We entered a brownstone off Fifth Avenue, a building where we could have been dining with one of the partners in David’s accounting firm. Without the slightly haughty “good day” from the receptionist seated behind the marble counter in front of her IBM Selectric, I might have managed only a continuation of the hand tremors that had started last night. But the receptionist, her gorgeous red hair tied back in a bun, guaranteed that the tremors flip-flopped throughout my body and settled in my stomach.
“Relax,” David whispered. He took my coat and asked her where to hang it. I smiled to myself, knowing something she didn’t. David Manning, former Yale football star with flashing brown eyes, always had a hold of himself, at least on the outside. He never let anyone see his fears. If he did have them, I’m not certain he ever allowed himself to know them.
David sat down next to me on the floral covered love seat. He handed me a Newsweek Magazine titled Protest! covered with a shouting young woman. It reminded me of when David and I met at an anti-war rally. I swallowed hard, trying to ignore the flutter of guilt. Now all I selfishly thought about was a baby for David and me. Even before we were engaged, we’d talk about who our children would look like, what they’d grow up to be--a boy for you and a girl for me. How could we have imagined sitting here today waiting to be interviewed by a social worker to determine whether we deserved a baby? I flipped through the pages of Newsweek but couldn’t concentrate. I remembered all those couples filling the big room down the hall three months earlier. All of us hearing about the small number of babies compared to the large number of couples wanting to adopt. I asked David for a Tum from the roll he always kept in his shirt pocket, and he shot me a warning glance. I pleaded by widening my eyes, but he buried his head in a magazine.
Today was the day I might begin to put my unhappiness behind me. Since the infertility diagnosis, it’d been like losing someone you love, and that feeling always lurked in the background. I’d already given up trying to explain it to my friends. They wanted to understand, but I could see it made them uncomfortable. Seeing him now reading his magazine, I thought about how he had bounced back fast. He researched adoption, checked out the best agencies, and even suggested we decorate our small, second bedroom as a nursery. I drew the line at the nursery, telling him it made me uneasy to assume we’d get a baby. David had raised his eyebrows in surprise and shook his head over my protests. He never doubted our qualifications. I, of course, did nothing but doubt.
