Waiting for Daisy

by Peggy Orenstein

  I woke up in a middle-of-the-night panic thinking, Would the baby be Jewish? Judaism, as I’ve said, is traditionally passed down matrilineally, so even though Steven is a gentile, our naturally conceived child would have been 100 percent Yid. Could the ancient Talmudic scholars have anticipated the possibility of cleaving biology from DNA?

  I called one of the rabbis at my parents’ Conservative synagogue in Minneapolis. “The mother who carries the child determines the religion," he explained. The Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, the central authority of the Conservative movement, had actually issued a policy paper on third-party reproduction. They’d based their decision on the bonding and the health risks of pregnancy and childbirth, as well as the precedent that the baby of a gentile woman who converts mid-pregnancy is Jewish. That suited my needs but seemed insensitive in the larger picture. It would mean, for example, that a baby born to a Jewish survivor of uterine cancer who’d used a gentile surrogate to gestate an embryo created from her own eggs and her husband’s sperm would have to be converted. Secular law uses “intentionality" as a measure—the person or people who initiated the creation of a baby are the parents, period. As relieved as I was to put the question aside, that approach seemed more humane.

  The next night I jolted awake again remembering a school assignment one of our nieces had recently completed: a family tree detailing her ethnic background. How would our potential child approach such a task? A friend who was a public school teacher told me that most Bay Area schools consider such assignments obsolete. “There are so many variables here between adoption, step-parenthood, two mommies and a sperm donor, two daddies and an egg donor… ." Instead, children make a tree with themselves as the trunk, adding roots and branches of their choosing: stepfathers, a birth mother, an egg donor, an uncle, their pet hamster—whomever they consider family.

  The morning I was to start the Pill, I wept. My feelings were so tangled: gratitude toward Jess, grief that I’d never see my smile on a child, the niggling sense that if we just tried once more on our own we would succeed. The fear that it wouldn’t work. The fear that it would. It was this sort of indecision that had gotten me here in the first place.

  “Peg," Steven said. “You’re the only one who can figure this out. You’re the only one who knows how doing this will affect you.

  “I know," I said, miserably.

  He watched the distress play across my face. “Okay," he finally said. “I’ll tell you how I think of it. We have this opportunity because of you—because of the book you wrote that brought Jess to us; because you helped her and encouraged her as she grew up; because of her connection to you. So this baby would be part you, it would be possible because of you. I’d think of it like a sundae: one scoop of green tea ice cream, one scoop of spumoni, and you’d be like the chocolate sauce that brought it all together.”

  Maybe that was only a pretty rationalization, something he said to break through my paralysis, to help me process emotions that I couldn’t work through myself. Still, I liked the image—it was something even a child could understand. This may not be the act of love I had hoped would create our baby, but it would be an act of love, nonetheless.

  I popped the pill in my mouth, felt its sweet coating melt on my tongue.

  “Then again," Steven added thoughtfully as I swallowed. “Maybe you would be the nuts on top.”

  By the time we picked Jess up from the airport again, I had fully embraced the fantasy of creating a brave new family. I imagined sweeping our baby off to Florida to visit his “other" grandparents, Jess spending summers in California with us, holidays that looked like futuristic versions of Yours,. Mine and Ours. Steven and I would be older parents. Our child, most likely, would have no siblings—what good fortune to have this extra layer of love in his life. Rather than an object of pity, I recast myself as a maverick, a pioneer, roles with which I was infinitely more comfortable.

  We had bought an extra ticket so Jess’s boyfriend could join her for the first weekend of her visit; we expected she’d stay just a few days longer. Brian was an aspiring music producer, heavily into vinyl; Steven had closets full of LPs. (He’d sold off about a thousand to make room for me in his apartment when we’d moved in together, which I considered a more significant declaration of his love than our marriage vows.) The two of them disappeared into our den as soon as we arrived home.

  I watched as Jess methodically prepared her nightly injections. Something immediately looked amiss. “I think you’re using too much water to dilute the medicine," I said.

  “No, Janet said it was one vial of water for each vial of powder.”

  “I’m almost sure that it’s one vial for all the powder. Didn’t anyone go over this with you in Orlando?”

  “They said if I’d talked it through with Janet on the phone and read all the instructions they didn’t have to." She looked worried. “I’m afraid to do it any other way without checking.”

  “Okay,” I said, reluctantly. “But will you be sure to ask the doctor tomorrow?” She agreed, continued to fill the syringe brimful, and poked it into her thigh. It took nearly a minute to inject all that fluid. Although it had been two years since I’d done it, I was sure my shots hadn’t been that big.

  Dan was on vacation again.

  “This is ridiculous," Steven fumed. “It’s like he’s a front man who ropes you in with his smooth bedside manner before passing you on to someone else.”

  “I don’t know about that," I said, “but at least he could’ve told us.”

  It was Sunday and Dr. Franklin, who had done our last IVF, was out as well. Instead Jess saw a doctor we didn’t know, a guy with a British accent who didn’t bother to give her his name. She came back to the waiting room in tears. “He told me my eggs weren’t developing fast enough," she sobbed. “And when I asked about overdiluting the medication, he yelled at me. He acted like I wasn’t trying, like it was my fault.”

  Brian wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight. “I did exactly what they told me to do," she sniffled into his shoulder. "I’m a human being, not a chicken!”

  “I’d say you’re a human being, not a servant," I said, acidly. I didn’t know how “unknown" donors were handled, but I expected Jess—my generous, trusting Jess—to be treated with respect. Not just respect, but with deference and appreciation for the great gift she was giving us. Later I complained to one of the nurses, who rolled her eyes.

  “Oh, that one," she said, dismissively. “He’s only here on weekends when the other doctors can’t make it. She won’t have to see him again." That hardly seemed like an excuse.

  Jess was still shaky when we left the office. “I know what will make you feel better," I said. “Let’s go to church!”

  The two of them looked at me oddly: Jess knew I was Jewish, and Brian, a lapsed Jehovah’s Witness, was leery of religion. But Steven had been doing a pro bono project at San Francisco’s Glide Memorial Church, which billed itself as the most diverse, inclusive congregation in the world. The flock at its Sunday “celebrations" was a tonal rainbow of white and brown; a mix of homeless addicts and monied professionals; gays, straights, and transgenders; Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and Christians. Although nominally Methodist, Glide’s message was universal: God was love, God was acceptance, God was the impulse to help those in need. And the gospel-style choir, with its live band headed by a one-time member of Sly and the Family Stone, rocked the house. When a slip of a white woman with a blonde ponytail and pipes like Aretha’s knocked out “Love Train," we spontaneously leapt to our feet—levitated, really. As the four of us clapped and swayed to the music, merged with it, I thought, A baby conceived in so much good will indeed be truly blessed.

  Sometimes you have to pay for hope, but that morning it came for free.

  The “few days" Jess was supposed to be with us dragged into nine. Although it improved, Jess’s egg production remained slow and her estrogen levels sluggish, making us all tense. Upping her dosages and diluting the meds properl
y helped, but not as much as we would’ve thought. And the twice-daily shots had become an ordeal; whether it was a side effect of the hormones or the stress of the process, they made Jess nervous and weepy. I’d thought of her as a levelheaded, competent young woman who knew precisely what she was getting into, but maybe that was simply what I wanted to believe. She was only two years out of her teens—how mature had I been at twenty-one?

  Even as I hugged and comforted Jess, I fought the urge to turn away. I didn’t want to see her vulnerability, didn’t want to admit what this cost her. Watching her brace herself for the shots made me long for an “unknown" donor—that way I wouldn’t have to see what I was putting her through. I grumbled to Steven that I had done everything Jess was doing and more without a fuss; it wasn’t such a big deal. Of course, I was thirty-eight at the time, not twenty-one, and I was doing it on my own behalf, not someone else’s. My impatience was unfair, I knew it, and I also knew it was a deflection from something else: despite my love and gratitude, I resented Jess, just a little, for being able to do what I could not. I would catch myself staring at her peachy, young skin or biting back a cynical response when she effused about her future. I envied her optimism, the confidence of her youth. It had been wishful thinking to believe that she and I could go through this without complication.

  The morning of the egg retrieval Steven joked that he was feeling vaguely adulterous.

  A flicker of jealousy tickled my gut. “Does that mean you’re attracted to her?”

  “No," he said, disgusted. “I’m just saying it’s weird. Can’t I tell you anything?”

  “I still don’t get it," I said, stubbornly. I was so alienated from my body, I had long ago discarded the notion that sex was in any way linked to reproduction; this was hardly the way I wanted it put back in.

  “There were twenty eggs," I whooped when Jess woke up from the surgery. “Twenty! This might really happen!”

  She smiled, groggily. “That’s great!" she said. “I’m so happy.”

  On the way home, though, Jess was unusually quiet. “I don’t feel very well," she said from the backseat, her voice quavering. By the time we pulled into the driveway, she was crying. “I feel really sick," she repeated, over and over. I led her into her room, tucked her in bed, shut the door. Then I burst into tears myself, paced the living room floor, frantic. How could I have put someone I love through this?

  “Why weren’t you prepared for how hard it might be for her?” Steven chided. “We’re talking about a young person here. You should’ve thought this through.”

  “But I always felt fine after the surgery. It never bothered me.”

  “Well, the clinic should’ve prepared her better, then. The social worker should’ve done more than one lousy hour on the phone with her. How could that be enough?”

  Jess’s parents phoned awhile later; she was asleep. “She’s doing okay," I told them. “I think it was harder than she expected, but she should feel better by tonight.”

  “That’s good to hear," her mother said. “I know how much she wanted to help you. And we want to express our support, too, because we know how much you want a family and we feel so fortunate to have our one, wonderful kid. Good luck to you, Peggy.”

  Jess left early the next morning. I was ready for her to go, eager to cast off the guilt and responsibility, to be a couple rather than a technological ménage à trois. Yet, as soon as the plane took off, I missed her terribly. If the social worker had overstated our relationship before, she was right about it now: Jess was like a niece, like a daughter, one of the closest people to me in the world. No matter what happened, we were bound for life. Whether I became pregnant or not, she was part of me.

  “I meant to ask," Steven said, as we drove home from the airport. “Were they supposed to do ICSI again?”

  That was the procedure Dan had advised last time, in which individual sperm were injected into the eggs. “I’m not sure," I said. “Why?”

  “Because when I brought the sperm to the lab the technician asked about it. I said, Aren’t you supposed to know?’ I told him he’d have to ask the doctor.”

  “No one ever mentioned it," I said, my mind still on Jess. “I guess if they’re supposed to do it, they will.”

  I grabbed the phone on the first ring. “Things didn’t go as we’d hoped," Dr. Franklin reported. It had been twenty-four hours since the egg retrieval, and only four of the eggs had fertilized.

  “Four?” I repeated, dully. “How can that be? There were twenty." Instead of homing in on Jess’s eggs, Steven’s sperm had just lain there in the Petri dish doing the backstroke. Even as the bottom dropped out of my stomach, I recalled his comment about infidelity. Maybe, I thought with a surge of affection, his boys just couldn’t go through with it.

  Steven’s sperm may have been an issue all along, the doctor added, but the problem was masked by my age and egg production. I remembered the giddiness I’d felt years before when Steven’s first semen analysis seemed off, the urge I’d had to wear a sandwich board reading, “It’s his sperm, not my career." That thought was cold comfort now.

  “So what are our chances?” I asked, steeling myself.

  Dr. Franklin was quiet for a moment. “Maybe thirty percent?” That was less than half of what it had been yesterday—and I got the feeling he was being optimistic.

  The situation had worsened by the time we came in for the transfer. Dr. Franklin inserted all four embryos into my uterus, but none had progressed well. He offered little hope of success.

  “I don’t understand," I said. “Why didn’t you do ICSI again?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. That was Dr. Balfour’s decision. It was probably done before because of low egg production and quality, not because of Steven’s sperm.”

  “But he’s had borderline sperm in the past—Dr. Balfour knew that. He never even talked to us about it.”

  “He probably should have," Dr. Franklin said, then seemed suddenly uneasy. “In retrospect one always wishes one had sat down and discussed it.”

  Talk about inhospitable wombs; I was so upset that I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. And the fact that I couldn’t eat or sleep (which I was convinced was lowering my chances of success even further) made it even harder for me to eat or sleep. And round and round it went. Sometimes I was sure I felt pregnant: my breasts were tender, my uterus ached, but I knew that could be an illusion perpetuated by the nightly progesterone shots Steven was giving me. My hips bloomed with wine-colored bruises, and I could no longer sit for extended periods. That didn’t matter—even if I’d been numb from the waist down, I wouldn’t have been able to keep still.

  The results were no surprise, yet I spent the day on a crying jag. It was over. Our last, best chance, the one that seemed our destiny, had failed. Worse yet, I felt betrayed by the clinic. In retrospect the whole cycle seemed mishandled—from the coordinator’s inattention, to our doctor’s unexplained absence, to the shoddy treatment of Jess, to the decision against ICSI. I should’ve noticed. I should’ve stopped it. But I trusted Dan; now, in addition to barren, I felt victimized.

  I called Jess, feeling almost as bad for her as I did for myself. “We’re not pregnant," I said.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

  “No, I’m the one who’s sorry. I’m sorry about all you went through, all I put you through.”

  “Don’t think twice about that," she said, staunchly. “I’ll never regret it. It was important to do, whatever the outcome. Otherwise we would always wonder.”

  “I guess so," I said, though I was left wondering anyway.

  My grief was thick and dull, punctuated by the occasional stab of panic. Trying again was not an option; I could never ask Jess to do that. What next? Adoption? Childlessness? I didn’t want to think about it. I moved my computer into Steven’s office to avoid being alone during the day. After work we took long walks through the Berkeley hills, not saying much. Breathing in the hot, eucalyptus-scented air of yet another Indian
summer was the only time I felt lighter.

  Steven was stoic, as usual. I misread his response as indifference. “That’s not it," he insisted one afternoon as we hiked along a ridge. “But thinking about the lost opportunity, the disappointment, that sense of hope that turns to sadness—it fills me with such despair that I’m afraid if I let it in, I’ll be incapacitated. It’s like those moments in college when I’d be sitting alone in my apartment not knowing what I’d make of my life, eating ramen noodles and feeling nearly suicidal. But I’m older now. I know those feelings pass, that they’re normal. And we have each other"—he took my hand, his voice growing soft—"and we love each other, and I know that good things lie ahead for us. So right now I just want to keep moving forward.”

  I smiled. “That’s weird," I said. “I’ve been thinking about my twenties, too, that feeling that I’d never find someone to love who loved me back, of being so empty and alone.

  “I’m going to be sad for a while, hon," I continued. “Maybe for a long time, but I really do know that as long as we’re together I’ll eventually be happy again.”

  In that moment of connection, it finally felt right to admit that Koko Kondo had called. “I’m sorry," I said. “I know it was wrong that I didn’t tell you about it.”

  Steven stopped walking. “That’s not just wrong," he replied, “it’s one of the most dishonest things you’ve ever done in our relationship. It’s unfathomable. I mean, what if you reversed the situation, if you wanted a child and we couldn’t have one and one day over dinner I told you that I’d refused Koko months ago without even telling you about it?”

  “I don’t know what to say. I guess I’m a bad person.”

  I watched Steven’s face as anger gave way to resignation. “It’s not that you’re bad, Peg," he said. “It’s that you don’t have the courage to be close, to trust each other.”

  I nodded morosely. “I’m sorry," I repeated. “I really am.”

  Steven sighed, shaking his head. “Why don’t you call Koko and tell her we’re still interested?”