Column 8 – Misadventures at the male fertility clinic

Originally published by reminagine.me
Photography: Sylvain Bourdos/Flickr

THE MAN IN THE WHITE lab coat leads me down a nondescript hallway to the masturbation room. This guy is straight out of central casting—bald, big-eyed and slightly reptilian. He looks like the kind of guy who might spend a lot of time ogling sperm through a microscope lens. And, in fact, that is what he does.

Yes, I’m at a fertility clinic, keeping an appointment to have my semen analyzed.

This is not something I ever thought I’d be doing when I was in my twenties and thirties. Unfortunately fertility wasn’t an issue when I wasn’t trying to have a baby. Now, that I was, I had to see if I was shooting blanks.

That’s because by the time I made my appointment with the sperm docs, Ingrid and I had been engaged for more than a year and trying to get pregnant for about that long. I was bearing down on the midcentury mark while my partner’s biological clock was ticking in double time.

When it comes to men, though, you always hear about us being fertile forever. It’s conventional wisdom that is reinforced every time someone like Rod Stewart becomes a dad in his mid-60s, or even Anthony Quinn in his 70s. And while it’s true that men don’t go through menopause, recent studies have shown that a man’s odds of impregnating a woman decline by up to seven percent each year between 41 and 45 and even more rapidly after that. Plus, with old-guy sperm it usually takes more time to conceive and the possibilities of miscarriage are higher.

Though it was romantic trying, every month that we came up empty started to weigh on us.

In our attempts to get pregnant, Ingrid and I did all the usual things—plotted cycles, took temperatures, did our best to get it down to a science, but the target remained elusive. Even when we were sure a direct hit had been made, her scarlet nemesis (and now mine) would return—sometimes heart-wrenchingly late.

Though it was romantic trying, every month that we came up empty started to weigh on us. Especially on Ingrid, who very much wanted to be a mother and was keenly aware we didn’t have the luxury of youth to fritter away. Outwardly, I tried to maintain a posture that if we just relaxed and let nature take its course, pregnancy would happen. Inwardly, I worried that karma for my youthful transgressions had caught up with me.

As we came up on a year of no results, Ingrid suggested we consult a fertility doctor. She went first and her results were unequivocal—the picture of hormonal and reproductive health.

The possibility that my junk could be, well, junky, never really occurred to me. There was nothing in my personal or family history to indicate I was packing anything other than live ammo. Besides, just look at me!
In retrospect, though, I guess I shouldn’t have been so surprised by all the healthy looking middle-aged men waiting at the clinic for their turn to jerk off into a cup.

***

The sperm technician is all business as he clinically hands me a cup with my name on it and briskly leads me to a room where I will, provided everything goes swimmingly, give him some semen to analyze. He knocks on the door and gingerly opens it to reveal a room with all the charm of a dentist’s office. A modest flat-screen TV on a countertop and a leather reclining chair await me.

The lab guy reaches into a cabinet and pulls out a pad that looks like the kind of thing you lay on the floor to potty train a pet. He places it on the seat of the recliner, gives me a quick run through of the porn channels on tap and instructs me to bring the cup back to him after I’ve made my deposit.

Doctor Love then leaves me to commune with myself in the privacy of this closet-sized room while a long lineup of men wait down the hall for their turns at bat. The TV is playing a porno featuring an intensely augmented and unnaturally blond woman going at it with a guy whose spray-on tan is a shade of Martian red. Different strokes for different folks, but my tastes run a little more Planet Earth-y.

I grab the remote to change the channel, but somehow turn the TV off. I push the power button, but only get a blank screen. I keep pushing. Nothing. Though it wouldn’t surprise my wife that I can’t figure out how to use a remote control, I’m too embarrassed to call in the clinic’s IT person to sort out the masturbatorium’s entertainment system.

Instead, I eyeball the two Playboy magazines in the rack by the door. I haven’t jerked off to a Playboy in nearly two decades. Has anybody?

One of the two issues features Jenny McCarthy—making a nude comeback at 40.

Really? That’s what I’ve got to work with? I flip through the pictorial and try to muster some lingering lust for the cheeky McCarthy of early-90s-MTV-watching adolescents’ dreams. It’s not happening. All I can see is the vaccination-denying nitwit screeching at the other screechers on The View.

I grab the other Playboy and turn to its centerfold. She looks…young. What the hell am I going to do? I mean, there’s no way I’m coming out with an empty cup. With McCarthy a non-starter, my only option is to disembody this young woman’s butt from the rest of her, because if I look at her face I’ll just want to throw her a robe and call her parents to come take her home.

Staring intently at about one-inch of butt cheek, I’m confronted with some logistical issues. I have to get the jizz in the cup while holding a magazine and masturbating. This is all a lot easier if you’re hands-free watching TV while reclining in the easy chair.

Of course, being too focused on one-inch of butt cheek, I didn’t think this through ahead of time. When at last I approach orgasm, I’m in the chair, my pants are around my ankles, and the cup is on the counter next to the TV. I toss the magazine aside, lurch for the cup, trip on my pants and pitch toward the counter.

I manage to catch myself with my free hand and grab the cup. I only lose one spurt of the precious goo to the cabinets below the counter.

With most of my semen in the cup and cabinet wiped clean(ish), I start to laugh at my first clumsy steps in the brave new world of planned parenthood.

Next: The Results.