One morning, I got up, determined to ease back into the SimTube game. I wasn’t quite ready to make another video, so I opted to read and respond to comments, mostly apologizing for my absence. Scrolling and reading through them, I began to understand why my one video performed so well. The comments were predominantly from thirsty girls shooting their shots. It was kinda weird knowing women drooling over me fueled my success, but it got me paid, so… Sophia would have a field day with that one.
I heard her march downstairs, enter the bathroom, and turn on the tub. Minutes later, the toilet flushed. Then, the crying started. Though I loved and admired her tenacity, I couldn’t take much more of her heartbreak. The treatments should have worked already. Was the doctor wrong? It felt like we were dealing with infertility, not low fertility. Suddenly, a heaviness accompanied by a random yet à propos thought fell on me. What if she wasn’t the only one with a problem? What if I was the reason she hadn’t gotten pregnant yet? As chilling as that thought was, it gave me a weird sense of hope. If I had a problem, maybe a doctor could fix it. I got up immediately and left the house as quietly as I could because I didn’t want to Sophia hear me leaving while she was in there bawling her eyes out. I went to the hospital to get my fertility checked, and it turned out I too had low fertility. Of course I did. Nothing in my life was ever easy. The doctor gave me the same schpiel: try the treatments blah blah blah…artificial insemination yada yada yada…adoption and surrogacy womp womp womp. We were painfully aware of our options, but of course he didn’t know that. I hadn’t given up hope that we could birth our own child, but I knew Sophia wouldn’t want us spending more time and money on those treatments, especially since we both needed them now. I told the doctor we would probably want to do IVF and asked if I could go ahead and leave a sample, and he said yes.
When I got home, Sophia was entertaining Chris Michaelson. We lived next door to them now, and he came to welcome us.
“Luca! Where’d you go?” she asked.
“Uhhh…I’ll tell you later.”
Seeing him under these circumstances reminded me Celeste had mentioned their children were adopted. I chatted and caught up with him for a bit, but when Sophia was out of earshot, I got down to business and asked him about his experience with adopting children. I hadn’t realized Celeste was a trans woman, so they had always planned to adopt. Though their experience differed greatly from ours, I still enjoyed hearing about his life and the joy his children brought him. Time had flown by crazy fast, though. When I first met them, Orion, their daughter, was just a baby. Now she was in high school! And their son, Atlas, was married. I still felt as young as I was back then, but my birthday came barreling around the corner right behind Sophia’s. Mama used to look at Less and I and jokingly ask us to stop growing. I totally understood what she meant now.
Speaking of Less, she texted me, inviting us to bar hop with her and some friends. First of all, since when did she have friends? Secondly, weren’t we too old to be bar hopping like university students? Third, I didn’t feel like being social. I had some potentially devastating news to share with my wife, and who knew if she would be up for it. Unfortunately for me, Sophia was nearby when my notification chime went off, and I made the mistake of groaning after reading the message. Naturally, she asked what was wrong, and I told her of the invite. She was in a good mood at the time and insisted I accept.
“Maybe that guy she was swooning about will be there,” she said.
I did want to meet that schmuck and see what kind of spell he put on my sister. I also didn’t want to ruin Sophia’s good mood with my news, so I replied and told Less we’d be there. The tears could wait until tomorrow.
