Babyhead
The walls at the infertility clinic are lined with babyheads. Thousands and thousands of babyheads. Entire walls collaged with babyheads in cheap gold frames. Some babyheads have brown hair or black hair standing straight up. There are bald babyheads and ginger-fur babyheads. Babyheads with denim hats or pink knit hats or blue knit hats with an anchor stitched on the side. Some babyheads hold a stuffed carrot or a spittle-wet bear. Babyheads lolling their huge heads on their tiny necks. Babyheads on a faux-blue background so they look like they are flying through an opaque idea of the sky. There are single babyheads and double babyheads and triple babyheads covered in wires inside clear plastic bins. Some babyheads do not open their eyes, some are naked and long-limbed, some are cut off below their chins. Smiling, staring, crying, drooling, sleeping babyheads. A winning wall of babyheads. A wall of false promises.
Terminal Terminology
I never liked the term infertility. Why not say I’m in fertility treatment, or I’m going to a fertility support group? Why define myself and my efforts in terms of negation?
According to Prefixsuffix.com, in and im mean “into, on, near, or towards,” as in “instead” or “import.” Am I into fertility like I’m into chocolate, the Velvet Underground, and standard poodles? I’d like to think I am near or towards fertility, even at 39 with “low egg quality.” Am I somehow instead of fertility? I fucking hope not.
The second entry for the prefix in is grouped with the prefixes im, il, and ir and means “not,” as in the words “illegible, inaction, innocuous, intractable, innocent, impregnable,” and “impossible.” I want to crush each of these words, grind them into the dirt, then get some lighter fluid and wood, and light the whole goddamn alphabet on fire.
Birthday Sex
Happy fucking birthday to me. Today I turned 40. Great. Now I join the ranks of the 40 and over statistics, and they aren’t good. Not for pregnancy, not for “normal” eggs, not for having a chromosomally healthy child. Woohoo! Balloons and applause. Thank you very much!
But what I’ve been thinking about is sex, having sex again with my husband. And charting. Charting my cycle and charting my temperature and charting what days we have sex and charting my mucus and peeing on ovulation sticks. I’m thinking about hot birthday sex, if it exists anymore, if is the right day to even have sex according to my ovulation chart and my doctor’s wooden orders.
Anyone going through infertility treatment knows that there are many kinds of sex:
We-need-to-stay-on-our-sex-schedule sex (which means sex every other day on cycle days
7 through 20, plus three days in a row after the LSH (luteinizing hormone) surge and a smiley face appears on my ovulation predictor kit).I’m-tired-and-you’re-tired-and-I-don’t-care-if-we’re-too-tired-to-have-sex sex.
We-are-going-to-have-sex-even-though-I’m-angry-at-you-for-not-making-enough-money sex.
Do-we-really-have-to-do-this-again sex?
This-is-getting-silly-and-ridiculous-let’s-laugh-our-way-through-this sex.
We-just-had-our-IUI-insemination-this-morning-and-the-doctor-told-us-we-need-to-have-sex-tonight-and-the-next-morning-and-the-next-night-regardless-of-whether-we-want-to-have-sex-by-doctor’s-orders sex.
The first-time-after-miscarriage sex (which is very lonely and sad, and I can’t help thinking about my baby who is no longer inside of me and the enormous emptiness of that feeling).
The first-time-after-IVF-fails sex (which is also very lonely and makes me cry because now I feel broken—useless pieces of a useless body).
The pretending-or-hoping-we-still-can-get-pregnant-by-old-school-sex-and-charting-my-cycle sex.
And the increasingly rare: I-just-want-to-have-sex-with-you-sex-because-I-realize-again-that-I-love-you-and-just-want-to-be-with-you sex.
And on my birthday—four years in a row and still trying—what do you think I wished for and wished for and wished for and wished for and wished for and wished for and wished for and wished for and wished for and wished for and wished for and wished and wished and wished?
A Month Is (Not) a Mirror
Each month, each time I didn’t get pregnant again, was a unique never and a fall.
It was unlike the previous month and exactly the same. It was unlike my neighbor’s miscarriage a few weeks before my own and exactly the wincing same.
Each loss has its own star and cliff. A shininess to the wound.
A unique failure each month; each month smacks of it. Failure. Failure again. And what has failed? Have I? My body? My will to will this to happen? My failure to believe?
A failure that makes my bones hurt.
Stupid Things People Say
O, just get drunk and it will happen.
You two should take a vacation.
You should exercise less.
You should exercise more.
Stop being so stressed out. You’ll never get pregnant if you’re stressed out.
Do not wipe before sex. Or after.
I heard about this great _____________.
a. acupuncturist
b. chiropractor
c. psychic
d. shamanic healer
e. orthodontist (can straighter teeth really make me pregnant?)
You really need to ____________.
a. eat fish, red meat, raw meat (“the redder, the better”)
b. drink whole milk
c. stop drinking milk and cut out all dairy products
d. stop eating chocolate (are you kidding me?)
e. take royal jelly
f. quit drinking
g. get really drunk
h. drink tea made from red raspberry, red clover, chasteberry, nettle leaf, dong quai, maca, ashwagandha, licorice root, ladies mantle, etc.,
i. give up
The Pretend Game
Broken is the only way to broken is only the only broken the only way is to write broken this.
Pretend happy, pretend day, pretend good morning and how are you, pretend meeting with colleagues, pretend annual budget, yes, the budget and no raises again this year, pretend admissions meeting, pretend a colleague is not going into labor during the meeting right there in front of you, yes, labor, yes, in front of you, pretend I do not want to stand up on this fucking desk and scream, pretend I’m having a stress-free life because stress will keep you from ever conceiving, pretend yoga and vitamins, pretend quality of life, pretend tree bark and mystery fertility tea, pretend needles for IVF, pretend 312 of them, pretend each one will work, pretend doctors pretend sex pretend a baby will come and swallow all of this emptiness.
That my son is made of milk. That I had a son. A prayer. A wish.
Hadara Bar-Nadav is an NEA fellow and author of several award-winning collections of poetry, among them The New Nudity, Lullaby (with Exit Sign), The Frame Called Ruin, and others. In addition, she is co-author of the best-selling textbook Writing Poems, 8th ed. Individual poems appear in the Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, The Believer, The New Republic, Academy of American Poets, and elsewhere. She is a Professor of English and teaches in the MFA program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
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