“Do you want to do it?” the doctor asked her bluntly, and Hope felt as though she had her back to the wall. If she didn’t, Finn would be hurt, but she was going to be upset if she did. And the tests did not sound pleasant. She thought about it for a long moment, and out of love for him, decided to sacrifice herself.
“All right, I will. But we haven’t made a final decision yet about getting pregnant.”
“I have,” Finn said quickly, and both women laughed.
“Then you have the baby,” Hope said quickly.
“Have you ever been pregnant?” the doctor asked her, handing her a stack of forms to fill out, and two brochures about in vitro fertilization and donor eggs.
“Yes, once,” Hope said quietly, thinking of her daughter. “Twenty-three years ago.” She glanced at the brochure in her hand then. “Would we have to use donor eggs?” Hope didn’t like that idea at all. In that case, genetically, it would be Finn’s baby, but not hers. That didn’t sit well with her.
“Hopefully not, but it’s an option. We have a number of tests to run on you first, and we have to check the viability of your eggs. A younger egg is always a surer bet, of course. But yours may still be lively enough for us to use, with a little help.” She smiled, and Hope felt faintly sick. She hadn’t been ready for this process at all, and wasn’t sure if she ever would be. Finn wanted it so badly, he was overriding her. She knew he was doing it because he loved her. But it was a very big deal to her.
“Are we checking my eggs today?” Hope knew it wasn’t a small procedure, if that was the case.
“No, we can do that next time, if we need to. We’ll check your FSH levels today, and take it from there.” She handed Hope a list of the procedures they were going to do, which included a pelvic ultrasound, a pelvic exam, and a battery of blood tests to check her hormone levels. And they wanted a sperm sample from Finn.
For the next two hours, they ran through all the tests, and he made assorted whispered lewd remarks to Hope about helping him with the sperm sample, but she was in no mood for that. She told him to do it himself, which he did, and appeared with it proudly while they did her ultrasound. The doctor announced with pleasure that Hope was ovulating now, and everything looked good on the ultrasound so far. “You two could go home today and give it a try on your own,” she commented, “although I’d rather do artificial insemination with Mr. O’Neill’s sperm. You could come back and let us do that for you this afternoon, if you like,” she offered, with a helpful glance at Hope.
“I don’t want to do that,” Hope said in a strangled voice. She felt as though suddenly other people were running her life, mostly Finn. And he looked disappointed by what she had just said.
“Maybe we’ll try that next month,” the doctor said blandly, as she removed the ultrasound wand, wiped the gel off Hope’s stomach from the external part of the exam, and told her she could get up. Hope felt drained. She felt as though she were on an express train she hadn’t bought a ticket for, and didn’t want to be on, to a destination she hadn’t chosen in the first place. She had just been reading the travel brochures, and Finn was trying to make the decisions for her, about where they were going and when.
They met with the doctor in her office after all the tests, and she told them that so far everything looked good. They didn’t have Hope’s FSH count and estrogen levels yet, but her eggs looked good on the screen, Finn’s sperm count was high, and she thought that with artificial insemination, they might have a good chance. If that didn’t work in the first two months, they would put Hope on Clomid to release more eggs, which could result in multiple births, the doctor warned her, and if the Clomid hadn’t worked in four months, they would start with in vitro fertilization. And eventually, if necessary, donor eggs. The doctor handed Hope a tube of progesterone cream and told her how to use it every month from ovulation to menstruation, to stimulate implantation and discourage spontaneous abortion. And she told her to see the nurse on the way out for an ovulation predictor kit. By the time they left the office, Hope felt as though she had been shot out of a cannon or drafted into the Marines.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Finn said, smiling broadly at her, delighted with himself when they reached the sidewalk, and Hope burst into tears.
“Don’t you care what I think?” she asked him, sobbing. She didn’t know why, but it had made her feel as though she were betraying Mimi, replacing her with another child, and she wasn’t ready for that either. She couldn’t stop crying as he put his arms around her. And she was still crying when they got into a cab and he gave the driver his address.
“I’m sorry. I thought you’d be happy about it once we talked to her.” He looked crushed.
“I don’t even know if I want a baby, Finn. I already lost a child I loved. I haven’t gotten over it yet, and I don’t know if I ever will. And it’s still too soon for us.”
“We don’t have time to fool around,” he said, pleading with her. He didn’t want to be rude and say that for Hope, at forty-four, time was running out.
“Then maybe we’ll have to be happy with just us,” she said, sounding anguished. “I’m not ready to make that decision yet, in a two-month-old romance.” She didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but she needed to be sure. Marriage was one thing eventually. But a baby was something else. “You have to listen to me, Finn. This is important.”
“It’s important to me too. And I want to have our baby, before we lose the chance.”
“Then you need a twenty-five-year-old woman, not someone my age. I’m not going to play Beat the Clock on a decision as important as this. We need time to figure it out.”
“I don’t,” he said stubbornly.
“Well, I do,” she said, sounding increasingly desperate. He was so insistent about it that she was feeling cornered and trying to make him back off. She knew how much he loved her, and she loved him too, but she didn’t want to be pushed.
“I’ve never wanted a baby with anyone before. Even Michael was an accident. That’s why I married his mother. And I want a baby with you,” he said with tears in his eyes as he looked at her in the back of the cab.
“Then you have to give me time to get used to the idea. I felt as though I was being railroaded in that doctor’s office. If we’d let her, she’d have gotten me pregnant today.”
“That doesn’t sound like a bad idea to me,” he said, as the cab pulled up to his address. And a moment later, Hope followed him inside, looking miserable and shaken. She was exhausted, and felt as though she’d been dragged behind a horse, holding on by her teeth. It had been a draining emotional experience for her. Finn didn’t say anything, and went to pour her a glass of wine. She looked as though she needed it. She started to turn it down, and then thought better of it. She drained it in a few minutes, and he filled it up again, and had a glass himself.
“I’m sorry, darling. I shouldn’t have pushed you into it. I was just so excited by the idea. I’m sorry,” he repeated gently, and kissed her. “Will you forgive me?”
“Maybe,” she said, smiling sadly at him. It hadn’t been a pleasant experience for her, to say the least. He poured her another glass of wine, and she drank that one too. She was seriously upset, but started to calm down after her third glass, and then started crying again, and Finn wrapped her in his arms and took her upstairs. He ran a warm bath for her, and she slipped gratefully into it, and closed her eyes. She lay there for a while, unwinding, trying to push the unpleasant doctor’s visit from her mind. Being in the warm bath helped, and when she opened her eyes again, Finn handed her a glass of champagne and a giant strawberry, and slipped into the bath with her. Hope started to giggle as he unwound his long frame into the bathtub with her, and he had a glass of champagne too.
“What are we celebrating?” She smiled at him. She was slightly tipsy, but not drunk. But she needed the wine to get over the afternoon, and as she finished the champagne in the flute he had handed her, he took the glass from her hand and set it down. He had emptied his glass too. And then as always happened when they bathed together, he began to make overtures that neither of them could resist. It happened before they knew it, and without thinking about it. He made love to her in the bathtub, and then they lay on the bathroom floor on the carpet and finished it. It was hot and passionate and desperate, with all the agony and turmoil she had felt that afternoon. All she knew as she lay there was how badly she wanted him, and he wanted her just as much. They couldn’t get enough of each other, it was hard and furious and quick, and after he came, he lay on top of her, and then gently got up and lifted her in his arms like a doll and laid her on his bed. He dried her gently with a towel, and tucked her into bed. She smiled at him with the slightly glazed eyes of someone who has had too much to drink. But there was love and tenderness there too, not just wine.
“I love you more than anything on earth,” he whispered to her.
“I love you too, Finn,” she said, as she drifted off to sleep and he held her close.
He was still holding her when they woke up in the morning, and Hope squinted at him. “I think I got drunk last night,” she said, slightly embarrassed. She remembered what had happened in the bathtub and after, and how great it had been. It always was with him. And then suddenly, with a jolt, she was wide awake. She remembered
