Chapter 2: The Morning After

5:30 A.M.

The alarm rings at exactly 5:30 in the morning. It’s been programmed that way for years. It usually gives me enough time to wake up calmly, drink my coffee, eat something small, and get my body ready for the workout that always follows.

Today I just stare at it and switch it off. The sound that on any other day fills me with energy now only reminds me that I didn’t sleep a single minute all night.

How can you fall asleep when you know something inside you is broken?

I tossed and turned, and every time I lay on the side facing her, I watched my wife sleeping and thought about how disappointed she must be in me.

I wondered, if we had known this before we got married, would we have gotten married at all?

Searching in Secret

Sleep or no sleep, I need coffee. Not to wake up - just to feel like at least something in my life is still the same, on a morning when nothing feels like yesterday.

Breakfast? Out of the question. I have no appetite. Workout? Not happening either. All that’s left is to kill time until it’s late enough to head to work.

I open my laptop and switch to incognito mode so I won’t leave any traces when I type into the search bar: “What to do when you’re infertile?”

Nobody else uses my computer. I guess I don’t want to leave traces for myself. As if, by not seeing it pop up again the next time I type something, it will be like it never happened.

The first results are all about psychological counseling. Seriously? Who needs that? I’m a man. I’m strong enough. I’ll deal with my feelings on my own. What I need is a solution. A clear answer. Something that tells us how we can still become parents.

The doctor had started talking about options, but I wasn’t really there. My head was already somewhere else.

Dinner

Suddenly, I hear the bedroom door open and my wife calling me. I slam the laptop shut, feeling as if Iif I’d been caught hiding porn. But somehow, what I was really searching for embarrassed me even more.

In my head, I thought: Maybe it would’ve been better if she had caught me pleasuring myself to some cheap porn flick, rather than seeing me asking Google what to do when the sky comes crashing down on you.