Performance anxiety at the fertility clinic

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 01:01:00 +0000

"Good fucks make good babies," Norman Mailer once opined, and I believe it. Around 3.85 billion years ago, life as we know it emerged when a single one-celled organism floating in the primordial ooze cleaved itself and passed along its genetic material to a new organism. Some scientists go so far as to speculate that life on this planet arose as soon as it could, that in its chemical composition, life seemingly wishes to be. To me, the creation of human life -- in which I have once participated successfully -- is the convergence of personality, joy, hope and intention in a reenactment of what is most primal, mysterious, eternal and imperative in this world.

This is one reason it seems strange to be at a fertility clinic very early in the morning waiting for my turn to jerk off into a plastic cup and produce a specimen that, I devoutly hope, will soon impregnate my wife. I want another child. Though my son has done much to prove the "good fucks make good kids" theory, my wife has not been able to conceive again. Working against us are advancing age and intractable self-doubt; even as I sit in this waiting room, I'm nervous. But I want another child. I know it when I watch my son resting on my wife's belly, the two of them luxuriating in one another's love. This, I realize, is what the Old Masters were trying to capture in their countless paintings of Mary holding the infant Jesus -- the most beautiful thing in all creation. I want more of this beauty alive in the world. I want to share again my tiny portion of the spark.

Salon.com > Albert Stern

Performance anxiety at the fertility clinic