Rating: PG

Summary: Thanks to UCLA Center for Reproductive Medicine, the Fertility Center at the University of North Carolina/Chapel Hill, and Boca Raton Fertility for the info...even if I did get it on-line. The stats are consistent in all three clinics, and they're considered to be the Cadillacs of fertility clinics.

Spoilers: Nah.
 

We're in bed, channel surfing, hopelessly searching for anything even remotely worth watching. Not working.

Even Langly, who'll watch anything late at night, gives up and clicks off the TV.

"God. Sunday night TV. Hopeless."

"There's always Jerry Springer."

"It's a rerun. Wasn't any good."

"You mean you can distinguish one ep from another?"

"Sure. You can't?"

I look at him and giggle. "Afraid not, babe. I'm not into putting my energies into slugfest TV. And I'm afraid I'm not into lesbian teenage biker chicks and their mothers."

"Hey, that was a great ep!"

"Langly, it's reassuring to know you're not bound by such mitigating factors as taste."

"You're missing a great American culturefest."

I punch him lightly in the elbow. "You're hopeless."

He snuggles down in the blankets. "Hey, Ally. How'd you feel about paying a visit to Kelly's boss?"

"Come again?"

"You know, the lady Kelly works for. Dr. Shalad, I think it says on her card."

To say this is a shock might be an understatement.

"She does infertility treatments," he adds.

"I'm well aware of what she does. It's just...you're not going to believe this, but I had this conversation with Ellen today..."

"No shit."

"No shit. Who'd you talk to?"

"Kelly. Michael suggested it."

Wow.

"Langly...what brought this about?"

"I dunno. I think I might like having a kid of my own. I mean, I'm like the only one who doesn't have one-"

"Langly, lots of people don't have kids."

"Yeah, but...I dunno. It's like, I got so little family and all, and I..."

"You've got the irrepressible urge to spread your DNA around a bit."

"Well, I mean, doesn't everyone?"

"No. It's not just instinct."

"I know...I think it could be fun."

"Kids are fun. I mean, I know Miranda drives you crazy-"

"She's an awesome kid, I think she's great. But it's like, you know, there's not that...whatever it is..."

"Langly, you get that 'whatever' from growing along with the kid, not just having them."

"Well, it could be a cool thing to do."

"Langly...why do you want a kid?"

"Why did you want Miranda?"

"Because I like kids, and Eric and I agreed that we both wanted them."

"Okay, well, what about with me?"

God, he looks so puppyish, it's killing me.

"Babe...I'd love to have a baby with you. It killed me when we lost ours last year. I always wonder what it would have been like."

"I just figured you didn't think about it anymore."

"Bullshit. I was pretty bummed for a long time. It was really hard yesterday, seeing Dana and Mulder with their new one. Talk about having your heart pulled out."

"Yeah." He looks sad now. "I mean, Mulder, like, he was so buzzed."

"Yeah, and it's the ultimate buzz, babe. And then comes the sleepless nights, and the crying, and the endless laundry, and daycare and worry and sickness and you name it. I'm not saying it's not worth it. It is. I'm just saying, it's WORK, sweetheart. As you're learning with Miranda. And she's pretty self-sufficient, and look how much work she still is."

"Yeah, but...I guess, I don't know why I want to do it. I just do. I sort of get the idea you don't. Forget it."

"No, I will not! You brought this up. Now we're going to discuss it. All the way through."

"So, do you wanna do it or not?" He asks me.

"Truthfully...sometimes yes, sometimes no. I keep going back and forth on the subject. I mostly think it's just wishful thinking on my part, since I've already been sterilized. I know that there are treatments, but sometimes, babe, they just don't work!"

"I know."

"Langly...I'm willing to give this a shot. But you have to keep in mind, it just might not happen. I mean, look over all the options. Most of them have less than a 50 percent success rate. We're talking about a lot of time, energy and money for something that might not happen."

"But it might."

"And if it does, well, it's meant to be. But we have a good chance of going through it all and being right where we are now. Only older, more tired, and a lot more broke. I don't even know if our insurance covers any of this...I'm certain it doesn't cover the more experimental stuff. Do you know how much it costs?"

"Nope."

"Me neither. But I'm betting it's not cheap."

"I'm sure it's not. But it's not like we don't have the scratch."

Well, we do...I'm not sure I was planning to put some of it towards this endeavor. But the look on his face...yeah, I'm a sucker for him. Even when I know I'm being worked, I fall for it.

"She might not even take us. I might be over whatever age limit she might have set."

"She's gotta talk to us first before she decides that."

"True."

"So Ally, whaddya say? I mean, it's your call and all..."

Like hell it is, babe. It's both ours.

And who knows? It might even take...

And then I'm in my mid-fifties with a kid in elementary school...oh Jesus...

And he's looking at me so pleadingly...

And going back to changes and breastfeeding and ear infections...

And he really wants to do this.

"We'll do the initial consult."

"Cool." I'm rewarded with a big hug and an even bigger smile.

Somehow, I don't think this is going to be as much fun as doing it the old-fashioned way. But right now, he's happy, and that's good enough for
me.
 

February 14, 2001

I find it ironic that Dr. Shalad brought us in on Valentine's Day, of all days. Normally, we'd probably have had to wait weeks, but Kelly put in a good word for us...and the fact that her husband has to on occasion treat Langly doesn't hurt our standing, either.

I'm nervous as hell. He's irritatingly calm.

Then again, we're just waiting to be called.

It's a long wait, and we had to take the entire afternoon off for this. I don't think Major Nathanson sir was too happy about Langly bailing out for the entire afternoon.

Finally, we get ushered into the sanctum sanctorum, namely, Dr. Shalad's office, which is really quite attractive. She's Iranian, and she has lots of Middle Eastern art all around, a Persian rug on the floor, and there's lots of deep cobalt blue all around, a color I find soothing. At least the place isn't depressingly generic.

Kelly was right-she's not much bigger than me. She's probably in her mid to late thirties, dark-haired, with expressive, enormous brown eyes.

"I notice from your address and Kelly's are the same," she observes.

I notice the little Star of David locket dangling at her neck.

A soul sister of sorts.

I wonder if Langly realizes that, at least in tradition, any child born of a Jewish woman is considered to be Jewish.

We haven't even gone over that one.

Langly's at least on his good behavior this afternoon. I suspect that as she's married to Daryl Bergman, he probably at least warned her about us.

Maybe had a good laugh, too.

First thing is the forms-and they go on longer and ask more questions than ANYTHING I ever filled out when I worked for the Fibbies. Jesus. And Christ, do they ask questions-really, really personal ones.

Langly looks more than a little surprised at some of them.

We have reached reality checkpoint one.

He shrugs and keeps answering, though. I'm expecting him to challenge Dr. Shalad as to why this question was asked and why does she need to know this and so on, but to my amazement, he keeps his mouth shut.

After what seems like hours filling in everything, we hand the forms back to her and she reads through them, mine first.

"You're 45 years old."

"Uh-huh."

"And you use both alcohol and tobacco."

"In large quantities."

"That stops right now."

Two of the fundamental elements of my identity. Eeek.

Still, I did give them up when I had Miranda...

And it was hell.

But I managed.

She finishes reading through mine and picks up Langly's.

"37 years old, nonsmoker, alcohol user, no other drugs."

Well, not now, anyway.

"It says here you were seriously ill last year with a prolonged fever of unidentified origin."

"Yeah, and?"

"And prolonged fever's been known to reduce sperm count."

Reality checkpoint number two. He actually looks somewhat affronted.

"Hey, I did get her pregnant once."

"Before you got sick."

She reads carefully with no additional comments for a long time.

I get more and more uneasy.

She's not going to accept us as clients. She's trying to remain expressionless, but her eyes give her away when she looks up.

"I'm honestly not sanguine about your chances for success."

"So like you're not gonna take us?" Langly's face drops to the ground.

"I didn't say that. I think with Allison having had a tubal ligation, she could be a candidate for IVF, but at her age and with her gynecologic history, I'm not overly optimistic that you two would have a successful outcome. I'm not trying to discourage you, if you really want to start the process. I'm just warning you that I think there's a good chance that this is going to be a disappointment for you. I think it's only fair to give my best professional opinion. And of course, I don't have your medical results, which I will need in order to determine if we should proceed any further."

"That's Ally's job, right?" Langly looks a bit nervous now.

"No, it's both of yours."

"Oh." I don't think he was expecting that.

I'm not sure what he was expecting. I was expecting this to be, well, not much fun.

So far, it's lived up to my expectations.

I'm expecting far more balking on his part; I'm amazed he hasn't said forget it yet. I'm not sure if my anxiety level is rising or falling on account of that.

I think in the back of my mind, I was worried that he wouldn't want to proceed, and I was just as worried that he would.

"So why don't you think we'd get lucky at this?" Langly asks her. And it's a legitimate question, not an impertinent one.

She smiles a little. She's actually a friendly woman, but I appreciate that she doesn't want to give us more hope than she reasonably can.

"Well, lucky is one thing...statistically, the odds are very much against you."

"How so?"

"Under age 35, an embryo fertilized by IVF has about a 30 percent chance of attaching to the uterine wall and developing. By the time a woman is 43 years old, that statistic drops to less than 5 percent. We try to improve the odds by implanting several embryos at once, but how many we can get depends on a lot of factors."

"Like?"

"How many ova the woman can produce and how viable they are. I prescribe hormones and ovulation inducers to stimulate production, but it doesn't always work."

Hormones. Oh God. This means PMS every day...

"And if the man doesn't have a reasonable sperm count, well, we have some techniques to make the most of what we can get, but once again, viability is important. And there are no guarantees that fertilization will even take place."

"And if that's not the problem?" Langly asks.

"Makes my job easier," she says, smiling some. But then she's serious. "Seriously, think long and hard about this. This job is wonderful and rewarding when it works. But it's also a heartbreaker. Going through this really will test your marriage; you might want to consider that fact before plunging ahead."

I find this, above all, to be the most sobering thought.

"Think about how you feel about constant bloodwork, testing, appointments, monitoring your sexual lives, and how you handle disappointment and frustration. And be honest about it. If there was ever a time to be honest with each other, this is it."

How much discussion have we had on this topic? About two hours' worth. All of it this week.

"Think about how an unsuccessful outcome will affect both of you, and your relationship. I'm not trying to be depressing. I'm trying to prepare you for what will statistically be your most likely outcome."

"But we could be successful," Langly presses her.

"You could. I'm not saying you won't be. But this is still technology in its infancy, and I'm not in the business of selling false hope. At least I hope I'm not." She looks momentarily uncertain, a lot younger than she probably is.

Those beautiful eyes probably see a lot of misery.

"So if we decide we wanna do this, would you do it?" Langly asks her.

"If your medical screenings indicate that you're possible candidates, yes, I'll do the IVF. But that's the first hurdle."

"You don't do that, I take it," I express my impression to her.

"No. I have three colleagues that do the medical evaluations. Should you decide to forge ahead, you'll see them first, and they'll pass the results along to me. Be prepared. They're long appointments."

Oh Christ. And we have so much free time.

"And this is not, at least for Allison, completely painless in the physical sense."

I feel my stomach drop into my knees. Anytime a physician tells me something is not completely painless, I feel reasonably assured that it's going to hurt like hell.

"Then what?" Langly winces a bit when she indicates that for me, it's probably going to hurt, but he's moving ahead.

"Then Allison begins hormone treatments."

I just can't wait for that part. I think back on when I was pregnant and how labile I was...I cried over everything. And I do mean everything.

I'd better warn him about that part.

On the other hand, this is my one last-absolute last-shot at a child with this man. And in some fuzzy warm way, I like this idea. Never mind that the clinical jargon and technical descriptions leave me feeling about as warm as DC in the middle of January.

Besides, it's February.

And it's Valentine's Day.
 

We took the afternoon off, and we decide to walk along the Tidal Basin, home to the now-infamous Wilbur Mills-Fanne Foxe affair of yesteryear.

"Whaddya thinking?" Langly asks me. I've had so much racing through my brain that my powers of speech have been temporarily obliterated.

"I don't know." Most honest answer I can give. "Everything." My thoughts are jumbled together in a weird stew of longing and terror. "You?"

He stops for a while. I watch the wind pull on his shorter but still generous creamy hair, the wind pinking up his pale cheeks.

"I'd really like to give it a go."

I was afraid he was going to say that.

It would be easier if he'd say, no, changed my mind, let's go home and have a beer.

It's not that I am against having a baby with him.

That's the problem. I'm not. As weird and irrational as it might be, the desire to do this is very strong. I know how much I love my daughter...I wasn't prepared for it when it happened. I never knew I'd love someone so much.

I think that would happen again for me, and I think he deserves a chance at it.

I wonder what our ill-fated embryo was, if it was a boy or girl. We'll never know.

I think about that, and I feel my eyes begin to sting.

No. This is not the time to think of that.

"Langly...are you still gonna love me even if this doesn't work?"

He looks at me as if I've utterly departed from my senses. "Jesus, Ally, what kind of a question is that?"

"A fair one. A real one."

He wraps his arms around me. "Hey, why do you think I wanna go for this so bad? It's 'cause of you. And I mean, even if it doesn't happen, I mean, I have you, and that makes me lucky right there."

We look at the Basin for a long time. The sun is slipping in the sky, and the air is chilling hard. He's got both arms wrapped around me, and I slip my mittened hands over his arms. He's keeping the wind off me, so I'm not so cold as when I was walking.

"Love you," he says, very softly, kissing my hair. "Always you."

God, I love him so much.

And I'm so scared, and confused, and worried...

"So whaddya say, Ally girl?"

"Let's do it, babe."

He picks me up off the ground and hugs me hard.

I feel like laughing and crying in the same breath.

And I haven't even started taking hormones.

I guess this is normal-it is, after all, Valentine's Day.

END OF PART 71