16. Dominic
Dominic
We are five months into trying. We spent the next three months on openly chosen attempts, with more nights that ignored the calendar and another negative test at the end of each cycle.
After the first natural cycle, Elena delivered the news like a financial update.
The next time, she avoided looking at me.
By the most recent negative, she stared at the test for so long that I wanted to take it out of her hand and throw it through the bathroom wall.
I settled for holding her, and she let me.
Now we’re sitting beside each other in the fertility specialist’s office, close enough that her knee brushes mine whenever she shifts. She has shifted six times since we arrived.
Elena looks at the notebook in my hand as though it has personally offended her.
“You brought office supplies,” she says, her voice dry enough to sand wood.
“I brought questions”—all the ones I’ve been turning over for weeks.
“That notebook has dividers.”
“Four of them.”
Her mouth presses into a line, but I catch the slight pull at one corner. “Of course it does.”
That last negative result is still running through my head when the doctor comes in with Elena’s file and takes the chair across from us.
“I’ve reviewed the updated bloodwork and your tracking from the last several months,” the doctor says, tapping the cover of the file. “I know five months can feel like a long time when every cycle has a specific goal attached to it, but you are still well within the normal range.”
Elena’s spine loosens by a fraction.
I notice because I notice everything about her now: the tension in her shoulders, how she twists the ring on her right hand when she’s worried, and the controlled breath she takes before asking a question she has probably rehearsed all morning.
“So there’s nothing in the results that concerns you?” she asks.
“Nothing that suggests you should be concerned at this stage.”
Elena nods, already filing the answer into whatever private system she uses to keep hope from becoming expectation.
“What would improve our chances?” I ask.
Her head turns toward me.
The doctor answers, oblivious to the word that made Elena turn toward me.
“Based on the timing records you provided, increasing frequency during the fertile window would be the simplest adjustment. You’ve been very precise, but conception doesn’t always reward precision as efficiently as we’d like. ”
“That feels personally insulting,” Elena murmurs, and the corner of her mouth twitches. I’d trade a board seat for that expression.
“Biology often is.”
I open my notebook.
Elena glances down. “You’re taking notes on this.”
“Yes.”
“I thought those were intimidation tabs.”
“They can serve two purposes.”
That earns me a real smile before she turns back to the doctor. The knot in my chest eases with it.
“How much should we increase the frequency?” I ask.
“Every day or every other day through the fertile window would give you more coverage. You don’t need to limit yourselves to the single day you believe is optimal.”
Elena’s cheeks warm. She keeps her expression composed, although we both know precision stopped being our only justification months ago.
I write down the recommendation, my pen moving over the page. This is the real question I came to ask. “Can stress interfere enough that we should change our work schedules?”
Elena’s pen pauses above her notebook.
“Severe or prolonged stress can affect sleep, hormones, and general health, but ordinary work stress does not mean you’ve caused these negative results,” the doctor says. “Focus on rest and consistency rather than trying to eliminate every demanding day.”
“So we don’t need to clear our calendars entirely.”
“No.”
Elena looks at the notebook. “You had that possibility written down, didn’t you?”
“I had it listed for discussion.”
“Under which intimidation tab?”
“Stress.”
She shakes her head, amused, but hope softens her expression.
Every time I say “we,” her composure slips.
Maybe because she still expects me to treat this as her plan that I agreed to support. Her pregnancy. Her timeline. Her future, with my involvement reduced to the terms we negotiated.
Except I haven’t thought of it that way in months.
“What about travel?” I ask. “If one of us will be away during the likely window, should we adjust the trip or the timing?”
“We can move things,” Elena says, her voice barely above a whisper.
I look at her. The word hangs in the air between us, a shared thing. “Yes, we can.”
Her fingers tighten around each other in her lap.
The doctor explains that consistency matters more than chasing one precise hour, then walks us through the tracking information again.
I listen and write, mapping out contingencies: what happens if the next cycle is unsuccessful?
Then the one after that. At what point do we return?
What changes would prompt additional intervention?
Is there anything we should be doing now that will make later decisions easier?
Elena watches me through most of it.
She asks questions too, practical and specific, but her attention keeps returning to my hand moving across the page.
By the time the doctor closes the file, I have three pages of notes and a follow-up plan.
“You’re doing everything you should be doing.” The doctor closes the file. “Give yourselves another couple of cycles with the increased frequency. If you still haven’t had a positive test, we’ll reassess together.”
Together.
I keep thinking about the word after the doctor leaves.
Elena reaches for her bag, then stops. “You didn’t have to do all this.”
“Yes, I did.”
“You could have asked the questions without preparing for the appointment like an acquisition review.”
“I don’t enter important meetings unprepared.” It’s the only way I know how to control the outcome. The only way I know how to protect what matters.
Her gaze lifts to mine. “Important?”
I close the notebook. “Very.”
For a second, neither of us moves.
The office around us is aggressively ordinary. Neutral walls. Framed credentials. A plastic anatomical model on the counter. There is nothing here that should make the future feel close enough to touch.
Yet I can see it.
Another appointment with Elena beside me.
A positive test. An ultrasound. Her hand in mine while we wait to hear that everything is okay.
A child with her eyes and her stubbornness.
Mornings, birthdays, sick nights, school drop-offs, arguments, laughter, and years of ordinary days that would be more valuable than anything I have built.
I came here prepared to ask how we get her pregnant.
I leave knowing I want every appointment and every year after them with her.
Elena sets my notebook on her kitchen island like it contains evidence she may need against me later.
“You wrote down sleep consistency.”
“The doctor said it matters.”
“The doctor also said we don’t need to clear our calendars, and I saw the disappointment on your face.”
“I wasn’t disappointed.”
“You drew a line through that question hard enough to dent the next page.”
I loosen my tie and watch her fill two glasses with water. She does it without asking whether I’m staying, and the small assumption makes me want to stay more than I should.
Then again, everything about this afternoon feels different. We walked into the appointment with a plan and left with instructions that require more time together, more nights, and more chances for the thing between us to become impossible for Elena to classify as an arrangement.
“We should discuss the increased frequency,” I say.
Her hand pauses around the glass she’s sliding toward me. “You’ve been in my kitchen for less than two minutes.”
“I didn’t know there was a waiting period.”
“There should be when you say things in that tone.”
“What tone?”
“The one you use before suggesting something that will create twelve additional spreadsheets and ruin my week.”
I could build her a projection model for this, charts and all. But that’s not what she needs to hear. “I’m trying to simplify this.”
She takes a slow drink, eyes narrowed over the rim. “That is exactly what you say before complicating something.”
I set my glass down. All the carefully planned, logical arguments I prepared feel like lies. There’s only one truth. “Stay at my place.”
She nearly chokes.
I reach for her, but she lifts one hand, coughing, and levels a disbelieving stare at me.
“I’m sorry—what was that?”
“During the increased-frequency period,” I add, as though that makes the suggestion less loaded.
It doesn’t.
Elena places her glass on the island with exaggerated care. “You want me to move in with you.”
“Temporarily.”
“How temporarily?”
“We could start with the fertile window.”
“So I would move into your home for approximately one week every month.”
“You make it sound so transactional.”
“It is inefficient.”
This is the moment to stop, to retreat to logistics. But I don’t. “Then stay longer.”
Her lips part.
The real proposal is there in my own words, before I can disguise it as convenience.
I put both hands on the island. “We’re going to be seeing each other more often either way. My house is closer to the office. You wouldn’t have to pack a bag every night or worry about travel interfering with the schedule. You’d sleep more, which the doctor specifically recommended.”
“Do you hear yourself?”
“Perfectly.”
“You’re proposing cohabitation as a fertility optimization strategy.”
“It’s practical.”
“No, Dominic.” She shakes her head, her disbelief softening into something more vulnerable. “It isn’t.”
I know that. I knew it before I suggested it.
There is nothing practical about the image that has been in my head since we left the specialist’s office.
Elena’s shoes beside mine at the door. Her coffee in my kitchen every morning.
Her laptop open in the library while I finish calls.
Her body in my bed without a date on the calendar giving either of us permission.
Efficiency is easier to say than any of that.
“Okay,” I say.
She blinks. “Okay?”