I SIT IN the fertility clinic waiting room at Penn Medicine, large bay windows overlooking the city of Philadelphia. There’s a paper bag tucked under my arm, hidden under my oversized peacoat. Inside that bag, a plastic sample container with a bright yellow cap sealed over the case. I’m anxious about it and felt that way the whole Lyft ride over. Like I was smuggling something.
The whole situation has a Lord of the Rings “is it secret, is it safe?!” vibe, which makes me chuckle. I think about texting my friends, but something stops me. Who really wants to hear about this?
There are a few other men sitting, waiting. One guy looks up and sees me: I nod my head at him. He looks back down.
“I JUST HOPE this is my fault,” I say.
“Dude. You absolutely cannot think of it that way, you know,” my friend tells me. “You’re implying that if it isn’t your fault, maybe it’s your wife’s.”
“Whoa, no I’m not,” I huff. But then he gives me a look.
Never argue semantics with someone who is a better writer than you are.
“Well, I’m not,” I press, after a beat. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“I know. But the words we choose matter, especially when things are feeling delicate. What are some other ways to talk about this?” he asks. “To talk about how you’re feeling?”
“There’s really ONLY ONE THING I want to talk about. But guys don’t actually TALK ABOUT THIS STUFF with each other, DO THEY?”
It’s not lost on me that he sounds like my therapist, but a lot of us have been trying out therapy lately. The boys. The crew. And it’s been good for all of us. Years ago, he’d maybe have responded with a joke and a whole list of things that are my fault as a millennial or something, like the death of the American mall. I bite at my lip and pick at the splintered wooden picnic table we’re sitting around, like there’s an answer to be found there. But I’m not sure.
I’ve never had to talk about it. And I’ve never really heard any other men in my life talk about it either.
About a year ago, my wife and I decided to expand our family. Our first kiddo had arrived quickly, and I kind of thought that would be the case again. But it’s seven years later and we’re fully into our 40s. And as the months ticked by, we decided to see a fertility specialist.
“ERIC?” SOMEONE CALLS from across the room.
I get up and walk over, my peacoat still on, even though it isn’t cold. It’s the summertime. I’m dying. I feel the paper bag crinkling under my arm.
“Hi.” I nod.
“This way,” the doctor says, ushering me into the hallway through two large double doors. There are a few rooms along the way, the doors open. The standard… I don’t know, doctor equipment? It’s all stuff I’ve seen countless times before for my own visits and for my kid. A desk, a computer, bits of medical gear I can’t name, one of those landline phones with a million buttons and directories, clean-looking cabinets and shelves—
And a cozy, leaned-back chair that looks spectacularly out of place compared to the hard metal edges and neutral plastics everywhere.
I feel a little heat rush up my neck. That must be where… Well, you know.
“So, this is the room,” the doctor says, nodding as we stop. “There’s a sample container in there, just rip the tape off when you’re ready to use it, and then leave it in this tray here when you’re finished. There’s a card to fill out with the time and—”
“Oh…” I start, clearing my throat. “I um… brought mine from home.”
I’d spent a lot of time on the clinic’s website, determining if this was something I was able to do or not. I obsessed over the FAQ section like someone trying to memorize directions before heading someplace with no phone signal, and then fired up my Google Map to make sure I’d get to the clinic in time before the one-hour expiration.
“Ah!” The doctor exclaims, as I take the paper bag out. I remove the sample container and put it on the tray. “Well, that’s it then.”
“Wait, really?” I ask.
“Yup, we’ll let you know more in a few days. Things like the sperm count, concentration, vitality, shape. Test to see if there’s any blood in there.”
The doctor smiles at me, like that last sentence wasn’t a little bit terrifying, and I exhale. I did read about this in all my frantic searching, so it’s not that surprising, but this all still feels so new. I retreat back toward the elevators, through the waiting rooms, the other men still staring at their phones, avoiding eye contact.
It was so easy.
Why did I feel like I was going to die the entire time? Everything else felt so sad, so anxiety inducing.
Did any of my friends feel this way, navigating this? Anyone in my family? Maybe I do need to talk about this.
I GO OUT with some of the boys. Some are single, some partnered up. We laugh about the usual. Things at work. Video games. One of the guys has gotten really into F1 racing, and as someone who doesn’t know how to drive a car, or how they even work, really, I smile and nod. Someone else bought a set of Legos the price of a brand-new iPad, and we get into a heated debate over the religious lore in Warhammer 40,000, proof that geeks do in fact settle down and find love.
“How about you Eric, what’s going on?”
For a moment I freeze.
There’s really only one thing I want to talk about. But guys don’t actually talk about this stuff with each other, do they? Growing up, talking about feelings, about health, about any of that, it felt unusual at home. Even as an adult, family members went out of their way to hide when they were sick. I never found out about someone being ill, or even someone getting divorced, until a random slip up at a holiday.
How in the world would I talk about this?
“Finding out YOU’RE NOT ALONE in a fertility journey, it loosens the KNOT IN YOUR CHEST.”
I told one buddy back in my hometown, the husband of one of my best childhood friends, but my neighborhood guys? The crew I hang out with weekly and text with nearly every day? We send memes. We poke fun at the neighborhood Facebook group drama. We laugh about how a band we loved is gearing up for a twenty-year celebratory tour and how it means we need to take our multivitamins. Time for a stroll to the CVS for some Centrum, because The Get Up Kids are dropping an anniversary vinyl.
But this?
“Well…” My throat feels dry.
I think about my friend back home, and my therapist, talking about how words matter. Using them and using the right ones, it’s important. And I need to use them. I’m feeling strange, alone, and everything feels so wildly out of my control.
“I went to the fertility clinic today,” I say, the words hurrying out of me. “We’re trying again, and well, I had to take my sample with me in a Lyft, and I only had like, an hour to get there, and there was traffic, it felt like I was in the middle of a heist and—”
One of my best friends barks out a laugh.
“Oh my God!” He exclaims. “I’m going through that too.”
It feels like a record scratched.
“Wait… really?” I ask.
“Yes!” He shouts, and then tilts his head. “You took a cup of your swimmers, in a rideshare?!”
MY WIFE AND I are on our way to our first IUI (intrauterine insemination) attempt. We have to head in separately so one of us can drop off our kiddo at school, and I spend my travel time on the subway and walking through University City, to a new clinic, texting my crew.
“Round one, here we go.”
“Good luck!”
“Your Daddies are here for you!”
“I just sent my sample in yesterday.”
“Crossing my fingers, bro.”
And so on. I found out there are a number of men in my friend group, both here in Philadelphia and back in my hometown, as well as a few writer pals, navigating this. Feeling funny about it. Stressed. Worried about their partners.
Finding out you’re not alone in a fertility journey, it loosens the knot in your chest when you step into the doctor’s office. It cools the heat that creeps up your neck when you see that chair. It was one thing to chat with my wife about what was stressing me out, but something altogether different when I could turn to my boys.
For a lot of us, we’re reminding each other to eat well, sleep more, wear looser underwear and pants – a difficulty for the Elder Emos in our group, each seemingly born in skin-tight jeans. It pales in comparison to our partners, some of whom are going through IVF, and we’re aware of that.
But it turns out, talking to your boys isn’t only about venting to someone about the awkwardness of rushing across the city with semen in a cup or how embarrassed you feel walking into a room with that chair. Though that is certainly part of it.
It’s about discussing the ways you show up. For our partners. For each other. For ourselves.
Since opening up more, the conversations quickly go towards “how is so-and-so doing?” and “is there anything we can do support?” Offering to babysit, delivering lattes, rattling off good movie recommendations. I recently made a giant pot of carnitas for a friend’s family to give them a break during a harried week, and my buddy worked through them so slowly it became a Homer-Simpson-and-that-rotting-giant-subway-sandwich situation. His wife texted me, pleading to tell him to throw the Tupperware of leftovers away. The sensitive men may be opening up, but we’re still lizard brained sometimes.
All of this stuff, they’re small things, details, but they add up. It’s stuff that might have been missed between friends, without someone finally saying something.
“All done! Heading home.”
“How’d it go?”
“Er, that was fast, wasn’t it?”
“Well, he’s had a lot of practice.”
“Oh my God, I hate you guys.”
THE NEXT ROUND of IUI is this week, not sure when yet.
The first one didn’t take. But we’re still trying.
Today I’m packing up some of my son’s toys from when he was a toddler. Some plastic rings that shout out numbers as you stack them up, a giant plastic octopus that has a different musical instrument on each tentacle, a plane that sings and rolls across the floor, talking to you about colors.
Some of his older toys have gone to the nearby thrift store, a favorite place of mine for mental health walks and browsing used books, but a few… the special ones that he couldn’t get enough of, go into a giant Sterilite bin, to sit in the closet.
They’re the “just in case” toys, for baby two.
Some tears well up as I grab this ridiculous talking cube and think about how I would group text with parent friends about it, back when my kiddo played with it all the time. It sings about shapes and colors and numbers, but also repeatedly chimes: “THE CUBE. IS FUN. FOR EVERY. ONE.”
Like something out of a dystopian sci-fi novel. As though if you didn’t acknowledge it was fun, someone might come take you away. My son loved this Vtech monstrosity so much that I can still hear that song in my head, even though it’s been maybe five years since he played with it.
I unscrew the plastic shell and take the batteries out so they don’t burst or decay while waiting in the dark, and I think about how silly it is, getting this worked up over a couple of toys. I try to fight the pressure in my chest, the choking sob in there. Would people in my family have talked about this kind of thing? Gotten upset over something like this? Maybe if I just push it down hard enough, it can turn into an ulcer or something. A problem for future me.
Then I look at my phone and remember all these messages I’ve been sending with my boys.
“How we doin’ Daddies?”
“It’s the start of a new week, let’s get it.”
“Anyone need a coffee drop off?”
“Hoping for good news this week, boys.”
“I put an old dictionary in Eric’s Little Free Library again, LOL.”
I laugh through the tears. And I let myself feel something, feel everything, while talking to the men that I love.
