s not even us, in it together anymore. It’s you, and it’s the baby we can’t seem to have, and the harder it gets the more air it sucks out of the room, Zoe. There’s no space left for me.”
“You’re jealous? You’re jealous of a baby that doesn’t even exist?”
“I’m not jealous. I’m lonely. I want my wife back. I want the girl who used to want to spend time with me, reading the obituaries out loud and driving for forty miles just to see what town we’d wind up in. I want you to call my cell to talk to me, instead of to remind me that I have to be at the clinic at four. And now—now you want to get pregnant again, even if it kills you? When do you stop, Zoe?”
“It’s not going to kill me,” I insist.
“Then it just might kill me .” He looks up. “It’s been nine years. I can’t do this anymore.”
There is something in his gaze, some bitter pill of truth, that sends a shiver down my spine. “Then we’ll find a surrogate. Or we’ll adopt—”
“Zoe,” Max says, “I mean, I can’t do this. I can’t do us.”
The elevator doors open. We are on the ground floor, and the afternoon sun streams through the glass doors at the front of the clinic. Max walks out of the elevator, but I don’t.
I tell myself the light is playing tricks on me. That this is an optical illusion. One minute I can see him, and the next, it’s like he was never here at all.
“There is audio content at this location that is not currently supported for your device. The caption for this content is displayed below.”
The House on Hope Street (3:56)
MAX
I always figured I’d have kids. I mean, it’s a story most guys can identify with: you’re born, you grow up, you start a family, you die. I just wish that, if there had to be a delay somewhere in the process, it would have been the last bit.
I’m not the villain, here. I wanted a baby, too. Not because I’ve spent my whole life dreaming of fatherhood, but for a reason much more simple than that.
Because it’s what Zoe wanted.
I did everything she asked me to. I stopped drinking caffeine, I wore boxers instead of briefs, I started jogging instead of biking. I followed a diet she’d found online that increased fertility. I no longer put the laptop on my lap. I even went to some crazy acupuncturist, who set needles dangerously close to my testicles and lit them on fire.
When none of that worked, I went to a urologist, and filled out a ten-page form that asked me questions like Do you have erections? and How many sexual partners have you had? and Does your wife reach orgasm during intercourse?
I grew up in a household where we didn’t really talk about our feelings, and where the only reason you went to a doctor was because you’d accidentally cut off a limb with a chain saw. So I don’t mean to be defensive, but you have to understand, the touchy-feely part of IVF and the poking and the prodding isn’t something that comes naturally to me.
I had a hunch that it wasn’t just Zoe who had infertility problems. My brother, Reid, and his wife had been married for over a decade and hadn’t been able to conceive yet, either. The difference was that, instead of forking over ten thousand dollars to a clinic, he and Liddy prayed a lot.
Zoe said that Dr. Gelman had a better success rate than God.
As it turns out, I have a total sperm count of 60 million—which sounds like a lot, right? But when you start figuring in their
“What if it’s not what I want?”
“It’s what you used to want.”
“Well, you used to want a relationship with me,” Max says, “so I guess we’ve both changed a little.”
“What are you talking about? I still want a relationship with you.”
“You want a relationship with my sperm. This . . . this baby thing . . . it’s gotten so much bigger than the two of us. It’s not even us, in it together anymore. It’s you, and it’s the baby we can’t seem to have, and the harder it gets the more air it sucks out of the room, Zoe. There’s no space left for me.”
“You’re jealous? You’re jealous of a baby that doesn’t even exist?”
“I’m not jealous. I’m lonely. I want my wife back. I want the girl who used to want to spend time with me, reading the obituaries out loud and driving for forty miles just to see what town we’d wind up in. I want you to call my cell to talk to me, instead of to remind me that I have to be at the clinic at four. And now—now you want to get pregnant again, even if it kills you? When do you stop, Zoe?”
“It’s not going to kill me,” I insist.
“Then it just might kill me .” He looks up. “It’s been nine years. I can’t do this anymore.”
There is something in his gaze, some bitter pill of truth, that sends a shiver down my spine. “Then we’ll find a surrogate. Or we’ll adopt—”
“Zoe,” Max says, “I mean, I can’t do this. I can’t do us.”
The elevator doors open. We are on the ground floor, and the afternoon sun streams through the glass doors at the front of the clinic. Max walks out of the elevator, but I don’t.
I tell myself the light is playing tricks on me. That this is an optical illusion. One minute I can see him, and the next, it’s like he was never here at all.
“There is audio content at this location that is not currently supported for your device. The caption for this content is displayed below.”
The House on Hope Street (3:56)
MAX
I always figured I’d have kids. I mean, it’s a story most guys can identify with: you’re born, you grow up, you start a family, you die. I just wish that, if there had to be a delay somewhere in the process, it would have been the last bit.
I’m not the villain, here. I wanted a baby, too. Not because I’ve spent my whole life dreaming of fatherhood, but for a reason much more simple than that.
Because it’s what Zoe wanted.
I did everything she asked me to. I stopped drinking caffeine, I wore boxers instead of briefs, I started jogging instead of biking. I followed a diet she’d found online that increased fertility. I no longer put the laptop on my lap. I even went to some crazy acupuncturist, who set needles dangerously close to my testicles and lit them on fire.
When none of that worked, I went to a urologist, and filled out a ten-page form that asked me questions like Do you have erections? and How many sexual partners have you had? and Does your wife reach orgasm during intercourse?
I grew up in a household where we didn’t really talk about our feelings, and where the only reason you went to a doctor was because you’d accidentally cut off a limb with a chain saw. So I don’t mean to be defensive, but you have to understand, the touchy-feely part of IVF and the poking and the prodding isn’t something that comes naturally to me.
I had a hunch that it wasn’t just Zoe who had infertility problems. My brother, Reid, and his wife had been married for over a decade and hadn’t been able to conceive yet, either. The difference was that, instead of forking over ten thousand dollars to a clinic, he and Liddy prayed a lot.
Zoe said that Dr. Gelman had a better success rate than God.
As it turns out, I have a total sperm count of 60 million—which sounds like a lot, right? But when you start figuring in their
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