pivot time

I couldn't wait to finish school, counting down the weeks to the last class and telling anyone who'd listen how awesome it was going to be when I was finally done. The final year had been grueling, all-consuming and murder on my waistline and dating life, and then, when I couldn't take anymore of it, it was over. As an added bonus Danette had come to live with me for a while while she and Jay figured things out.

For a couple of weeks things were really looking up: no more homework meant I could go out on weeknights; I had someone with whom to eat breakfast and go to the beach; I started biking to and from work and planning a camping trip to Acadia; I even got propositioned for sex in a forthright and not-creepy way by a cute guy at work. Then this week came along and FLUMP! I've been having headaches on the days when I ride my bike so I decided to take a break from it; my attention has been non-existent so I've been running on nothing but coffee while at work and sleeping poorly at night; I've been playing solitaire compulsively instead of working on a portfolio site or resume, basically reverting to school lifestyle, only without the excuse of having to do school work.

To make things worse Danette's been more and more down about being unemployed, a lack of progress between her and Jay, and not hearing from her former co-workers; and Clayton's been a total drag meowing at the door in the mornings. I also had a couple of sad conversations with my brother and father, who are not speaking to each other right now. It's unclear to me how accurate Max's assessment of Dad's business woes is, but it is plenty clear the effect it's having on the family: not only will Max not speak to Dad, but he's forbidden Mom from seeing his kids, "until Dad passes away and she shows signs of repentance."

All around me I see my life as a raft of intractable malaise. Aspects of my life that hadn't been going great but that I'd been ignoring because I was focused on school (like work and dating) turned right back around to hit me head on. In my own house there's cat hair and dirt everywhere, mitigated only by Danette's cleanliness and cat dander allergy. In my family there is dysfunction and anger. And in my body? I just went to my initial consultation at the fertility clinic this afternoon for a cold hard look into what my future might be made of.

Freezing eggs first entered by awareness a couple of years ago when Sunny, worried about her relationship with Chuck, had started looking into it. At the time I lacked the money and the necessary sense of urgency to look into it myself, and decided to put it off until I had finished school. Then this Summer Danette started talking about having a fertility evaluation, and then had one done while she and Jay were in London. Her results were sobering, showing a low follicle count, so when a much larger home equity line of credit came through than I needed to pay off my school bills, I decided to make an appointment of my own.

I had only thought about the proposition dispassionately up to now: you pay ten grand to freeze your eggs, and then you have insurance in case you try to get pregnant later but can't. But when you're in the doctor's office going over the statistics, percentages and risks, it's much different. The rates of conception for women 35 years of age undergoing IVF is lower than 50%. If I'm in excellent reproductive health, depending on my follicle count there'll be between 10 and 20 eggs to freeze, and some of those will be lost in the freeze/thaw process. Then there's the rate of IVF from frozen eggs from young donor eggs, which is about 85%. For my older eggs it'll be somewhat lower than that. And then there's any potential complications from multiple pregnancy, older pregnancy, and so on. So in the best of cases, if I have souped up ovaries putting out a majestic crop of 20 magnificent eggs, I'll still have only one shot at IVF with a 20 to 35 percent chance of pregnancy, with an elevated risk of genetic or developmental defects due to my age.

Suddenly my Mom's ill-phrased comment that I'm "copying" my aunt Julia started to chill me, as I thought of how hard she and Hyman had to work to get pregnant with Julian, and how hard they've had to work since to give him a good life. I don't know if I can do that. I don't know that it's worth taking that risk when there are (and will be) so many babies to adopt. But really, the thing that's taken all afternoon to really sink in, is how lonely I am. I don't want to have a child by myself. I don't want to get donor sperm just to improve the quality of my chances of having my own biological baby. I want a husband, a boyfriend, a partner in life. It'll be four years in September since Jason finally moved out, and that's long enough. I think I've proven that I can live alone. But I don't like it.