Friday, May 19, 2006

The Fertility Odyssey, Part 7: Bring On The Porn !!!

Here we are again...Let me reset the scene...We have gone through the disastrous and emasculating Artificial Insemination(or A.I., but I hate to use those initials as it reminds me of that fucking horrendous Steven Spielberg movie that I was tricked into paying 9 motherfucking dollars to see- they changed the matinee rules so that only the first showing was half price, which I discovered when the guy handed me back 2 dollars from my 20, and two TORN tickets-there was no going back...And man, was that movie a steaming pile of shit !! There was a clear reason Kubrick had never made that movie- he KNEW it would be a piece of shit !!)
Sorry...Sorry...That was uncalled for, and unproductive, no pun intended.(Get it ? I started by talking about a failed insemination ? Unproductive ? Ha !!!) Where was I ? Oh yes, so my Special Lady and I were recovering from the failed Artificial Insemination...We waited the two weeks to find out that it had not worked, and even though we knew that it hadn't, it was still sad to get the call.

The fertility people were very supportive, I only heard one murmur of 'Stupid spermless husband". And that MIGHT have been my Special Lady, I'm not sure...But we decided that another round of Artificial Insemination would not be wise, we were being bumped up to the old IVF- In Vitro Fertilization...At first, I thought this meant we were going to have a cyborg baby, which I thought would be pretty cool, especially if we could order certain features like an ice maker, or at least freezing breath to chill beverages, or a drill for a hand or something, but it was patiently explained to me that it would simply be a process of my sperm fertilizing the Special Lady's egg in a Petri dish...They were actually going to use a Petri dish ? It was like the X-Files !!

In order to get the IVF rolling, I needed to visit the lab to produce another sperm sample( my relationship with my Special Lady may have been under some strain through this process, but my relationship with Rosie Palm was going gangbusters, I'll tell you what. You know, on a side note, it was only very recently that it dawned on me that Jackson Browne's song "Rosie" was about jerking off, I always actually thought it was about a woman named Rosie- Thirty years almost, that's what I thought he was singing about, this woman named Rosie that he could have sex with when there was no one else)...So we go to the front desk and they tell me that I need to call the lab to make an appointment...And here is an exact quote.." Call over to the lab, and speak with Igor or Joe ." Are you fucking kidding me ? The lab guy is named IGOR ?!?!?!?! Where the fuck is Allen Funt ? IGOR is going to be making our baby ? That was priceless !! I think that broke the tension that had been building between My Special Lady and I...We waited until we got to the car, but then we both busted out laughing, and I started doing my best Marty Feldman impression from "Young Frankenstein"- "Hump ? What hump ?" "There wolf...There castle.."... Good Times...

So anyway, I get home and call up the lab, and I speak to Joe, who has a habit of making several words sound like one...As in "ThislabJoespeakingwhatdoyou ?"... I asked him a few times to repeat himself, and then I just gave up and started guessing...I set an appointment for the next week(or at least I was pretty sure that I had) and waited not too patiently...My Special lady had already started stabbing herself in the belly with two different medications every night, so she was having a blast as well.

The time came(no pun intended) to go and visit Igor and Joe and to give them my first sample...It turned out that this sample would be tested, and if there was enough viable swimmers, would be frozen to be used for the IVF...For some reason, this added a little pressure.... I guess I was kinda thinking of this one as the dress rehearsal, but now this might end up on the air, so to speak- YIKES !!!! Luckily, My Special Lady agreed to come to the lab with me, so it was a little less scary.

We arrive at the hospital and make our way to the lab. Of course, it's a windowless door that you have to knock on to gain entrance...It feels quite like you're waiting to score some smack or purchase illegal fireworks or something... We knock on the door and furtively glance around, waiting to see if there are any "squares" who are gonna rain on our parade and keep us from "scoring"...The door finally opens and Joe lets us "inside"...
Well, what we saw when we walked in was absolutely...Unamazing...I was hoping there would be all these tubes with ice on them and sm0ke and fetuses encased in ice, and all kinds of Sci-Fi shit, but it was just a room with a waist high table and a bunch of cardboard boxes...It WAS dimly lit, so that was kinda cool, but overall kind of anti-climactic(no pun intended.)

So, Joe had me fill out some forms( no sign of Igor, i almost asked if he was out harvesting body parts, but I kinda thought that might not be appreciated.) I finished the paperwork, and then it was time for the "transaction"- Joe gives me the specimen cup, and a black marker. I am to write my name and social security number on the top AND the side...This was very important, it was repeated five or six times...
Joe then led me to "The Love Room"...Okay, he didn't call it that, but that's what I deemed it...Of course it was down the hallway, so i had to walk down the hall with my paperwork, and the cup and the magic marker...Joe opened the door and let me inside...There was a chair, a toilet , a sink, a "magazine rack" and a TV/vcr combo...And there was a contraption on the wall that looked like a combination of a lazy susan and a pneumatic tube device...It turned out to be a bit of both, as Joe soon explained..I was to make my "deposit", then write my name and ssn on the side and the top of the cup, and then fill out the time of the deposit along with the "method of collection" on the paperwork, and then put it all onto the lazy susan and turn it until the whole kit and kaboodle disappeared into the wall- very space age.

Then Joe left me to my task. First things first, inspect the porn...Some Playboys, is that even really porn anymore? Okay, here's the harder stuff, I won't go into the specifics, but suffice to say, this was not your father's porn, if you know what I mean...I turned on the TV, and of course the tape in the VCR didn't work...I, of course, immediately decided not to tell them that it was malfunctioning, and i wondered for a second exactly how long it had been broken, and how many men had not told them, but i quickly changed the subject in my brain because thinking of the other men that had been in that room suddenly and me want to bathe in Clorox. I took a deep breath, and decided to get down to business.

I will spare you the ultra gory details, but i will let you know that the mission was a success, and that thankfully, none of the pages of the "reading material" were stuck together...

Okay, I think that's enough for today, but fear not, there is more to come( again, no pun intended-or were all of those puns intended ? Perhaps we will never know.) and more Porn !!!!

No comments: