and moody. When Erik called her cell, she answered like a law firm. “Tired, sore and moody, may I fucking help you?”
But the break they seemed to have caught stayed in their hands. After all the shots, the morning monitoring appointments, ultrasounds to measure follicles and blood work to measure hormone levels, finally it was time for harvest.
They arrived together at the clinic for the sperm extraction. LeBlanc encouraged wives and partners to be present at procedures. “You’ve been robbed of all the fun in making babies,” he said. “Nothing sexy going on here. You should be able to be close. Hold hands. At least feel like you’re doing it together.”
“He’s such a sap,” one of the nurses said.
“I believe in the power of love,” LeBlanc said. “Fine, I’m a sap. It’s my downfall.”
“Or your saving grace,” Erik said. He appreciated having anyone’s hand to hold while getting a needle of Novocaine in each testicle. He also appreciated the Ativan they threw in his IV line. Now he was just full of floaty dread, instead of anxious and full of nauseating dread.
“The buildup is worse than the shot,” Daisy said, managing to still be adorable despite the blue cap covering all her hair.
“You got it spaced over two weeks,” he said, conscious of his tongue and teeth and how his mouth moved. “I get it all in one go.” He closed his eyes, hoping he would drift off. Hard to do with his private parts on public display. Everything was so desexualized by now, he was beyond being embarrassed. Vulnerability, however, stuck close by.
I can live without having kids, he thought. You slip, cut the wrong thing and desexualize me, then it’s going to get ugly around here.
Daisy’s hand ran soft over his forehead. He smiled and opened his eyes. The room swam a little then focused again. Daisy smiled back and they stared.
“All right, my friend,” LeBlanc said. “Let’s begin.”
“Fuck,” Erik said as Daisy took his hand in hers. Then the stabbing pain that burned, froze and ached simultaneously. Something between a kick to the balls and an ice pick to the groin. The air crawled into his lungs and he had to grab it by the ankle and drag it back out.
“Jesus,” he said against his fist while his other hand squeezed Daisy’s fingers.
“Breathe,” she said.
“Doc, you bastard,” he said, laughing because it beat crying.
“Sorry,” LeBlanc said. “Two more.”
“Can’t wait.”
The second burned and ached. The third was merely pressure that aggravated the ache. In a few minutes, everything below his navel and above his knees disappeared and he could get a full breath in.
“All right?” Daisy said.
He managed a wobbly smile. “Nothing to it.”
Her hand caressed him. He focused on his breathing until the nausea dissolved away. Long minutes dripped by. He watched his heart rate on the monitor a while, until the beeps made him sleepy. He turned his head into Daisy’s hand and closed his eyes. Then yawned back into consciousness some length of time later. He felt vague pressure and pushing. The click and clink as instruments were passed. Daisy’s cool palm on his forehead.
“It’s going well, Erik,” LeBlanc said. “We’ve got two vials.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
Daisy laid her head down next to his. “Whose balls are better than yours,” she whispered.
He chuckled. “I’m afraid my balls won’t be much use to you the next two weeks.”
“I have other uses for you.”
“What, catching mice and killing spiders?”
“It’s the main reason I married you. Live-in pest control.”
While he rested on ice in recovery, Daisy got a hormonal trigger shot to set ovulation in motion. Erik spent the rest of the day on the couch at Barbegazi, watching TV while he cozied up to bags of frozen peas. Daisy waited on him hand and foot, rotating the cold packs. Twenty minutes on. Twenty minutes off. With eleven Advil for breakfast, he’d be fine.
“I’m pleased with what we got,” LeBlanc said when he called that evening. “An excellent sample given your history.”
“Are they swimming?”
“Doesn’t matter. With ICSI, the first thing you do with sperm is cut the tail off.”
Daisy went back the next day for retrieval. Erik wasn’t allowed in during her procedure. He sat with his ice packs, reading, until they called him into recovery.
He eased himself into a chair next to the bed. Daisy was still sleeping. Her head drooped to one side and her hands rested on her stomach, the IV line running from the back of one to the pole. A blood pressure cuff on her arm