One day, as I sat weeping at the fertility clinic about my fourth miscarriage, my doctor referred to me in passing as a “geriatric mother.” Well, I was 38, so point taken. But he didn’t say anything about the guy sitting next to me: gruff, white-haired, and 29 years my senior. The doctor suggested my husband give a sperm sample. John was taken aback. I mean, he was only barely a senior citizen.
One viewing of Debbie Does Dallas later, we learned his swimmers were reasonably plentiful but slow and quirky and generally meh—pretty typical of his age. It was nothing I.V.F. couldn’t help with—and did. But in the family lore, the problem had to be me. It always was.
