Given the laws of Taharat Hasmishpacha, I was obviously aware that each passing month did not bring a pregnancy. Perhaps it was seeing friends holding their children in shul, sharing their talis with their children during Birkas Kohanim or dancing with their children on their shoulders on Simchat Torah that I first felt the longing for a child.
Being much more aware, my wife began looking into fertility treatments. I wasn’t really sure I wanted to go that route, but I had no objections to her trying. I will never forget my wife calling me on my very long train ride home from my new job telling me that she had set up an appointment with a fertility specialist. I agreed to come along for that first meeting.
Many people do not understand how expensive fertility treatments can be. We were barely making ends meet, so expensive treatments were really out of the question. We were fortunate that fertility treatments and medications were covered by our insurance with a very low co-pay (years later I would joke that our HMO had a dartboard with our faces on them).
I was more than a bit surprised when we arrived at the clinic to find that the windows were tinted. I understand that this was done to protect the privacy of the patients, but all medical procedures should be private. I had to wonder if the message was that there was really something for which we should be ashamed.
I was very uncomfortable in the waiting room, peering nervously at the other patients and for the first time feeling a real sense of empathy for what they must be going through. I did notice that I was the only husband in the room (while my job was far away, I had some flexibility in terms of the hours I worked).
It was incomprehensible for me at the time, but for some strange reason a pediatric office shared the same waiting room as the infertility clinic (years later, after my daughter was born three months premature, I discovered that the waiting room was for the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) follow-up, and the doctor told me that they shared the waiting room because a large number of their patients began their journey in that very room).
All of the staff were very nice. They were closely in-tune with the fact that most of their patients were apprehensive and had no idea what to expect. They tried to be reassuring, and the doctor outlined the basics of the tests he wanted to order.
Suffice it to say, halachic considerations aside, the test protocol is much more invasive for a woman than for a man. On the way out, after he described what my wife would have to go through, I asked her if she was 100 percent sure she wanted to go through with this.
She had no doubts, and she was 100 percent determined. I had no objections, especially because there really wasn’t much for me to do aside from being supportive (that would become a theme in our long ordeals).
It didn’t dawn on me at the time, but when we left the doctor’s office, our lives had changed forever. We had gone from a happily married couple who just couldn’t seem to get pregnant to a couple suffering from infertility. It took me some time to truly understand what that meant and what kinds of ramifications it would have on our lives – which would truly never be the same.