In Fertility
Chapter Eleven: Long Distance Booty Call

After about a week back in Maryland, it appears that my mother is doing better than we - or at least I - expected. She gets tired easily, but is generally strong. The living room has been converted into a makeshift hospital room, complete with hospital bed, oxygen tanks, charts on clipboards and bottles upon bottles of pills, but other than that, it feels much like a normal visit home. It’s not like she’s out of the woods or anything - she is still in hospice care – but her quality of life doesn't seem significantly worse than it has been over the last couple of months.

In Fertility
Chapter Ten: The Mother and Child Reunion

To recap, last week I found out that:
1) my mom is in the hospital
2) my mom needs surgery
3) my wife is pregnant
4) my mom has less than six months to live
5) my wife’s pregnancy won’t last
6) my mom’s surgery was unsuccessful
7) my mom has days to live
8) my mom has more than days to live
9) my wife is no longer pregnant

In Fertility
Chapter Nine, Part Two: Mommy Issues

[NOTE: This is Part Two of Chapter Nine. If you haven't yet read Part One, please do so first, or you will be missing some context.]

After being bumped two days already, my mom’s surgery gets bumped yet again, however we are promised it will happen that afternoon or evening. I find myself wondering just how many transplants and heart surgeries there are in any given week in Baltimore. My begrudging is begrowing.

In Fertility
Chapter Nine, Part One: Baby Maybe?

You ever have one of those weeks? One of those weeks when so much comes down all at once that the only choices are 1) fight or 2) curl-into-the-fetal-position-with-a-bottle-of-scotch-and-a-binkie? It was about to be one of those weeks.