Робин Кук - Vital Signs

Marissa watched him go, lamenting the widening gulf separating them. Their ability to communicate, especially where their feelings were concerned, was reaching a new low.

“I’ll let Dr. Wingate know you’re here,” the receptionist said.

Marissa nodded. Slowly she walked back to her seat and sat down heavily. Nothing was working out. She wasn’t getting pregnant and her marriage was disintegrating before her eyes. She thought about all the business trips Robert had been taking of late. For the first time since she’d been married, Marissa wondered if he could be having an affair. Maybe that was the reason behind this sudden talk of not providing a sperm sample. Maybe he’d been giving samples out elsewhere.

“Mrs. Buchanan!” a nurse called from an open doorway, beckoning for Marissa to follow her.

Marissa got to her feet. She recognized the nurse, Mrs. Hargrave.

“Are you ready to harvest those eggs?” the woman asked brightly as she got a robe, a johnny, and slippers for Marissa. She had an English accent similar to Dr. Wingate’s. Marissa had asked her about it once. She’d been surprised to learn that Mrs. Hargrave was Australian, not English.

“An egg retrieval is just about the last thing in the world I want to do just now,” Marissa admitted with dejection. “I really don’t know why I’m putting myself through this.”

“Feeling a little depressed, are we?” Mrs. Hargrave asked as gently as she could.

Marissa didn’t answer. She merely sighed as she took the clothes from Mrs. Hargrave and started into the changing room. Mrs. Hargrave reached out and touched her shoulder.

“Anything you’d like to talk about?”

Marissa gazed up into the woman’s face. There was warmth and sympathy in those gray-green eyes.

At first Marissa could only shake her head as she fought back tears.

“It’s common for emotional problems to burden people involved with in-vitro,” Mrs. Hargrave said. “But it usually helps to talk about it. It’s been our experience that part of the problem is the isolation the couples feel.”

Marissa nodded in agreement. She and Robert had been isolated. As the pressures mounted, they started avoiding friends, especially those with children.

“Has there been a problem between you and your husband?” Mrs. Hargrave asked. “I don’t mean to pry, but we truly have found it best for people to be open.”

Marissa nodded again. She looked at Mrs. Hargrave’s understanding face. She did want to talk, and with a few tears that she wiped away with the back of her hand, she told her about Robert’s initial refusal to cooperate that morning, and their consequent quarrel. She told Mrs. Hargrave she was beginning to think they would have to stop the infertility treatments.

“It’s been pure hell for me,” Marissa admitted. “And for Robert.”

“I think it is safe to say that something would be wrong with you both if it weren’t,” Mrs. Hargrave said. “It’s stressful for everyone, even the staff. But you’ve really got to learn to be more open. Talk to other couples. That will help you learn to talk to each other and to be aware of each other’s limitations.”

“We are ready for Mrs. Buchanan,” another nurse called through the door to the ultrasound room.

Mrs. Hargrave gave Marissa a comforting squeeze on her shoulder. “You’d better get on with this,” she said. “But afterwards I’ll come back and we’ll talk some more. How about it?”

“Okay,” Marissa said, trying to muster some enthusiasm.

Fifteen minutes later, Marissa again found herself on her back in the ultrasound room, facing yet another painful and potentially risky procedure. She was lying supine with her legs straight out. In a few minutes her legs would be put up in the all-too-familiar stirrups. Then there would be the disinfectant, followed by the local anesthetic. She cringed at the thought.

The room itself seemed scary. It was a cold, forbidding, futuristic environment filled with electronic instruments, some of which Marissa recognized and some she didn’t. Multiple cathode-ray screens were set into the instrumentation. Mercifully, the foot-long egg-retrieval needle was kept out of sight.

The nurse-technician who had brought Marissa into the room was busy with preparations for the procedure. Dr. Wingate, who performed most of the clinic’s infertility procedures including the in-vitro fertilization, had not yet arrived.

A knock on the door got the attention of the nurse-technician, who stepped over and opened it. Marissa turned her head to see Robert standing in the threshold.

Although the procedure room made him feel even more uncomfortable than it made Marissa feel, he forced himself to step into the high-tech room. He pointed over his shoulder for the nurse-technician’s benefit. “Mrs. Hargrave said I could come in for a moment,” he explained.

The nurse-technician nodded, motioned toward Marissa, then went back to her preparations.

Robert gingerly walked over to the ultrasound unit and looked down at his wife. He was careful not to touch any of the delicate instrumentation, or Marissa herself, for that matter.

“Well, I did it,” he said as if he had accomplished some major task. “And now that my part’s over, I’ll be heading to the office. Unfortunately, because of the stitches, I’m later than I planned. So I’ve got to run. But I’ll come back after the meeting and pick you up. If it looks like the meeting is going to run over, I’ll call and leave word with Mrs. Hargrave. Okay?”

“Okay,” Marissa said. “Thanks for providing a sample. I appreciate it.”

Robert wondered if Marissa was being sarcastic. He couldn’t detect any irony in her tone. “You’re welcome,” he said finally. “Good luck with the egg retrieval. Hope you get a full dozen.” With a tentative pat on her shoulder, he turned and left the room.

Marissa felt tears welling up again, but she didn’t know if they were from sadness or anger. She felt so terribly alone. Lately Robert had been so businesslike, even when it came to her. She was hurt that he could leave her to face such an ordeal alone.

The Robert of today seemed so different from the man she had married so blissfully only a few years ago. In so many ways he was telling her that business came first; it was his identity and his escape. A single tear ran down into her ear. She closed her eyes tightly, hoping to block out the whole world. It seemed that her life was falling apart and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

“Excuse me, Dr. Wingate,” Mrs. Hargrave said, stopping the doctor on his way into the ultrasound room. “Could I have a brief word with you?”

“Is it important?” Dr. Wingate asked. “I’m late for Mrs. Buchanan.”

“It’s Mrs. Buchanan I want to discuss,” Mrs. Hargrave said. She held her head back. She was a tall woman herself, almost six feet. Even so, she looked slight next to Dr. Wingate’s impressive bulk.

“Is it confidential?” Dr. Wingate asked.

“Isn’t everything confidential?” Mrs. Hargrave said with a sly smile.

“True enough,” Dr. Wingate said. He briskly walked down the hallway to his office. They entered a back door directly from the corridor, bypassing his secretary. Wingate closed the door behind them.

“I’ll be brief,” Mrs. Hargrave said. “It’s come to my attention that Mrs. Buchanan... actually, I should say Dr. Buchanan. You do remember that she is a doctor, don’t you?”

“Yes, of course,” Dr. Wingate said. “Dr. Carpenter told me that two years ago. It was a surprise, I recall. Dr. Carpenter only knew through reading it in the Globe. ”

“I think the fact that she is a physician herself should be kept in mind,” Mrs. Hargrave said. “As you know, doctors can be difficult patients at times.”