Makin' Love to Dixie

Ok, so as you can probably tell by the title of this entry I had an interesting experience yesterday.

First a little bit of history; my Mother took a fertitlity drug called DES in order to overcome miscarriages, of which she had had 3 before giving birth to me, her first born.

A side effect in male offspring can be fertility problems, and while I have always known this, I never had it checked. To be honest, only recently did I actually realize that having a biological child was a possibility. When I came out (over 20 years ago, yikes!), gay guys simply didn't have kids, unless it was the traditional way, and I didn't see that happening :) so it wasn't that important.

Fast forward to present day; as the love of my life and I are now looking at having a family, it's become a little more important. I visited my doctor and briefed him on what we were thinking about, and since he was already aware of the DES thing he referred me to a clinic to have my sperm checked.

I'm not sure how it works in the rest of the world, but in Canada, at least in this case, the test is 'conducted' in a lab where all kinds of tests are run, blood tests, urine samples, etc. It was a little unsettling thinking about saddle up to the counter and presenting my health card and requisition; the lady behind the counter's first language was not English and she was very loud and I had just watched her berate some guy for 5 minutes for not having his proper health card.

While I was in line waiting, I saw a guy come out from behind the curtain, well dressed about my age, holding his bottle of "stuff" in his hand. He didn't seem to even notice or care and simply dropped it on the counter, the receptionist looked back and yelled "3 weeks, 3 weeks". He walked out. Strangely I felt some kind of secret bond with him, and even though he didn't even see me, it gave me a bit of confidence.

Now I am in front of her, she asks for my health card (which was luckily the proper one) and the requisition. She keys me into the computer then hands me the bottle (aka Dixie), kindly leans in and under hushed breath says "Go into the bathroom behind the curtain and come right out". Phew. No big scene, I was past the first hurdle.

I don't know what I expected to see, maybe a quiet room, a bench or even a chair, the possibility of porn (even straight) had entered my mind, a magazine, a TV if I was lucky. Nope. None of the above.

It was a tiny bathroom with paper thin walls right next to another bathroom. Only a toilet and a sink. Not even any paper towel, only a hot air hand dryer! And dirty. I mean it was where everyone went to give any kind of sample, the floor was crusted and it was lit with tubular fluorescent lights. I could hear everyone in the waiting room, the lady at the front desk berating her latest victim as well as the toilet flushing and door opening and closing in the bathroom next to me and all I could think was, 'Make this one quiet Todd'!

The idea of pulling up something on my iPhone did cross my mind, but I thought, you can do this!

Well it wasn't too long before I was able to finish the job, remarkably. Truth be told, I've done worse things in worse places so it wasn't all THAT hard, but bizarre just the same. And all in the name of medicine and the pursuit of a little one?!?

I firmly placed my sample inside the palm of my hand and dropped it as far behind the desk as I could reach. She was on the phone, so I waved my hand and said "Yes, 3 weeks!". Phew!

So who knows what the results will be, and to be honest I think I'll be okay no matter what. And even though we haven't decided who will be what, it's still good to know whether I can or not.