I know this is going to come as a shocker since I have three children but I’m infertile. Yup. I got married when I was 25 and 3 years later I still wasn’t knocked up so I went to an infertility doctor. First we tried pills: no luck. Then we tried different pills: still no luck. Next we tried mixing the first pills that didn’t work with a stronger dose of the second pill that didn’t work coated in a third pill that ……………..didn’t work. So we tried artificial insemination: the turkey baster route. And by the way the instrument they use to artificially inseminate you really does look like a turkey baster only it’s three times as long. I swear the only the reason insemination didn’t work is because once they got that thing all the way in, Chris’ semen ended up in my nasal cavity. I think we did that twice and in between cycles, by accident mind you, I got pregnant but had a miscarriage 4 weeks later. Fast forward the 3 months it took me to heal from that miscarriage and the doctors wanted me to try again but I said no. Chris and I and 8 pounds of buffalo wings sat down and talked about what we wanted and what we knew we could handle. We knew we could recover from the inability to conceive, there was always adoption, but the infertility treatment and subsequent miscarriage had nearly destroyed us emotionally. We wanted it all to end as quickly as possible so when we went back that Monday in 2003, it was to tell the doctor we wanted to try IVF (invitro fertilization). “What????!!!” she screamed. “You awe 28 year oh, you too young for IVF!”
In case you’re wondering I am not drunk typing, my infertility doctor was an insane, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon type Chinese woman who I am certain invented Chinese water torture in a former life.
Me: I’m too young to be infertile! You told me I am the youngest patient you have who isn’t a cancer survivor! You’ve been treating me for a year, nothing has worked, and now I’m down one fallopian tube. I want to go as aggressive as possible. Chris and I are in agreement: insurance will cover three IVF cycles so we’re gonna give it three tries and if it doesn’t work, we will cash in our savings, head to China and adopt.
Dr. Cho: I fink you need new head. I fink you not fink stwaight. Normwy I tell woman talk to husband but fink maybe you husband need new head wike you, but fine I schedule you put you body fwoo wots of stwess no weason.
Me: Thank you
Dr. Cho: Oh fank me fank me, no! Dis tupid you too young but wha I know, I just doctor. You fink you know, you watch be weewy sawey!
And Dear Jesus was the Chinese water torturer right. My first IVF cycle was a complete and utter disaster. Wanna lose weight? Get a dose of the wrong IVF medications injected into your ass and watch the pounds fly off via continuous vomit, diarrhea, sweating and loss of bladder control: good times. One week into the treatment I sat in Dr. Cho’s office shivering my now skinny ass off waiting to hear why I was in so much pain. After what seemed like an hour she came in with my chart, which by that time, was thicker than the Bible.
Dr. Cho: Well Wachel I do not wike you but I haffa mit you were pwobabwy wight do dis IVF cycle it open my eyes just how inferti you awe. You may be 29 but you ovawies ack wike dey 45. Probwem is we put you on medicine for pooson who 30 I change now to meds for someone who just bout to die you ovaries dey no work, you big mess.
Me: Has anyone ever commented to you about your bedside manner?
Dr. Cho: What bedside manner?
Me: Exactly
So after that meeting they changed up my meds to the level of someone who was, as Dr. Horrible put it, just about dead, and things started to go well! I made eggs, lots of them, which got placed in a Petri dish with Chris’ sperm. Everybody in that petri dish got along quite nicely and after three days of non stop partying I had……..6 embryos, and Dr. Cho informed me she intended to put all 6 of them in my uterus. I was skeptical.
Me: You mean I might get 6 kids??!!!
Dr. Cho: Achuawwy I fink you have no kids dis IFV cycle you have 6 embwyos but none dem wook weally good I no fink any dem will take. I no fink you will get pwegnent we just twy see what we wearn for next time.
Me: Bedside manner is where you reassure your patient and make her feel hopeful not suicidal.
Dr. Cho: What?
Me: Nothing.
And fast forward 2 weeks………………………………..I’m pregnant…………….with twins! The 4’9” bitch from hell was wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For 6 weeks I am the happiest woman on Earth, until twin B dies. One day I showed up for my ultrasound, the second heartbeat wasn’t beating anymore, and in an effort to gain me some comfort the ultrasound tech left the room to fetch………Dr. Cho. She was new.
Dr. Cho: Why you cwying?
Me: One of the babies is dead
Dr. Cho: Das a good fing.
Me: What??!!!
Dr. Cho: You do not want two babies, too many babies have at one time, better wike dis.
Me: You are a horrible doctor do you know that?
Dr. Cho: I excewent doctor Wachel I go Harvard I get you pwegnent even doh ovawies compwete weck. You should be say fank you to me instead bovver me wif “bedside manner” and “oh feel sawwy for me”. Now I vewy person busy you have question or what?
Me: What happens to the first baby?
Dr. Cho: Furst baby wook pewfect. No pwobwems. You body will absorb second baby, vewy small, no miscawage.
Me: So you think this baby will make it?
Dr. Cho: Yes will wiv. Pwobaby wook wike husband since ovahwies compwete weck but baby will wiv no pwobwem stwong heart.
And she does. My Dana was born 9 months later, absolutely perfect, with a look and personality just like her father and it was the happiest day I never thought would come. I had a baby. I had given birth to my own baby, and all the thoughts that maybe I wasn’t meant to have a baby of my own disappeared….for about a year. After that I knew I had to get pregnant again and fast. I didn’t want Dana to be an only child and my ovaries were failing, so a week after her first birthday I signed up for a second IVF trial with the hag.
Dr. Cho: Ha ha you back. You compwain a wot say I have no bedside manner but end of day I get you pwegnent, do not hear you compwain now.
Me: Yes Dr. Cho I’m sorry.
Dr. Cho: How fust baby? Beauful? I onwy make beauful babies. All wook wike husbands but still beauful.
Me: Yes she’s beautiful.
Dr. Cho: Now you come cwawing back here because you want novver baby, you apowogize fink I will do for you! How dat bedside manner!
Me: Dr. Cho I am genuinely sorry I insulted your bedside manner may I please have another baby?
Dr. Cho: Awight Wachel, I will do for you but I fink you need fink bout dis fust. I do no fink you should do dis. You have one baby and you wucky you get dat. You body not meant have babies, you push envewope ask me make you somesing you not posed to have. I will do for you but I tell you I fink you bout make big mistake. Being, what you say in Engwish, gweedy. You be gweedy ask for more what you not posed get in fust pwace.
Me: OK
Dr. Cho: You want baby you come back next week after you fink. You come back I make baby for you but I hope never see you gain.
And I did think. I thought a lot. And the more I thought the more I began to think that maybe Dr. Cho was right. But in the end, I didn’t care if I was being greedy, I wanted another one. “Just one more,” I said to myself, “And then I’ll quit. It’s not too much to ask for just one more.”
And by now you all know how that worked out for me. I got 2. It was an accident, one that Dr. Cho thoroughly enjoyed and threw in my face numerous times throughout the pregnancy.
Dr. Cho: Ha! I tell you but do you wissen, no! What I know? Just doctor. Wif you wuck neither dese babies will die wike wast time, bofe dese babies wiv and den you have fwee babies home, you have nervous bweakdown something and be you fault because I tell you and you no wissen!
By the time I was three months pregnant the ultrasound revealed that Kevin, like myself and my mother, had only one kidney so I was classified as high risk and (by the grace of God) transferred to a different office, far away from Atilla the Hun. And aside from that there was never any indication that anything was wrong with Kevin, until I reached my 37th week. After the ultrasound, which looked just like all the others to me, the doctor sat me down and took both my hands in hers, like nice doctors do.
Doctor: I’m going to preface this. He’s FINE. Do you hear me?
Me: Yes
Doctor: Good. He’s fine, and he’s going to be just fine for another 48 hours, but your body has shut off the oxygen supply to the boy so you’ll be having a C section tomorrow morning.
Me: What about the girl?
Doctor: She’s fine
Me: Why is this happening?
Doctor: I don’t know.
I do. Now. There is a reason women miscarry. When the female body grows a fetus that is in any way imperfect, the moment that imperfection is detected the fetus is expelled. That’s how nature works. It took my body a very long time to figure it out, but once it became apparent that Kevin was in fact, flawed, my body tried to suffocate him. Had it been even 5 years earlier, Kevin would have been stillborn.
I think about this a lot. I think about what Dr. Cho said to me, a lot. Why? To assure myself my feelings on the subject haven’t changed despite everything I’ve been through: I wouldn’t change a thing and in an odd way I’m grateful, for all of it. As you know I do NOT think everything happens for a reason, but because of Kevin and Dr. Cho I have come to the conclusion that every fabric of our existence is fashioned by the choices we make and grace with which we weather the consequences for those choices.
I knew Dr. Cho was right. I knew I was being greedy and pushing the envewope but I made a choice, and today I am living with the consequences of that choice and I’m not sorry. He was worth it. For himself, and the 2 “normal” girls I now have, he is worth everything I have been through and I would not change a thing.
And sometimes, when he and I are having a bad day, I imagine God looking down on me all those years ago when I would pray for a second child. I imagine him saying, “You know, I made it pretty clear you were not meant to have children. However, you begged, you prayed, and you suffered so I took pity on you and let you slide one. Now you’re back asking for another one? Fine lady, you wanna be ungrateful, I’ll give you another one. Fuck it I’ll give you 2……………but remember, you asked for a child, period. You forgot to ask for a perfect child, so watch this trick.”
I never saw Dr. Cho again. Sometimes, I think about bringing Kevin in to meet her and imagine what she might think of him. She’d probably yell at me for a while and remind me that I should have listened to her, but after a while, I imagine her softening and saying something like:
Well he is bwoken but not weewy bwoken and he is vewy sweet. I fink he is nice boy maybe do gweat fings. Maybe you make good choice no wisten to me. Maybe he post to be here. Maybe he post be wif you. I fink dis. Maybe you good pewson Wachel. You have bad ovawies and you need new head but you good pewson, big heart. Now get out my office I vewy busy pewson.
