A Short Walk Home (6 page)

And there were matters to consider beyond the risk of passing on my disease; questions that every would-be parent is forced to confront. Jaymee was a great mother to Logan—sometimes, a little
too
great. It was only after we were married that she came to realize that kids need boundaries and discipline to grow up properly.
This does not mean you should beat your children, or treat them in any way other way than with love and tenderness; it simply means that once in a while, Logan needed to understand the difference between right and wrong. And having a child of my own meant even more responsibility. But it also meant that, whoever he turned out to be, I would love him without condition. This had a certain appeal; I had never loved anyone that way, ever.

Don’t get me wrong, I
love
my wife; I love her more than anything. But romantic love inevitably carries conditions. I love Jayme
because
of who she is. And I suppose that, were she to be suddenly disfigured, or if she started acting differently, I would still love her. A child is different in my estimation. He or she is the ultimate extension of you. I could love my child
in spite
of who they were. And at the end of the day, I do not feel that it gets any more powerful than that.

I did my very best to offer support to Jaymee at every turn. But women with additional hormones not being my forte, some days were, needless to say, a little strained.

We began the injections in the most unlikely of locations: my parents’ house. It was June 2007, and I had been invited to my 20th high school reunion. Logan spent the night with Jaymee’s aunt and sister, while we flew to New Orleans. The plan was to leave the day after the reunion to join up with them in California, where Jaymee’s aunt had rented a house on the beach. Per the doctor’s orders, on the night of the reunion I took a rather large needle, inserted it into my wife’s abdomen, and began the complicated process of making our baby.

This became our routine; every night was the same. Once I got home, I would lie down on the couch in our living room,
until Jaymee would approach me with the syringe in hand, which I would then shoot into her tummy. The funny thing was, it never bothered me to do this. Every night at the same time, there we were, dosing my wife with what could be the potential for new life.

After many weeks of medication, it was time to visit the doctor so that they could harvest eggs from Jaymee. It was a simple procedure that yielded 18 eggs, about seven more than most women usually produce.

My contribution to the process was a bit less straightforward. There was a complication, though not entirely unexpected. Years earlier, I had undergone a vasectomy. It was not my most rational decision, but it was important to me not to produce a child with my disorder. Granted, I was not one to have random sexual encounters—and I never thought I would get married—so more than anything, I did it more for my own peace of mind.

To make a long story short, I had to have a surgical procedure performed to extract semen directly from the source. Yep, you guessed it—right where it counts. Jaymee teased me about it, but I was undaunted; I was ready to do whatever I needed to in order to contribute to the process.

After my small part was complete, the physicians fertilized the eggs. This is where things get interesting. Three days after fertilization, a doctor flew from Detroit, where the genetic profiling would take place, down to Tulsa, where we were living at the time. He extracted a single cell from each fertilized egg, or blastocyst, each of which was sitting in the petri dish. Upon making the extraction, he flew
back
to Detroit, where he began to work medical magic. The doctor and his colleagues spent the next 18
hours in a lab, analyzing the genetic material he’d retrieved from Jaymee’s fertilized eggs. And I do mean 18
consecutive
hours, a statistic that continues to amaze me. After they had completed their work, a report was produced and sent to our doctor in Tulsa. At the end of this process, which all told took barely 24 hours, we knew exactly which eggs were and were not affected with ALD.

A week or so later, while Logan was away in Ohio visiting relatives, Jaymee and I went to the doctor’s office. Our scheduled appointment time was a Sunday morning, which I took to be a good sign. I consider myself to be someone with an abiding faith, and I saw a real significance in that; rather than going to church, we were going to create a life.

Be that as it may, I was still somewhat nervous. Although Jaymee had been confirmed as having no fertility issues, there were no guarantees that our efforts would yield results. This in turn made us both a bit skittish, though on the outside Jaymee remained her normal, stoic self.

All of this contributed to a feeling of being overwhelmed when we sat down in the doctor’s office. A feeling not helped at all by a last-minute change in physician. Our doctor was out of town, and so her partner would be seeing to our son’s implantation. But he soon put me at ease; once I’d sat down, he slid a picture across his desk toward me. I looked down; it was a picture of what looked like a cell.

“That’s your son.” The doctor said these words as though they came out of his mouth every day.

“My … what?” I was stunned.

“This is a blastocyst, which will hatch into an embryo in about 20 minutes.” His voice was calm, as he continued to flip through the materials on his desk. Clearly, our new doctor was something of a showman.

“When will it be inside of Jaymee?” I asked anxiously. The doctor’s words had left me feeling like we needed to get the show on the road.

“Well, if she will get up and follow me, it will be inside of her in 18 minutes.”

I gently kissed her and wished her well, as she went off to try and have a baby. Just like that.

The doctor informed us that we had four blastocysts available for transplant. Of the four, two were affected by ALD, and two were not. We were obviously implanting the two without ALD.

As I sat in the waiting room, I could not help but think about paying two college tuitions at the same time. After all, it was completely possible that both blastocysts would implant successfully, and I would find myself the father of twins. Twice the diapers, twice the food—twice the
everything
. While it was by no means certain, the prospect now existed. I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t contemplate every option.

The following week, Jaymee and I did our best to distract ourselves. In five days, Jaymee would have a blood test done to determine whether things took. We were both nervous, not the least because of our high expectations. After all, shelling out tens of thousands of dollars with no guarantee of success is not an easy task. I wanted to know immediately, which was of course impossible. I had to be patient. Needing to be patient was becoming a theme in my life.

Friday morning finally arrived. Jaymee left early to go to the doctor for her blood work, while I sat at home, trying to keep still. Finally, about an hour after she left, I got the call.

She was not pregnant. I felt the life drain out of me; I had
been so certain that we’d be successful. So certain that, in my mind, it was already a done deal; I was ready to start picking out names. Learning that we were
not
successful upset me, to say the least.

There was, at least, a small silver lining to Jaymee’s news. It was still
possible
that she was pregnant; it might just not be showing up in a blood test. Never one to linger, my mood turned for the better; there was still hope.

As soon as we hung up, I began to move. We needed to get away; we needed to go somewhere we had never been, have a nice dinner, and come home on Sunday rested, relaxed, and optimistic. I made the necessary reservations, and as we headed out to who-cared-where, we agreed on one thing: we would not discuss babies.

This agreement didn’t last long.

“Baby, I know that you’re pregnant.” I was the first one to break the silence, as usual. I said that being patient had become a constant in my life; I never said I was getting better at it. But I knew for a fact that she was with child; I could
feel
it.

Jaymee giggled. “That didn’t take long.” She knows me so well.

We spent the night watching a bad movie in a decent hotel. Being away was good for us; we had both been under tremendous pressure for months. We tried to keep off the topic of children, but despite not wanting to stress each other out, it was difficult not to think about.

Monday morning arrived before we knew it. Jaymee left early to have her blood work done again. I sat in my office at home, thinking of little else. It felt like a repeat of Friday, though I prayed it might have a different, happier ending.

When the phone rang, and I saw that the caller ID read the
number of our doctor, I snatched up the phone from its cradle as fast as I could.

“Hello?” I didn’t bother trying to hide my anxiety; what would have been the point?

“David? Is Jaymee there?” the nurse asked. Of course she wasn’t; she’d left for work after finishing at the doctor’s office.

“No, she’s at the office,” I answered. I hesitated for a moment. “May I ask …” I saw no reason why I should not hear first, given this abrupt opportunity.

“Congratulations, David. You’re going to be a dad!” The nurse’s own excitement at the news was obvious; she could barely keep her voice down.

“Thank you so much!” I was thrilled, and already beginning to plot ahead. “Do me a favor,” I said. “Don’t call Jaymee. I would really like to be the one to tell her.”

“Honey?” I tried to speak in a normal voice, not wanting to give the game away too soon.

“Yes, baby, what is it?” She sounded tired, and a little harried. Jaymee’s mornings are always busy; making time to speak, if only for a moment, was always tough.

“Well, I got a call a few minutes ago,” I said, drawing the moment out. I was in the mood to tease her a little—perhaps a little bit more than I should have.

“What is it, David? Is everything all right?” While she wasn’t
quite
losing her temper, she was definitely not enjoying my dragging this out, whatever it was.

“We
are
having a baby.” My voice cracked a bit, but that’s forgivable. Tears of joy were already forming in the corner of my eyes.

“I’m … what?” She was stunned.

“A baby, baby. You’re pregnant.”

I don’t think I’ve ever heard her so happy.

Later that evening, after Jaymee got home, she and I decided it was a good idea to take a walk. It gave us an opportunity to be together, on our own, collecting our thoughts. This spur of the moment idea became a daily ritual for a number of months, until it became impractical for Jaymee. Nonetheless, Jaymee was determined that our son would be born healthy. She had already given up caffeine and sugar the day we started this whole process.

As we walked, we began discussing names. David Jr. was out of the question; after all, Jaymee reasoned (without a hint of a smile, of course) that because I was someone perceived by many as important, naming my son after me might well place a burden on him. He might feel as though he were living in my shadow. She also pointed out that one David was enough.

As we were walking, my cell phone rang. It was John Besh.

“How is Jaymee?” Clearly, he had already heard the news, and was curious.

“She’s fine,” I replied.

“And how is Junior?” he asked, with a sort of contended amusement hovering behind his words.

“His name is not Junior!”

“If his name’s not David, then what exactly is it?” This was classic John; he wasn’t letting it alone until his curiosity was satisfied.

I decided to have a little fun with him. “Well, we’ve decided to name him after the best restaurant in New Orleans,” I said casually.

“Really? I’ll bite; what’s his name?” At the time, John had three restaurants to his name: August, Besh Steak, and Luke. So the options in his favor were a bit limited.

I paused for effect, and then delivered my words in a complete deadpan: “Brennan.”

I was silent. So was he. The Brennan family is something of a New Orleans institution. Their namesake restaurant is in the French Quarter, and is the place where Bananas Foster was created.

John did not say a word. Instead, he hung up and refused to take my calls for three weeks. This was average in terms of our relationship. We had been doing our best to one-up each other since we were kids.

If Jaymee was happy, I was ecstatic. I had never quite considered parenthood as being in my future, and it was already starting to change me. I found myself being far more introspective than before, more so than I could have ever imagined. An … 
extension
of us was alive and thriving, right there inside of Jaymee. And what’s more, it truly was a
miracle
. I’m almost hesitant to use that word; it seems to be one of the more overused words in our society, alongside clichés like “think outside the box.” But there is no word that fits so well.

Because of the way that we chose to conceive our child, I had expected at least
some
criticism, or at least a diminished view from those outside my immediate circle. But in terms of my friends, I was honestly surprised.

Living in the southern United States, where there are many people who consider themselves to be “pro-life,” teaches you to be careful about certain conversation topics. And to be honest, I was a pro-lifer, too; but when I said that, I meant that in the literal
sense of the term. After all, I thought, who among the living
isn’t
pro-life? How many people do
you
know who are longing for death? I included all people, especially those affected by life threatening illness, in my “pro-life” view.

I still believe that. But now, having lived as the father of a child fighting for his life, my view has been tempered by experience. All I ask is that you not judge me until you’ve heard my story, and walked in my shoes.

But instead of criticism or condemnation, what I got was: “This is a miracle. That God has so blessed medical science that they can do this … I see it as nothing but a miracle.” This, coming from one of my extremely pro-life friends. I was amazed by his response; I had thought for sure that he would either say nothing, or criticize my choices. But he made sure I understood exactly where he stood; I appreciated his point of view, but I appreciated his open-mindedness more.