Fertility, Failed Relationships, and Frozen Eggs

Part 1

As I sign in for the fertility consultation, I hear the couple behind me greet another seated in plastic chairs to the right of the waiting area.

“Oh wow, fancy seeing you two,” the standing woman remarks nervously as they walk over to them. “You guys here for the same thing I assume?”

Muffled chuckles follow, and a brief pause as each consider how to proceed. “Yes, well, our third round actually,” the man in the chair admits. I glance over & see him lean in to kiss his partner’s forehead. “It’s been… a long road.” To that, all four agree before shifting to more casual pleasantries.

I feel my eyes soften as the man rests his arm over his partner’s shoulder, pulling her close as they talk.

It’s a protective gesture, one I know my ex would’ve done too, and while I know nothing else about this couple’s relationship, I hope deeply that their life is a collection of years with moments like that.

“You can fill out the paperwork over there,” the front desk assistant points towards the empty chairs. As I take a seat, milling over the mounds of signatures needed, I drop my bag full of prenatal supplements to the right of me, the CoQ10 peering upward.

As I read over the forms, I’m asked about my relationship history on nearly every page. I smirk imagining the overshares I could include here.

Current relationship status? Newly single, but since you’re asking… lemme tell you about this last break up cause hell, it was a doozy. I had to move shit in a van from Canada to Texas.

How many previous relationships? Oh honey: we starting with the high school football star who turned to heroin 12-year off and on saga? Or shall we begin with the German foreign exchange student I pined after for a decade? The love affair with the British gf in Spain during my Au Pair months? Or what about my 20s fling in NYC with the client? The naked proposal in my late 20s? The manbun survivalist in CO? Which reminds me, what about the guy that saved his urine to water his plants with. Where to begin!

I jot down ‘6’ knowing full well my roster of failed relationships extends far past that but ‘6’ sounds acceptable: a history I can explain. The downsizing of chaos.

As I return the falsified forms, I think of my current ex. How what I’d call an “innocent misrepresentation” on a form would have garnered a look of disapproval.

Calm down Moral Maury, I’d have quipped. But, as I muse over this fake scenario, I feel a familiar sense of guilt.

My ex, to my frequent bewilderment, is unquestionably one of the most honest and brutally straightforward men I’ve yet to date.

In all the ways I shield, protect, alter, misrepresent, take ‘creative liberty’ and flat out lie to avoid negative confrontation, my ex is brash, direct, look you in the eye, and sincere, even when his opinion is squeamishly unpopular or objectively misinformed.

When feeling particularly salty, I often consider whether his 6’4 height and handsome, chiseled face helped give him the security to be that bold.

But salty or not, he is just - simply put - an honest man. Where he sees black, I see varying shades of gray, depending on the angle. And it is likely the view from my lens of the world that has caused me far more unintended pain than his.

To be honest is to be free. To slink around honesty is to imprison yourself.

My, I think, how astute I am alone on a Friday afternoon in a fertility office with a bag full of rattling prenatals. But I suppose being 35, single, and getting your eggs frozen while living at your parents house in the blazing Texas summer leaves you with a past that demands some reflection.

And while I have traveled alone, slept off the grid in a van alone, entered rehab alone, and even spent one night in jail alone— I find sitting in a fertility treatment center waiting room alone a singularly solitary experience.

Certainly one that no one imagines they’ll find themselves contending with one day. A self-assurance of “oh I’ll find a partner by then,” or “I’ll likely have kids by then anyway, no need to think about that.”

Well, take heed, I want to say, like the old croaking neighbor withering away on her cane - screaming at all the neighborhood kids from her front porch - it can certainly happen to you.

As I think this, the nurse comes out and yells my name: “Hall? Lindsey?”

I raise my hand and gather my things:

One day, I think to myself, following behind her in the beige hallway, turning the corner to an exam room, having no idea what’s yet to come:

I’ll tell my kid her mom was a mess sometimes, but she could still carry on when it mattered.

That she made a lot of choices that at one time she felt was right. That she tried on a lot of different hats, and lived in a lot of different countries, and had a lot of different jobs:

That she never got spooked by risk. And she never backed out of the unknown.

And that she wanted you, kid, more than she’s ever wanted anything before - it just took her awhile to get there 💛