One Good Egg: An Illustrated Memoir

by Suzy Becker

  “When you said religious community, I thought—”

  “Cult.” We laughed.

  “That’s really it.”

  The last morning, I got up early to run along the beach before I did the eighteen-hour plane ride home. My final call with Lorene had been unnerving.

  We had been together only two months. It was silly to think our reserves would span six days, across half of the world. Tomorrow we would begin replenishing them. We’ll have the rest of our lives . . . and a baby together.

  I took Lorene’s compass necklace from my neck and put it around Steve’s at the airport. “For your trip.”

  “Sure you don’t want it for yours?”

  “Nah, it got me here, now it’ll bring you back.” We hugged good-bye and I headed for customs. I turned to wave one last time before I passed through the double doors.

  The Best Laid Plans

  Lorene and I stayed up all night (or morning or whatever time it was according to my body’s clock) catching up when I got home and slept in the next morning. She had not received a single postcard from Fish Creek.

  There were flowers all over—in the kitchen, on the nightstand, in both bathrooms. There were books left open on couches, more books on the tables, and piles of CDs on the player. A history of the time I’d been away.

  Most of the rest of August was taken up with work and training for Ride FAR. September’s ride ended up raising more than $120,000. We had five days of sun, 500 miles without injury or a single bike breakdown.

  The first morning after the ride, Lorene stared me awake. She was sitting up in our bed. The second my eyes opened, she announced, “I feel like I’m home. This is my home now.” We floated through the day, on a cloud of post-Ride, day-off, early-September sunny euphoria. But the next morning, we came crashing down.

  Bruce called while we were having breakfast. All he said was, “Go turn on your TV.” We were watching over the tops of our knees by the time the plane hit the second tower. Never doubt that a small group . . . can change the world . . .

  The third plane hit the Pentagon. The fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania. It was days before we stopped anticipating news of a fifth, sixth, and seventh plane. And I don’t know that any of us of a certain age will ever permanently put that possibility to rest.

  “I don’t think I want to bring a baby into this world,” I told Lorene.

  “It’s too soon, too soon to tell,” she answered me.

  From:

  Steve

  Subject:

  At my 12th floor desk

  Date:

  September 17, 2001

  Hi Honey, It’s late, it’s dark and I’m at work (in a high rise), half listening for the door-click as the cleaner comes in. I really need to connect with you. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid of getting on a plane just now. The Boston–L.A. path has a touch of the freaky about it. There’s also the uncertainty about what happens next in the world. Where will this terrorism have led us in a month’s time? Don’t worry, I’m not getting cold feet—funny, I’ve realized over the last few weeks how much I do want to do this baby thing with you. I’ve also reflected a bit on what if it doesn’t work, and that reminds me how much I do want it to work, but like we’ve said, there are lots of other adventures ahead.

  So, how are you feeling? If we delayed, how far would it set us back?

  Love you, Suzy. More than ever, Steve

  A month later, we were beginning to trust a blue sky again. We had held babies and felt hope surface again.

  My heart is moved by all I cannot save:

  so much has been destroyed

  I have cast my lot with those

  who age after age, perversely,

  with no extraordinary power,

  reconstitute the world.

  ADRIENNE RICH

  “Natural Resources”

  From:

  Suzy

  Subject:

  Re: At my 12th floor desk

  Date:

  October 21, 2001

  Let’s do December! Christmas in New England, and your birthday! If we’re trying for two cycles, I’d be ovulating December 1st and January 1st, so it’d be good if you arrived in late November; although, as Lorene pointed out, after that carwash I gave her for her birthday, the backseat is clean enough, we could do it on the way home from the airport! I watched the news while I was on jury duty yesterday; they’re now projecting a national stress-induced baby boom. Back to our Sunday. We’re excited again. (Please see exclamation points above.)

  Love, Suzy

  The nice thing (not the only nice thing) about having houseguests is that they give a to-do list a deadline.

  Three days before Steve arrived, I was scheduled to have the test to make sure my tubes were clear (see #6 on list). My gynecologist was running late. I was on the table with my knees up when she brushed by Lorene, gloved up, lifted my gown, and shook her head, disgusted.

  I had forgotten to take off my underwear. I scooched out of them and flung them over to Lorene, which had my gynecologist hissing, blowing a gasket–like, “If those had landed on my tray, we would’ve had to start all over with the sterile prep.” Needless to say, she had no time for that. From where I was, in the stirrups, it was hard to imagine further humbling yourself, but I apologized. And she got to work.

  Left tube: clear! Right tube: Jesusfuckingchrist! I arched my back off the table. Lorene took a few steps toward me. The gynecologist gave the dye another go. “Let’s try this again,” she said. If having a baby is more painful than this, I may resign. “I don’t know whether it is blocked or spasming. There was a nice pool—you saw the way the dye came through the other tube?”

  She was talking to Lorene and motioning at the monitor hanging up over my left shoulder. Lorene nodded; she was holding my hand. “There’s no reason why that other tube should be blocked. These spasms can take thirty minutes to calm down.”

  “What if it is blocked?” Lorene asked.

  “You’d run the risk of a tubal or ectopic pregnancy.”

  “How are those treated?”

  “Laparoscopy.” She removed her gloves. “I have to run.”

  I crumpled up my gown and threw it away. Having a baby seemed so unlikely again. I had stupidly let my hopes get carried away with Steve’s arrival preparations. “Hey,” Lorene said, looping her arm through mine. “Remember? You only need one.”

  The air-duct cleaning (see #5) backfired on us. A small pile of dust on top of the oil burner caught fire and blew smoke all over the house. At the end of the day (less than forty-eight hours before our chemically sensitive Australian guest was due), we had clean ducts and a house that stunk like an ashtray. “At least there’s no dog smell,” Lorene observed. No dog smell. No wood-smoke smell. No coffee smell. Not a hint of the spaghetti sauce that had cooked all day for last night’s dinner. Just ashtray. “Well, what’re you going to do.” It wasn’t a question (we had done everything that we could think of); that’s what Lorene said when the answer was “nothing.”

  Steve’s flight touched down a few minutes after midnight on November 28th. We met at the curb and exchanged quick hugs. “We should have brought you a down jacket—I have a big one at home you can borrow,” Lorene said as we loaded him into our Civic. The two of them fell into easy conversation while I concentrated on finding today’s way out of Logan Airport.

  There was a silence in the tunnel; Lorene volunteered, “We’re waiting to get a new car until we know whether we’re going to get a baby. Probably something with four doors.”

  “And two visors,” I added, all of a sudden seeing the car through Steve’s eyes.

  The Charles River came into view, lit up on both sides. The night seemed unusually clear and welcoming. Full of promise.

  “Our Ride FAR friend Mary Ann is coming in the morning,” I began.

  “Noon,” Lorene continued. “Mary Ann’s a delivery nurse—she delivers babies out in the western part of the state.”


  “She offered to show us how to do everything.”

  “Oh?” Steve shifted in his seat.

  “Suzy should be ovulating any day now,” Lorene volunteered.

  “Good on you!” he patted my leg. I hope he teaches our baby, if we have a baby, all of his Aussie expressions.

  “Good on you!” I returned the pat. “Your timing is pretty perfect.”

  The barn light illuminated the white picket fence and the winter remnants of the garden along the walk up to the kitchen door. We had recounted our air-duct minidrama during the last part of the ride, so Steve was obliged to comment. “It doesn’t smell too bad,” he said politely.

  Given the hour and the next day’s agenda, we all agreed to turn in. “Hope you won’t mind my bumping around in the middle of the night,” Steve said. “I get terrible insomnia coming in this direction.” We got him settled in his room and gave him a quick tour of the house.

  “He’s great!” Lorene said once we were in bed. “I don’t know what I expected—he’s completely regular.” The way she said it made being regular sound exceptional.

  The next morning, Lorene and I had breakfast and went to work as usual. Steve was sleeping. There was some evidence—a mug of unfinished tea, an open magazine on the kitchen table—of insomnia. He was still sleeping when Lorene came home just before noon. She had a bunch of purple irises: “These are for you, O my beloved, O the delight of my eyes.” She was channeling Rudyard Kipling again. The words had run through her head for months before she felt comfortable saying them; now she came out with them every few days. “They didn’t have the white ones. They’re for the beginning.”

  So this was the beginning.

  I was still looking for something to put them in when Mary Ann arrived. She was predictably pink-faced (although usually it’s from the cycling, not the cold) and high-spirited, which could also account for some of the pink. She let herself in, predictably no-nonsense. “Where’s Steve?” she asked.

  Steve entered on cue. Semi-dressed (not half nude), wearing his house pants, uncombed and unshaven. “Strange night,” he said after he and Mary Ann had been introduced. “Anyone else care for a cup of tea?”

  Mary Ann had a cup. We stood around the kitchen, the two of them sipping tea. “How’d you sleep, Steve?” Lorene asked.

  “Well, you’ll never believe this,” Steve laughed. “Most bizarre thing, I don’t know that I could tell you the last time . . . I had a wet dream.”

  Dare I ask:

  (a) How much of a wet dream: half, three quarters, the whole wad?

  (b) Wow, what was it about?

  There was a man with a ladder in the garden, tromping on the plants, eyeing the roof above our bedroom.

  “Hello?” I called out.

  “Mrs. Becker? You called about your chimney?”

  I closed the door. “I called him five months ago—I gave up on him four months ago. TODAY is the day he’s going to set his ladder up outside our bedroom window? Perfect!”

  Steve and Mary Ann were cracking up. Lorene went to find a sheet to tack up over our naked window. By the time she returned, the guy was packing up. Mary Ann set her mug in the kitchen sink and said, “Well, shall we?”

  I took one of my mother’s white soufflé cups out of the cabinet and presented it to Steve. Then we filed upstairs, leaving Steve at his bedroom door, next door to ours.

  Mary Ann laid out her equipment on the bed. A flashlight, speculum, and a small syringe with a flexible plastic catheter tube on the end. Lorene took a closer look at the syringe while I dropped my drawers and got into bed. The three of us chatted like normal people with pants on, waiting for Steve’s delivery. His knock startled us. “It’s not much,” he apologized.

  “It’s fine. Thank you,” Lorene said, and gently shut the door on him. She tipped the cup to show Mary Ann.

  “Not bad,” Mary Ann said. “After that story downstairs, I wasn’t sure what we’d get. You only need one, right?”

  Mary Ann had Lorene insert the speculum. She suctioned up Steve’s offering with the syringe, took aim, and pushed the plunger.

  Lorene propped my hips up on a couple of pillows and kissed my belly. Mary Ann patted it, hugged Lorene good-bye, chirped, “I want to be the fourth to know!” and she was gone.

  Lorene left the door open. “Steve?” Steve padded in and the three of us hung out until I was sure the sperm had made it down to my sinuses. Then we went downstairs to make dinner.

  Over the next couple of days, Steve settled in. Having him around during the day instantly made working alone less lonely. I anticipated the shuffling of moccasins across the kitchen floor (~10:30), overtaken by a combination of whistling and humming, overtaken by the orange juicer, the teakettle whistling and shaking, followed by a silence of varying length as he read during his breakfast, invariably punctuated by an endearing shriek—Mister or Vita had found an exposed ankle or hand to lick—then, “Okay, all right, yes, we’re going to be friends.”

  He would be at his desk working on his novel by the time I came down for lunch. Then, when he was ready for a break, he’d call upstairs and the two of us would take the dogs for a long walk.

  We had another couple of soufflé cup sessions over those next two nights. And we mixed up our routine. Night 1, we tried Advice #2 (about as exciting as it looks spelled out). Night 2, Steve, self-proclaimed urban shaman, did the laying-on of hands.

  I observed the same hands dropping everything they came into contact with the next day; Steve was still in the grips of his jet lag insomnia. On Night 3, when I made mention of a patch of soapsuds on the drying dishes, he threw down his sponge and left the kitchen. I apologized when he came back an hour later to make himself some tea. “It’s all right,” he said, hyperfocused on the tea. “I guess it’s the first time I wondered what kind of mother you’ll really be. You’re very critical.”

  It was my turn to leave the room. I went to bed. I was still reading when Lorene came up. “Hey, do you feel pregnant?”

  “I don’t feel any different.” I thought about it. “Maybe sometimes I feel a slight something on my right side. It’s only been a few days. Why, when did you first feel pregnant?”

  “The next day. I remember taking the mail out of the mailbox and I knew—but then I never felt like that again. I wouldn’t believe it until I heard his heartbeat.”

  Our exchange prompted an informal survey of my mother friends: “When and how did you know you were pregnant?” More than half of my respondents admitted to being clueless or wrong. The others gave the following prenatal symptoms: big boobs, feeling tired, bloated, and/or hormonal, getting a zit, peeing more often. With the exception of the last one, they all sounded pretty premenstrual to me.

  I asked my mother.

  I woke up with my period on December 16th, two days before Steve’s birthday. It would have made the best present. I sat in the bathroom and looked out toward the woods. Everything looked so black-and-white. And red. I went back to bed and told Lorene.

  “It’s just the first try,” she said, and rolled me into her.

  We tiptoed past Steve’s room. I made waffles while Lorene got a fire going in the wood stove. We were reading the Sunday paper when Steve came down. He toted his bag of oranges over to the cutting board.

  I brought my plate to the sink and turned to face him. “I just got my period.”

  “Ohhh, honey.” He held my shoulders. “Never mind.” He gave me a big hug and went back to his oranges. “Juice? C’mon, lots of—”

  “VITTamins,” Lorene joined in from across the room.

  Never mind. Never mind, never mind, never mind. It has to be one of the kindest things anyone’s ever said.

  A Bad Chapter

  Back in August, the three of us had decided to go with an instate sperm bank over the California competitor. Convenience beat conviviality. We had filled out all the paperwork. Steve had passed all the tests in advance (they had waived their upper age limit), and we were screened in for the
“anonymous” donor program, which doubled as their “selected” (as in unwed to donee) donor program.

  Anonymous Donors

  a.k.a. altruistic men willing to “help couples experience the joy of conceiving a child”

  I called the bank the morning after I got my period (the day before Steve’s birthday) and made our first appointment.

  A week later, we were standing in front of a flat concrete-and-brick building, breathing through our coat collars, attempting to verify the building number on the other side of the people smoking. We crossed a dimly lit lobby and got onto a dimly lit elevator. There was still a chance the place would be gleaming and futuristic, on a secret, hermetically sealed floor, until the elevator doors opened. A man obscured another dimly lit floor.

  “Suzy, Stephen? Tom Mecke!” He threw out his hand and I shook it as I stepped off the elevator. There was something Oz-like about the welcome, a bushy-brown-eyebrowed director doubling as doorkeeper. Mecke led us down a short corridor by the lab, which was visible through the windows on our left. (The windows on our right were painted a mysterious milky blue, with a matching unmarked milky-blue door. He put on a white coat with a royal-blue cursive Director emblazoned on the left breast as we entered a small office. Mecke gestured to the now-empty coat tree. Steve and I hung up our coats and sat down. He opened the one folder, presumably ours, sitting on the empty desk, looked up at us, and launched into his welcome spiel. Every sentence seemed to contain the word “family.” It was holding up in all the different contexts—his family, our family, the family-run operation, part of the center’s family—and then it started to warp from overuse and the eyebrows dialed up a memory of that fertility doctor who fathered all the clients’ children.