"For Leah, we eventually figured out...
"...this meant a regimen of hormone boosters to facilitate egg production. Are you aware of what happens to people when their hormones go out of the norm? They are not happy. Unless they are happy, in which case, they are very happy. There is no mild. There is no average day. Her job was to feel like her brain and soul were on fire.
"My job was to try and not say anything dumb, because she also needed to be calm. I tried to avoid triggering phrases like 'Hey,' or 'Good morning,' or 'I love you,' but I kept ****ing up, and opening my mouth, or allowing Leah to see TV programs, or commercials, to read books, and interact with the world in any way.
"The best was when someone would ask her when we were going to have kids. That was just the best.
"Then, after one or two ultrasounds to make sure eggs were there, and in their right places on their little follicles, I would give my needle-phobic wife a shot in her thigh to set ovulation in process. She says she’s not so much afraid of needles as she is afraid of being stuck by me with a needle, but same difference, right?
"Over time, I developed a method where she would look away...
"...close her eyes and cry, while crushing all the bones in my left hand, and I would count to three, and inject her with my right. I wouldn’t inject her on three. I tried to pick a random time. She usually didn’t even feel it.
"After all that romance, you would think that abstaining from sex for a few days would be hard, but you would be wrong. You might also think we should be having massive amounts of sex, but it turns out that you have to let your seminal stash build up for a few days before collection.
"Over the last couple years, I became pretty professional about my sperm deposits. My first one was a few paragraphs up, for testing. Man, is it ever weird. You can do it at home if you want, but then you are under a clock to get your sample to the lab on time. I don’t need that kind of stress.
"I don’t talk about it much, but I like to think I’m pretty good at taking care of business in the art of sperm production, but I had never entered a room designed specifically for masturbation, while people waited outside, hoping my masturbation went okay. Perhaps that is what Eddie Murphy’s life was like in Coming to America, but I was less familiar with it.
"The room was like a combination of a hotel room and an office.
"It had a big picture of The Ohio State University football stadium, filled with fans, on the wall over a small vinyl sofa. There was a neatly folded sheet, fresh and crisp, hanging on the far armrest. A clock radio on the side table, tuned to local political talk radio, sputtering away beneath a low-lit lamp, was paired with a little wooden cube that had one tiny drawer, specifically made for storing your collection cup.
"Under the table were four or five magazines that I didn’t really want to touch. Usually two Playboys, a Penthouse, and a Swimsuit Issue. Across from the couch was a TV/DVD combo with a DVD preloaded. I didn’t want to touch the remote either, really. It sat on a wicker chest.
"Wicker struck me as the worst possible material for a room designed for male masturbation. Everybody’s aiming for the cup, I know, but I also know there have been enough accidents in that office that it required a laminated sign about what to do in case of an accident.
"The first step, in case of an accident, is to not try to hide it by scraping your mess into the cup. Big no-no. This makes your sample corrupt, which may mean that your partner could end up being impregnated by carpet fibers if I understand correctly, but it is also unsanitary.
"The second step is to tell the front desk staff that you had an accident, which seems horrific.
"The people who work at the lab are people who, by my calculations, deal with upwards of 80 men per day who have just masturbated, or are about to, and their sperm. Sure. They are professional.
"But, still, everyone is a little bit tittery, a little bit anxious. We all know that this is all very silly, and that I just touched my penis, and you are someone’s grandmother, and that even though you have a pin in the shape of a little sperm fella to help break the tension, we all – if we really had the choice – would probably prefer to burst into flames than discuss any part of this, let alone the fact that someone missed. Whoops!
"The DVD would change over time, but still be of the same variety. Usually some kind of early 90s Eurotrash boat fantasies, or oily faux-lesbian scissorhands scenes, starring fingernails that made me very nervous. I would check every time I went in, and it was always awful. Everybody’s got their thing, I guess. My thing is that I am thankful for the Internet."
*Episode 3 coming up......
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