"I'm sorry, but the news I have for you isn't good," the doctor said.
Mia's heart lurched in her chest. Jeff's face took on a stricken expression. They held hands tightly, steeling themselves for his next sentence.
"We've checked sample after sample, and I'm afraid that the reason you haven't gotten pregnant, Mrs. Mayer, is that your husband's sperm count is so low as to be nonexistent."
Mia's hands gripped Jeff's even tighter in reaction. "You're sure, Doctor? Isn't there anything we can do?"
"I'm sorry," the doctor repeated. "Normally, if the sperm count is just low, we can take samples and concentrate them by spinning them in a centrifuge and then introducing the result vaginally. But in this case, even the few that we've seen lacked the overall motility necessary for the long journey they'd have to undertake." He actually sighed. "It's obviously not a matter of diet, health, testicular temperatures - any of those things. All of them were taken into account. Perhaps you'll consider adoption?"
Mia was crestfallen, but tried not to fall to pieces in the doctor's office. "Thank you for the suggestion, Doctor. We'll discuss it." Jeff himself was so shocked that he couldn't find any words to say. If the doctor had looked closely, he might've noticed Jeff's hand looking white, since, in her anxiety, Mia was squeezing all the blood out of it. The young couple uttered a few more sentences, not terribly coherently, and left the medical building. By tacit agreement, they didn't speak of this new information until they reached the privacy of their home.
Once they were inside, Jeff hugged Mia closely, murmuring, "I'm so sorry, darling. So very sorry."
Mia hugged him back. She loved him so much, she wanted to ease his burden. "It's all right, love. It's not your fault. I know you never did anything to harm your body. It's just what it is." She said these words, and she meant them, but she was speaking numbly, with what felt like an icy grip on her heart. She wanted a baby so much! Adopting was an option, if they just wanted a child. But, perhaps selfishly, Mia wanted to feel a baby growing in her womb. She wanted to breastfeed her newborn, too.
Jeff was no fool. He knew that Mia had dreamed of being a mother for years, just as he wanted to be a father. They'd tried and tried. At first, they just made love sporadically and spontaneously. But when Mia didn't conceive, they got more orderly and scientific about it. They'd read that a woman's morning basal temperature reading spiked when she ovulated, so they began watching for that, and timed their loving intercourse to those optimum times. But still no pregnancy.
Finally, they'd both gone in for tests. Mia was ovulating normally, so they were thinking of trying in vitro fertilization. But for that, they'd need a healthy dose of concentrated sperm from Jeff. So the doctor had arranged for samples of his semen to be analyzed. They now had the results. It seemed that Jeff wouldn't be fathering her child. She only briefly considered divorce, but Jeff was a good man, and she loved him. The thought of having a 'fling' with someone, and maybe getting pregnant that way flitted through her mind, but she couldn't betray her husband like that. She used up boxes and boxes of tissues, crying when he wasn't around to see it.
Mia tried to hide her reactions to this crippling disappointment, not wanting Jeff to feel any worse than she knew he already did. But Jeff was aware of how much she had her heart set on having a baby. Maybe even more than one. And he felt devastated. He wanted a child to raise, as well. He would've been OK with adoption. But he also knew that it wouldn't satisfy Mia's craving for the experience of carrying a baby to term, birthing it, breastfeeding, and the sort of bonding that occurs with all that.
He pondered the dilemma for weeks. Thankfully, Mia still seemed interested in sex. He'd been worried that she might think there was no purpose in it, if she couldn't get pregnant. His love for her intensified, solidifying his determination to help her become a mother. One night after dinner, they were cuddling on the couch, and the time seemed right. He broached the subject.
"Mia, honey... I've been thinking. We could get semen from a sperm bank and use it to get you pregnant. Even though I wouldn't be the biological father, the child would still be ours. And I'd be his or her dad, in all the really important ways. I'd be thrilled with that."
Mia gave him a tender kiss. "It's nice of you to suggest that, love. It'd occurred to me, as well. I know you can even read profiles of the donor, and choose certain characteristics. But..." She paused.
"But?" he prompted.
"This may sound silly," she said after sighing. "But in the back of my mind, I'd always know the guy who fathered the child. Not his name, probably. But enough about him to make him 'real' in my mind. That certainty... well... I don't know how well I could deal with it, over the long run." She kissed him again, with more passion. "But I love that you're willing to take that route, to make me happy."
Jeff couldn't help but notice that her eyes were shining with unshed tears. His heart actually ached to see that. He sighed, regretfully.
The next day, though, when he was taking a shower, a thought popped into his mind. He carefully went over what Mia had said the night before. A plan started to swim into his consciousness. It was a bit outrageous, he had to admit to himself. And he wondered if it was even feasible. He decided to say nothing to Mia, until he explored it more.
A few weeks later, he felt he was ready to explain his potential plan. Sitting on the sofa with Mia as they sipped an after-dinner glass of wine, he began. "Sweetheart, I've thought a lot about what you said weeks ago. About the problem with choosing a sperm donor." He saw that his statement had completely captured her attention.
"Yes?" she said.
"Please hear me out, because this may sound a little weird at first," he begged.
Mia took a swallow of wine, her eyes locked with his over the rim of the glass. "OK," she said. "I guess I'm ready to hear this."
