Discovery

Discovery



The way the receptionist in Dr. Sontig’s office smacked her gum made Caitlin’s nerves raw, but nothing was going to dampen her optimistic mood. Caitlin was sure that today would be the day when Dr. Sontig would welcome her into his office wearing a hearty smile, and say “Congratulations.” She had been following his instructions for eight months, and besides, she had brought her lucky fertility doll with her today. Caitlin signed in and chose a seat away from the other waiting patients. She enjoyed watching them, learning what it was to be pregnant from their actions and conversations. She noticed that they all had magazines with titles like “American Baby”, “New Parent”, and “Expectant Mother” propped up on their expanding bellies. She was envious of them and their swollen ankles, their silly maternity clothes, and the way they compared baby names, shared their sonogram pictures, and debated which brand of diapers were the best. Caitlin yearned to be just like them. She wished that her husband had come with her today. Doug normally accompanied her to her appointments, but decided two months ago that he had endured enough, and stopped coming with her. So Caitlin sat alone, in the quiet waiting room with its lavender colored walls, which gave the room its only splash of color, and was impatient as she waited for her name to be called.
Nurse Jensen appeared at the door and called out Caitlin’s name. Caitlin rose from her seat and strode across the room, noticing how happy and upbeat the other patients seemed to be, and left them with a warm smile as she rounded the corner. Nurse Jensen led Caitlin down a long, narrow hallway, past yet other waiting patients, right into Dr. Sontig’s personal office. Caitlin wondered why she had been brought here instead of being taken to an exam room. Sitting down in the big, brown, oversized leather chair, she assumed this must be a place the doctor reserved for delivering good news. After all, she had never been in his office before. She rubbed the fertility doll, which rested in her handbag, and scanned the walls, adorned with numerous degrees and awards. Dr. Sontig entered the room, expressionless. He stood over Caitlin, patting her on the shoulder. By the look on his face, Caitlin knew what he was going to say, even before he said it, and even though she didn’t want to hear it.
“I’m sorry”, he said.
Those biting words sent tiny daggers right into the heart of Caitlin’s soul. She jerked up her handbag and stomped out of the room. She stormed past the other patients seated in the hall, oblivious to the receptionist calling her name, insisting that she pay her bill. Caitlin flung the door open, the one that led to the front waiting room, with such force that it slammed into the little beige table, sending magazines spilling to the floor. She felt her face and neck becoming red hot. She just wanted to escape this dreadful place, and everything it stood for. Through the door, on her way to the parking lot, she passed a black haired woman with gold dangling earrings, bright red lipstick, and a protruding belly covered by a shirt that read “Baby on Board.” Caitlin instantly hated this woman. How could she possibly have something that I don’t, Caitlin wondered. Caitlin made it to her car just as thunder began to roll in the sky. Even though she knew all the shortcuts from the doctor’s office to her house, Caitlin decided against taking any of them. She was in no great rush to tell Doug that she had failed again. She turned the radio up to an earth shattering volume, and weaved her car in and out of traffic like a mad woman. Caitlin was normally a calm, law-abiding driver, but not today. Who cares anyway, she thought.
Caitlin made it home. She stood on the porch and fumbled to get the key into the door. She felt disorientated, and could not remember driving herself here. She knew with certainty that she had, but could not recall doing so. She made her way inside, and realized that her normally tidy home was in shambles. Dirty dishes overflowed from the sink onto the cabinet, days old laundry littered the floor, an inch of dust had grown atop the ceiling fan blades, and Caitlin didn’t give a damn. Let Doug clean it up, she thought, I have been through enough. Just as the contempt for her husband was growing he entered the room.
“The doctors office called, some lady named Monica said that you didn’t pay your bill before you left today,” Doug said. “I didn’t pay the bill because he didn’t perform a service, not any useful service anyway,” Caitlin replied.
She was beyond pissed now. Why must he nag at me, she thought. He knew enough to know that now was not the time for any kind of meaningful conversation. Caitlin’s brow was set low, and the miniscule vein on her forehead had turned a bright blue. She could feel it throbbing. Doug rolled his eyes, grabbed his cigarettes and his “Off Road” magazine, and retreated to the back porch. Caitlin heard the thunder as he opened the door to go outside, and wished it would start raining and never stop. She found that sleep came easier when it was raining, and that is all she had the energy to do.
Caitlin made her way back to the kitchen for a glass of water, turned on the answering machine, and headed for the bedroom. There on the nightstand were those damned thermometers. She had been taking her temperature every single morning for the last eight months.
“What a joke”, she said to no one in particular.
She picked up the thermometers and hurled them against the wall. She kicked off her shoes and climbed into bed. She lay there tossing and turning for what seemed like forever, but sleep eluded her. Her mind was racing, searching for answers. Why has my own biology failed me, she wondered.
“Whose fault is all of this?” she ranted out loud.
She could no longer lie in bed. She had to find something, someone, anything to blame for the way that everything had turned out so shitty. She jumped out of bed and nearly ran to the back porch, only to find that Doug was gone. He never hung around very long after she returned from the doctors office, knowing that if he was there, he would surely come under attack. She scanned the land that lay beyond their back fence, and noticed how ugly the lake appeared with the huge raindrops pelting into it. Her eyes came back to the porch. She realized Doug had turned it into his own private apartment. There were a couch, TV, wet bar, and enough magazines and crossword puzzles to keep him busy for a year. He had taken to sleeping out here a few months ago, and Caitlin resigned herself to the fact that the only time she would find her husband in their bed was when her temperature was up, and only after she summoned him there. Tears began to well in her eyes as she wondered what had become of their life together.
She had promised herself that there would be no more tears. But she felt so alone, and had grown weary of all the injections, the hormone pills, and the weekly blood tests. Why couldn’t this just be his fault, she thought. But she knew it wasn’t. Many months ago, Doug had visited his urologist and had his sperm tested. For three weeks afterward, he kept bragging to his buddies about how he was “Mr. Super Sperm!” He had really made an ass of himself. Caitlin was infuriated by the fact that Doug seemed more concerned about his sperm count, instead of the lack of her fertility. A jolt of lightning brought Caitlin back to the moment, and she slammed the door and went back inside. She wanted to feel better. She was a Libra and needed to have harmony and order, she craved it. She set about cleaning the house at a furious pace.
She had finished washing and drying the dishes. She opened the cabinet to put them away, and there they were. The myriad of pill bottles that had greeted her every morning for the last eight months. She took every bottle, nine of them in all, and poured their contents into the garbage disposal. She turned on the faucet, hit the switch for the disposal, and listened, as her hope was grinded into nothingness, flushed out into the sewer somewhere. Caitlin was on a mission now. She hurried down the hall towards the bedroom, leaving the hat rack overturned in her wake. She ran past her bed towards the bathroom, and standing on the linoleum floor, realized that her feet felt wet. She looked down, there was blood. She plopped down on the commode lid for a better examination. The thermometers, she thought. She had completely forgotten about their earlier destruction, and scolded herself for being so absent minded. She wiped the bottom of her feet with a cool rag, and haphazardly attached six tiny band-aids. She began systematically cleaning the bathroom, scrubbing every nook and cranny with an old toothbrush. She turned her attention to the cabinet under the sink. Everything was pretty much in place, and then she saw them. The boxes of pregnancy tests, the little sticks she had thrust into her urine stream every morning. She gathered them up and deposited them into the trashcan. Satisfied with the tidiness of the bathroom, her attention turned towards the bedroom. She hung up clothes, vacuumed up the broken thermometers, rid the furniture of dust, and put clean sheets on the bed. She stood in amazement at the organization of everything, wondering how it had become such a mess in the first place.
She picked up her handbag from the nightstand, and the fertility doll stared out at her. The brown, hand carved African fertility doll that had stood prominently on her nightstand for the last three months. She fished it out slowly, and picked it up with care. She had purchased it at a small shop the last time she had went to the coast, on a shopping trip with her best friend, Liz. She had purchased it since all conventional methods had been failing her. The clerk told her that a tribal member had made it by hand, in a little village in Africa. After getting the doll home, Caitlin had done some research on the internet and learned that when the tribesmen made these dolls, they blessed them with the power of fertility, and that anyone possessing one would be fertile. She felt stupid now, knowing that the clerk had cared only about separating her from her $49.95, and not so much about her predicament. Still, Caitlin had put more hope into this doll then she had any of the pills or injections. The doll stood for nothing now, except Caitlin’s lack of being a whole woman. She turned off the light and carried the doll with her, making her way to the back porch.
It was raining hard. The sky was black, illuminated only by frequent outbursts of lightning. She left the safety of the back porch and stepped into her back yard. She walked at a turtles pace towards the lake. Feeling both the wet earth making its way up between her toes, and the sheet of rain tearing at her face, Caitlin began to walk faster. She reached the edge of the lake and just stood there, replaying the last eight months in her mind, like a video set on fast forward. She let out a blood-curdling scream, and heaved the fertility doll into the lake.
As she turned to make her way back to the house, a calmness came over her. Her brow unfurled, the tenseness left her shoulders, and she knew that something important had just happened. She stripped off her wet clothes and left them on the back porch. The hot shower was long overdue. Caitlin stayed in there until the water ran cold, forcing her to get out. She got dressed, did her hair, and put on her favorite red lipstick, the same color the pregnant woman had been wearing at the doctors’ office, only Caitlin didn’t think about that. Just as Caitlin checked the clock for the time, Doug appeared in the doorway.
“Wow”, he said. “What happened to you? I mean, you look great, are you okay?” Doug said. “I’m absolutely wonderful, and I’m taking myself to dinner,” Caitlin replied.
She walked right past Doug, whose jaw was on the floor, mouth gaping wide. She drove to the restaurant, and found her lost sense of self-worth along the way. During dinner, she realized that Doug had never even wanted a baby, and had never really been supportive of anything that was important to her. She knew what she had to do.
She arrived back home, entered the house, and saw Doug, sitting on the couch in the dark.
“Listen Doug, I have some things to say to you,” Caitlin announced.
“Honey, I am…” Doug began. “Don’t you dare call me honey,” Caitlin shouted. “You don’t even use that word as a term of endearment, you use it to get your way, and to get what you want!” Caitlin continued, “What you want is to stay here in my house, work your part-time job, and not contribute anything to our marriage.”
“But I…” Doug started.
“I’m going to stay at Liz’s for the weekend, and I want your stuff moved out, and you gone by the time I get back on Monday.” Caitlin said. “I was so wrong to think that having a baby could fix what was wrong with us,” Caitlin stated with assurance.
She threw a few things into her overnight bag, and left Doug standing at the door, hand

on his hip. Caitlin realized the last year had been a farce. She refused to feel sorry for

herself, and instead, looked forward to getting back the wonderful life she had before she

had succumbed to Doug’s smooth talking ways. She felt a sense of peace, and said a

silent thank you to the baby that never was.