At the Sperm Wash
an excerpt from my untitled memoir about infertility and preemie twins
We're in the car, headed toward the cryolab. Jeffrey asked me to drive. He's too nervous. He's biting his nails down to the cuticle. He stares out the window and abruptly stops gnawing.
“This neighborhood is interesting,” he says.
I notice. We're way the hell out in Van Nuys. Balboa Boulevard--North. Very north. It's looking a little funky, like maybe this is where they make porno movies.
“What street is it on?” He wants to make sure we didn’t pass it.
I point to the directions. “Stagg Street.”
“You're kidding, right?”
We share a nervous chuckle.
“If we drive any further, we'll be in Simi Valley,” I say.
Jeffrey shoots me a look. “Did you say Semen Valley?”
Good thing Jeffrey didn't drive. His mind is somewhere else. But so is mine. This day could be life changing. I could become pregnant today.
Maybe once I have a kid, I'll be carefree. I won't care about having a career and that's when I'll have one. That's when the jobs will start pouring in. That's when it happens. When you stop trying. When you least expect it, you’ll get a sitcom, publish an article, get pregnant. I'll have a terrific marriage, children, a career…
I turn on Stagg Street. It looks more like an alley than a street.
“I don't know, Carissa. Do you think they put sperm on the black market?”
We find the address, park and enter the building. The waiting room is bleak save for the large framed portraits of mothers with their babies, like that's supposed to be comforting and warm up the place. Beyond the mini Bank Teller's window is a lab. Carl, a swarthy man with a mustache steps up to the window.
“Jeffrey Steefel? Your wife can fill out the paperwork while you get started.”
I swallow a guffaw and elbow Jeffrey, “While you get started?”
Carl leads Jeffrey to— a bathroom? It’s down a hall beyond the bank teller window. I fill in Jeffrey's social security number, which I've memorized by now and glance at my watch. This is the first time I'm hoping he's quick.
Jeffrey emerges.
“Five minutes, not bad,” I say.
Jeffrey is all too proud. “I'm a professional.” He carefully places the cup on the designated counter. He clings to the cup for an extra second then looks at me, terrified, and whispers, “This guy isn't going to mix it up with anyone else, is he?”
“Noooo.” I was confident, but Jeffrey’s question induces paranoia. Looks like no one's here but Carl. Just him and lots of virility.
Carl takes the paperwork and tells us he needs about an hour to “wash” the sperm and if we want to go get a cup of coffee, he recommends Lulu's.
We're driving further north, looking for Lulu's and I'm wondering why Carl sent us away.
“Jeff? You don't think he's going to tamper with it, do you?”
“That's why I asked you. You said he wouldn't.”
“I don't know. Now I'm wary. Carl is scary.”
“This is no time to rhyme.”
“Now you’re doing it.”
“Don't you trust your doctor's recommendation?”
“Of course. But he probably doesn't know this guy on a personal level.
“Maybe they play golf together,” Jeffrey says.
“A doctor and a sperm cleaner? Maybe Carl is an expert ball washer.”
We laugh nervously.
“I would've felt more comfortable if a woman washed your sperm,” I say.
Jeffrey’s confused. “What does that have to do with it?”
“What if our kid comes out swarthy with a mustache?”
We pass Amber’s and Ginger’s, no Lulu's.
“A lot of coffee shops with porn star names,” I say.
Jeffrey agrees.
We find Lulu's.
A waitress seats us in a booth.
Jeffrey leans in, “Do you think the waitress knows that people from the cryolab come here after--?”
“Ew. Something is sticky on the table.” I wipe my elbows.
We flip our mugs over. It's the silent, coffee shop way of saying, “Yes, please.” We have communicated. The waitress fills our mugs. Jeffrey has caffeine; it's okay now. He's done his part of the job. I have decaf; after all, I might get pregnant today. And the waitress eyes us like she knows where we've been.
“Cream?”
Jeffrey shoots her a look.
I could swear she’s smirking.
We shake our heads. I glance at my watch. Fifty-five more minutes.
I notice the guy in the booth across from us beating the ketchup bottle over his eggs. And I think of my ovaries. Eggs, ovaries, eggs, ovaries...
“What would you like to order?” the waitress asks.
“Eggs, ovar—easy,” I blurt. That's not what I wanted. The last thing I want to do is eat an egg. Jeffrey plays it safe and orders a waffle.
Five minutes later, our food is served. Lulu is fast.
Jeffrey drowns his waffle in syrup, plunges his fork into a face-sized piece and stuffs it in his mouth. Syrup covers his chin and splashes on the table. I feel better about my sticky elbows. I dunk my napkin into my glass of water and wipe his chin.
“I hope you were neater at the cryolab,” I say.
“Believe me, I was.”
“What does that mean?”
Jeffrey tells me that he not only washed his hands before and after the event, but that he turned off the water with his elbows, like a surgeon scrubbing in. He even washed himself.
My wrist is heavy. I look at my watch again. Fifteen more minutes. I'm getting dizzy, nauseated, as if I were pregnant.
We leave the restaurant and return to the cryolab. Carl hands Jeffrey a bag, the bag.
“Now, you want to hold it like this,” Carl says, demonstrating. The bag is flat on its long side as though there were cup cakes inside.
“They ought to put a sticker on it that says, ‘This side up,’" I say.
Carl didn’t hear my quip and gives me the bill. It’s itemized. I run down the list of all the various sperm processes. Wash, spin, rinse, it's like they're doing laundry.
I pay and I'm still paranoid that it's not Jeffrey in that bag. I figure I'm probably not the only one who has ever been suspicious, so I ask Carl, “Um, there's no mix up, right?”
“No, no. I label everything. Now you don't want to put the bag on the dashboard in the sun. Good luck.”
Jeffrey holds the bag like he's got a tray of eggs, the Faberge kind, and I’m too faint to drive.
“Will you drive, honey? I'll hold the bag.”
“No, I want to hold it.”
“Okie dokie,” I say. I didn't know he'd be so protective, like these sperm are his little friends.
I screech out of the parking lot. It's better I drive. Jeffrey has a terrible sense of direction. He gets lost going home and we’ve been living in the same house for three years. Maybe that was the reason for our fertility problems. His sperm didn't know the way and refused to ask for directions.
I'm driving over the speed limit, racing to the doctor's, so I can get a baby, have a family.
“Slow down,” Jeffrey says as he balances the bag over every bump and pothole.
“We’ve got to hurry.”
I picture Jeffrey's sperm, some of them tired, some coughing, bewildered, but all them crying out to be saved from this little, hot plastic container.
We get to the office and we have to wait. I've never had to wait before. What's going on? It's Sunday. Dr. Vermesh said I would be the only patient today. There are other people in the waiting room, he's not here yet, where's the doctor, where is he, I'm suffocating, and my husband's sperm is dying.
Vermesh races through the door. “Sorry I'm late. Please, give me one moment.”
He reappears in his white lab coat and all I can think is that 2 million sperm just perished in the two minutes it took for Vermesh to put on his doctor uniform. He wasted precious time.
He calls us in and leads us into the ultrasound room, the happy room. My pants are around my ankles. I’m ready. Inseminate me already.
Vermesh takes the bag, clamps me open, shines the light, I feel a slight cramping, and, what is he doing? He's taking off his gloves. He's finished. That's it?
They're in. About twenty million.
Vermesh dims the light and leaves us alone. I'm to lay here for ten minutes. After this morning I’m ready for a nap. My arms feel tired, like wings after flight. I’m limp like a bird that hit a window, stunned, but alive. I think of the cryolab, Paris, the psychics I’ve been to, the fertility statues I’ve touched, the hysterosalpingogram, everything, and I realize, there's still the possibility this won't work.
“Well, Jeffrey, if I get pregnant, at least we can say you were in the room when it happened.”
“Yeah. I kind of wish it was the other way.” He takes my hand.
“I know. Thanks for doing this. I'm glad you're here.”
“I'll always be here. Remember, I'm not going anywhere. You're stuck with me.”
Two weeks later. I didn't get a baby, but I got a commercial.
Sticky coffee shop table? What could it have been?
This was in 1996. Do you think things have changed much?
CK, this is such a wonderful blend of dialogue that says so much more than the words on the page and interiority that binds it all together. I absolutely loved this.
Magnificent. So g.d. funny yet also so touching. I will be laughing at “Maybe once I have a child, I’ll be carefree” for days and weeks. 👏👏