Forty Weeks of Keeping Your Head Down

1 - Getting the Whole Frustrating Process Started It’s a wonder the human race has survived to become the dominant species on this planet. Seriously. Somehow an unfathomable percentage of teenage couples out for a nice, sweaty evening of backseat mambo walk away with an unwanted pregnancy. Yet when a couple actually wants to get pregnant, the chances of them being successful in anything resembling a reasonable length of time are just slightly above nil. There just has to be some medical conspiracy behind this designed to keep the OB/GYNs of the world in Porsches. My wife, Lucy, and I have been trying for conception for fourteen months now without much luck. Well, that’s not entirely correct: we’ve had luck—first good luck followed by bad. We were very fortunate that we didn’t know about the good luck before finding out about the bad. Had we known, the emotional drain would’ve been considerably more taxing than it was, and it was already pretty bad. Back to the topic at hand, though: fourteen months with nothing to tell the parents to get them off our backs has been an exercise in frustration. So many times the thought has crossed my mind to get the wife, drive over to my parents’ house, park outside with a couple six-packs of Pabst, get her good and liquored up, and have a go at her in the backseat in an effort to try and fool our body chemistries into thinking we’re seventeen and deathly afraid of successful fertilization. The only thing that’s prevented the tryst, I think, is the fact it’s an hour drive each way. I’m realizing now that the willingness to travel any meaningful distances solely for sex is inversely proportional to one’s age. Certainly, when I was seventeen, I would’ve crab-walked backward to Uganda if I had even suspected it might impress a girl enough to let me round third base. Now, however, not so much. Plus, at two hours round trip, I’d feel obligated to go in and visit Mom and Pop just to make the drive more worthwhile. And let’s be honest—going up and chatting with the parents after testing the car’s shocks outside would just be creepy. Men, this may be the first time during this process that you have a responsibility beyond the obvious. Take note: if you and your mommy to-be have this sort of finicky conception cycle, it is 100 percent your responsibility to be there to support her and comfort her. If you ever hope to have non-purpose-driven sex again in your life, you will trust me on this. She is not being overly dramatic or too sensitive. This is a very difficult time for her; if you don’t recognize that and support her, you may be a clinical idiot and beyond the help of the truly wise (such as myself ). There will come a time when she doesn’t want to take any more pregnancy tests or even think about becoming pregnant. Trust me here: there is nothing you can say to make this better beyond, “We’re going to get through this, and we will get pregnant; just hang in there.” The moment you find yourself formulating a response beginning with, “Aw, honey, come on …” just shove a beer bottle in your cake hole, take a long drink, try very hard to look soulful and consoling, and think very carefully about the next words you say. If you can manage a tear, go for it. It may just save your life. Okay, it probably won’t save your life, but it will at least save you an hour or more of trying to get her to stop cry-screaming at you. By the way, don’t think that the man completely escapes such frustrations. Certainly not. Honestly, basketball and poker playing guy though I am, I really want kids. I want to get the family started. I love kids. I’m really not all that fond of cleaning up feces or listening to the screaming, but I figure you have to take the bad with the good, right? Also, the clock is ticking for me. Granted, it’s ticking differently than it is for my wife. I’m thirty-six now. If we get pregnant today, I’ll be thirty-seven when the baby fairy comes knocking on our door (that’s how it works, right?). At the rate we’re going, I’ll be heading right from my kid’s high school graduation to my retirement party. At the little league games, cops will be asking why I’m hanging out around the bleachers. So yeah, it sucks for both of us, but I have to tell you that it’s harder on the fairer sex. Us men, real men, need to understand this and be there for our ladies and, in doing so, help ourselves. This is my theory, and I’m sticking with it. Also, truthfully, I hate seeing my wife this upset. I also hate when a family member calls and asks hopefully, “Any news yet?” I hate the subtle disappointment in their voices when I say no. Of course, when we finally do get to tell them something positive, it sure as hell won’t be over the phone! Seriously, what are we, barbarians? We recently started using more medical avenues to hurry things along, but even that has proven a frustrating process to date. We start off with just getting all the inner workings checked out. Hey, did you know that OB/GYNs’ offices don’t necessarily have specially outfitted rooms with scantily clad, superhot assistants to help a man secure his “specimen”? True story! In the case of Lucy’s OB/GYN, there isn’t a room at all. I can think of nothing less reassuring to a man’s masculinity than to stop at the doctor’s office on the way to work and, knowing what’s on deck, walk around the floor looking for a single-person bathroom while trying not to look like a sex predator. Of course, then there’s the extremely helpful guy or cleaning lady trying to come in every forty-two seconds. “Someone in there?” The moment is lost and, of course, it wasn’t really there to begin with. Ladies, you need to understand that, despite all you’ve heard to the contrary, most men are not on the prowl at all times looking for any opportunity to give themselves a solo run around the race track. Sure, some men are, but definitely not most. (A partial list of those who are can probably be found on the registered sex offender list.) This does not mean men don’t think about sex much of the time, just that they’re probably not merrily going through their days waiting for that opportune moment to duck into a closet and go to happy town. As a result, trying to secure a deposit for medical purposes in the public bathroom of a doctor’s office with the pressure of a time limit can be somewhat challenging for your man, especially when the person involved has never had much practice securing it “manually.” Seriously, one has a better chance of getting aroused watching any Olympia Dukakis movie while doing advanced calculus than in this situation. So if you’re forced to wait in the lobby of the doctor’s office reading seven-month-old magazines for longer than you’d like, cut your man some slack. Oh yeah, after he’s secured his deposit, do him another favor and don’t talk to him about it. The best thing you can say here is, “Are you going to the gym after work?” And don’t get anywhere near asking, “Were you thinking about me?”