Instant Mom (5 page)

During this entire time in Los Angeles and even during the filming of the movie, I was in the process of trying to have a baby. I’ll spare you the gory details, but the miscarriages affected me deeply. I had never failed at anything before. I had moved to the States, gotten my green card and dual citizenship, written a movie, and played the lead role. How could I do all this but not make a baby?

This thought keeps repeating itself right now, as I white-knuckle grip my steering wheel. The rainstorm pounds and howls against my windshield. I dead-eye stare out and think about the stubbornness and determination that led me to getting the film made. It’s the same tenacity that will ultimately not let me turn back now. I will keep driving through this frightening rainstorm and I will go to that fertility clinic again.

I guess I’m trying to explain the personality glitch that would make me put myself through these IVF treatments.

Thirteen times.

• 3 •

When?

More than a year
later, I’m lying in a murkily lit room of artificial tranquillity, getting a headache from a cloying waterfall. Or maybe it’s a mix-tape of fake waterfall sounds. Oh, here comes the Hindu chanting, which makes me think of passive-aggressive yoga people who bow “namaste” to the instructor then push past the rest of us out the door.

The ersatz waterfall’s cacophony is drumming into the bone of my forehead. I’m supposed to feel soothed and lulled into relaxation, but it’s hard to do anything but stare at the voodoo acupuncture needles in my stomach.

In addition to the fertility doctors, I am now seeing another recommended Eastern medical genius who guarantees he can make my eggs stronger.

It’s all I do now—try to make stronger eggs. I am on IVF #9.

Oddly, I have it all in perspective. I refuse to cry. I don’t feel sorry for myself. I don’t consider my situation so tragic. I am almost ashamed that this is taking up so much time. Especially when I read the letters from nice people who tell me things such as
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
cheered them up when they lost their jobs, or they took the DVD with them when they were deployed. Or they watch it at night when they are caring for their sick parents . . . or since they lost a spouse.

I am astonished at the amount of pain people experience and how they have managed to go on. This is why I tell myself to buck up and be grateful I have the time and finances to do these treatments.

So I rest. I take vitamins. I drink daily jugs of toxic mud juice masquerading as “health tea.” I try to avoid tension. But it’s difficult to remain calm during this process that is not working, plus completely ignore anything to do with my career.

Every door in Hollywood has flung open. Opportunities for a sequel rush at me. I had signed a deal for a TV show before the movie was released, but now it feels as if I could cash in on the “Big Fat” franchise forever, with cookbooks to ethnic dance DVDs. I don’t want to.

I can’t work anyway. I just turned down a modeling piece for
Vogue
magazine because I am hiding the bruises the three-times-daily needles have left on my stomach and thighs.
Vogue
. Me. Me in
Vogue
. And I had to say no.

I just declined yet another acting job because it would require I be out of the country. I cannot be away from the clinic and the daily lab work and the monthly surgeries where they repeatedly remove my eggs, fertilize them, and implant the embryos to create a baby. I feel powerless. The doctors explain it’s the drugs. I’ll bet it’s the glaring fact that this is not working.

IVF #9. How did I get here? I wonder if this will be my last. I wonder if this time will create a baby. I wonder how many treatments I will do.

The Eastern medicine doctor comes in, removes the needles, pats me on the back, and tells me to avoid stress.

I walk out of the clinic and find a parking ticket on my car.

A few days later, I have the surgery to remove the eggs. Then days later, as the fertilized embryos are being implanted into the surrogate, I look at her beautiful, kind face and sob with appreciation. I am very hopeful this one will work. Today after I leave the clinic, I buy green and yellow baby blankets. I bring them home, bury my face in them, and pray for an embryo to implant. I hide the blankets in my closet and wait.

Weeks later, I find out the embryos didn’t “take.” No pregnancy. Again.

A month goes by
and I’m about to begin IVF #10. As I drive to the acupuncture clinic again I suddenly pull over. I sit here and ask myself how on earth I can start this next round and begin to do press for my second movie,
Connie and Carla
. But it’s a small-release movie without a decent ad campaign, without even a billboard, opening against the juggernaut
Kill Bill
. Even though I am bloated and queasy from the drugs, I’m “old school” and feel I have to honor my commitment to do press. Without advertising, there is no other way for people to know about the movie. I’m proud of the script because of its small message of acceptance. Plus I got to sing in it. I love musical theater so much, I may actually be a gay man.

I look out my car window now and remind myself about all the good things that happened . . . from getting to host
SNL
to meeting people I admire, like Ellen DeGeneres, Nora Ephron, Katie Couric, Anne Bancroft, Callie Khouri, Elton John, Quentin Tarantino, and Steven Spielberg. Publicly, I’ve continued to fake it, plastering on a smile and pretending everything is fine. It’s not. I feel sick and I have to start the press tour now, which means being on TV talk shows again. I don’t feel well, I don’t fit in clothes. I have to start the next IVF treatment now because it’s timed to my cycle.

I’ve been under pressure before. As I’ve described, when I was in the cast at Second City, there was tension and conflict, and actors were fired if their material wasn’t up to par. But I flaunted a carefree insouciance that got me through it. I handled it. What’s the alternative?

My attitude might be the grace my mom taught me to carry myself with; it might be that I’m so immature I never face reality. But I can’t deny this situation; this is very real.

I tell myself, I just have to get through this next round plus do press. There is no other choice. I assure myself in time this fertility stuff will be behind me.

A few minutes later, I walk into the acupuncture clinic and the first thing I hear is purgatory’s bogus waterfall. I’m sitting in the lobby sipping tepid cucumber water when I spy the culprit—a wall-mounted tape deck.

I ponder if one of the lit incense sticks on this side table could ignite that tape deck.

A grown-up would never pick one up and try it.

But I do.

No one is looking, I fling a stick of lit incense up. It lands on the tape deck and I wait for it to catch fire and explode, thus terminating fake waterfalls forever.

The incense stick rolls off the tape deck, lands on my shoulder, and burns a pinhole in my shirt.

During the fertility treatments
, I get the press interviews done. One hour before the premiere of
Connie and Carla,
I find out IVF #10 didn’t work either. No pregnancy. I’m now standing on the red carpet, waving and smiling, with a concave dark hole in my chest. Someone—I think it’s the
Entertainment Tonight
reporter—now asks on camera, “Any baby news?” I wish I could just walk away, then run as fast as I can. I don’t want to be me anymore.

To further promote the film, I’m booked to be on
The Oprah Winfrey Show
again and have to fly from Los Angeles to Chicago with needles and medicine in my purse because I am preparing for IVF #11. I am standing at the X-ray machine, humiliated as I whisper, trying to explain my drug vials to Airport Security. Two of them are holding up my bag of needles and every traveler in line can see. My face feels hot. Finally, one security man takes pity on me and lets me pass. But not before telling me what an inspiration I am for writing my own movie but also that I’ve lost too much weight and look tired now. I smile wanly and board the plane, wishing so much I could be in bed.

Being on
Oprah
this time is vastly different from the first time I was on, with my real family, to celebrate
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
. That visit was buoyant and fun. This time, it feels as if the interview is all happening with an echo. I am so pumped up with fertility drugs, I can’t think clearly. I try to remember funny stories to tell, and don’t feel up to it. I sense that ever-omniscient Oprah Winfrey can tell I’m feeling off.

Afterward in the hallway Oprah stops, really looks at me, and asks how I am doing. I am completely aware I can’t even make eye contact with her. Infertility has taken my confidence, drained the joy from me. It seems every day, women and men are stopping me on the street, at the mall, at a coffee shop to tell me how much they love my movie and how encouraging my success story is to them. But, truly, I now feel like a failure. I can’t look at Oprah, but I murmur that all is good. She takes a moment, then lets it go. I am relieved—nobody wants to blubber all over Oprah. Pumped full of those hormones, I am always a breath away from blabbing out the whole sad story.

It’s just not working
. I am starting to get the huge hints I should stop the treatments. The anesthesiologist at the clinic had just told me his wife and he adopted an infant.

I call and confide in my best friend, Kathy Greenwood. She is still living in Toronto and is now a mom of two girls. She has been such a good friend to me through all this and listens patiently now. I tell her about the anger I am feeling that nothing has worked. I tell her I am so incredibly frustrated that I am still not a mom. Kathy thinks this over, then gently answers, “Giving birth is not what makes you a mom.”

The next week at the clinic, the fertility doctor also has a quiet talk with me. He’s been trying to suggest I stop treatments for a while now. I am resolute that I want to continue. He doesn’t think it’s sensible. I still want to go on. I ask him, “What would you do if you were me?” He sits across from me, smiles wryly, and tells me he has many adopted dogs and they’ve brought him more happiness than his children ever have.

It feels good to laugh.

I hear his message loud and clear. He thinks I should quit.

But I go back for more treatments.

• 4 •

Happy May Sucks Day

Blegh, it’s May.

We all know on a certain Sunday of this month, overpriced flower arrangements will brighten homes, and restaurants will serve multi-calorie brunches. Reminders will be whispered, “Hey, be nice to your mom for a minute.”

During the fertility treatments, besides abysmally gushy baby showers, Mother’s Day is pretty much the worst day of the year for me. I avoid looking at Mother’s Day TV commercials. Just the drugstore greeting card rack makes me pale. I loathe May.

In the spring, there are many social gatherings in Los Angeles, like this casual and large backyard home barbecue I’m at today. I shouldn’t be here. The fertility drugs make me dizzy and very sensitive.

I am feeling particularly apprehensive because what happens next happens too often: with Mother’s Day in the air, a mom blithely asks why Ian and I don’t have children. This makes my throat close. Because yep, before I can answer, here it comes—other moms overhear and jump in, exclaiming what a great father my husband would be, so why on earth don’t we have kids? When I give a tight-lipped answer, “We’re trying,” they don’t go mercifully silent. Oh no.

Their intention is to help—I know they want to and I value their kindness—but I don’t want to get advice in this public setting. I think of the considerate friend who had learned of my situation last week and quietly pressed a prayer card into my hand. That I appreciated. But this open forum is not comfortable.

I feel my customary and dreaded upper-lip sweat beads from the attention. All I’d wanted was a snack and I’d dared to venture away from Ian to this food area. Now, crudité in hand, I am backed up against the appetizers table by chipper moms hip-bouncing their perfect, pudgy babies. These women are me, they’re most of us. They’re nice women offering information. So, I try to nod politely and accept the benevolence of these fine women’s well-meaning stories of a sister who did egg donation, or a friend who found a baby in a Sears fitting room.

I hear a strident and shrill: “You should . . .” and my shoulders go up around my ears. I turn to see: sure enough, it’s a beautiful woman who does not know when to stop talking. I love beautiful women and wish I was one. But some beautiful women’s need to be heard overtakes many a social gathering as they fill the air with loud “You should” advice. There are lots of beautiful women who do not act like this. Most don’t. No, only certain beautiful women have this affliction. It’s called Beautiful Woman Syndrome. These BWS women, from the time they were young until recently, were the most beautiful woman in the room, so men listened to them. They somehow confused this result with being interesting. But now their men no longer listen to them. And they’re still talking. At me.

This woman’s finger-pointing “you should” advice now comes my way. I hate the phrase “you should.” As in “You should have bangs.” Or “You should talk to my sister about her genius doctor in Prague.” Or “You should just adopt from China.”

I
should
speak up, but I can’t. I’m not good with confrontation. I get tongue-tied or worry I’ll hurt people’s feelings. I wish I was more mature and could articulate that this is a private matter. But I’m more likely to make a joke than instigate a moment of gravity that might suddenly whirl up into an awkward social tornado. So, I don’t say anything. I just want to throw dip in the air and run.

Conversely, I don’t blame them—before I was in this situation, I said dumb, dumb things to women about their baby plans. We all have. And I know all these nice women, including the one with BWS, truly want to help. Just as I get away from them, I hear a hissing sound and look up.

Oh, crap.

The group of unhappy women is looking at me. You know them. This is a worldwide club of not-nice-women who spew nastiness at other females. Membership requirements are merely a bitterness over the dissatisfaction with one’s own achievements and the ability to curl a lip into an impressive sneer. I try to escape across the lawn but am encircled by . . . The Coven.

Since the days of my theater school teacher wanting to stab me for being a fat but happy girl, I have accepted there are some fractious people who just wish I’d explode. Plus, the good luck of my first movie has made me an easy target for the disenchanted. Guileless me wants to get out some pom-poms and shout:
But don’t you see, when a geek like me finds success, this means the impossible is possible for us all?
But no, they don’t see.

These members of the Coven now standing around me had, on previous occasions through skeletal taut smiles, already made it clear that they were perplexed by the fact that I, far less attractive and talented than they, was a working actress. I can’t imagine what they want from me today. They look smug. Ah yes, they’ve overheard I am struggling to have a child, while these women are on their second and third—and they realize they have something over me. They can breed and I can’t.

In the bright sun of this backyard, the Coven squeals at me about how “amaaaaazing” their pregnancies had been. Oh, her husband had looked at her with “awe” as she gave birth. Ohhhhh, breastfeeding is a “gift.” I look into the eyes of one woman who had once taken a deep shot at me: upon hearing about my acupuncture fertility treatments, she’d snidely proclaimed she’d never had to do that because she was “perfect” and my body was “defective.”

I am confused as to why they need to feel superior to me, and, yes, it hurts. Sure, I could ingenuously ask: “Did pregnancy hormones grow your monobrow or did you have it before?” But I don’t. Not because I am so emotionally evolved and take the high road . . . no, no, I am scared of them.

Women like this are missing out on real female friendships. Sure, to some it seems as if it’s just shoe shopping and cellulite talk, but we know what it really is and we value it. It’s at times like this that I miss my sisters, sister-in-law, and cousins. My mom and aunts never pitted us against one another. I am extremely close with my funny cousin Nike (pronounced Nikki and the basis for the exaggerated version of a fun South Side Chicago broad played so well by Gia Carides in my first movie). I’m also still very close with my girlfriends from elementary school through my musical theater days, Second City, and my film career. I enjoy writing many funny female characters in ensemble films and TV shows. So I don’t understand women of the Coven, and I am speechless at their need to put me down now when I am at my most vulnerable.

They finish their attack and leave me here, blinking back tears. As I watch these women cross the yard, I don’t resent them for getting to be moms. Of course, because I’m not a saint, I wish they’d get hit by a random meteor or fall into a sinkhole. I watch and wait. No hot bolt of the Rapture takes any of them out. Damn.

I signal to Ian across the backyard. I feel terrible and want to leave. It’s hot and my clothes don’t fit. The sick irony of fertility drugs is they usually cause a bloating that resembles pregnancy, and I often get asked if I am pregnant. Even now, as I wait for Ian to disengage himself so we can go, I reach for an iced tea and because it’s non-alcoholic, on cue a passing woman pats my tummy and says, “When are you due?” A small social guideline: don’t ask a woman if she is pregnant unless her water breaks on your flip-flops, a baby arm dangles out of her vagina, and she asks you to cut the cord. Then and only then may you ask if she is having a baby. Otherwise, shut up.

I turn to the nice group, the well-meaning women who are waving good-bye to me. Taking a deep breath, I say, “Um, before I was in this situation, I too said things to women about their baby plans. Please don’t. Instead, have some compassion, especially around Mother’s Day. If you see someone without kids, don’t ask them why they don’t have children, why they don’t just adopt, or if they are pregnant. Please just be quiet and pass the dip.”

No, I don’t. I just smile and wave good-bye.