We lived in Montclair, NJ, and commuted into the city. I was a second-year law student at Columbia; Nick was a second-year associate at Lehman Brothers. We had been in the suburbs for nine months and were starting to feel the toll of the commuting life – or rather, the investment banker’s commuting life. Nick was often just a pair of warm feet that slipped under the covers after 1:00 a.m. and slipped out again before 6:00 a.m. But we were sure we could find a way to add a baby to the mix.
We wanted children, and the timing seemed right. After all, I had more flexibility as a student than I would any other time in the foreseeable future. But like so many couples, the wanting and planning (and trying) wasn’t enough to create a new life.
With endometriosis and a blocked fallopian tube on my part, and low motility on his, we revolved through doctors’ offices for assessments and even outpatient surgery. The next step, said my reproductive endocrinologist (RE for those who play the fertility game), was intrauterine insemination (IUI). If that didn’t work, we would try in vitro fertilization (IVF). To ease the unease, and to drown out the acronyms, I did what I did best. I buried myself in work. Nick didn’t have the luxury of choosing; work buried him every day.
We were speeding forward, impatient to accomplish our plans, wrapped up in our two-person world. And then, the world changed.
One September morning, Nick left on the early train to Hoboken, where he would transfer to the ferry, cross the Hudson River, and walk a few blocks to 3 World Financial Center. I drove our Volvo in the opposite direction, crossed the George Washington Bridge, parked in Morningside Heights, and then hopped a subway down to Columbus Circle. I strolled one block down West 59th Street to the RE’s office, a quarter hour early for my 9:00 a.m. appointment, feeling hopeful after my HCG trigger shot the day before.
Right about 8:46 a.m., I looked up at the cloudless blue sky, felt the sun and a balmy fall breeze, and thought to myself, “This is a perfect day.”
At Dr. Keltz’s office, I signed in, took a seat in the waiting room, and opened my property law textbook. It took a few moments for me to notice the receptionist, nurses, and a few other patients gathered around the radio on the front desk. It wasn’t until I heard the words “plane,” “explosion,” and “World Trade Center” that I began to pay attention. Moments later, there were audible gasps when reports came in of a second plane hitting the South Tower. The waiting room fell silent, as we suddenly realized this was no fluke, no accident, nothing like we’d ever experienced before.
For the next 30 minutes, we heard both rumors and reports, and listened to newscasters try to sort out what was fact and what wasn’t. The Pentagon crash was juxtaposed with a reported crash into the Supreme Court. We didn’t know that both weren’t true. The South Tower collapsed at 9:59 a.m. News of Flight 93 followed.
Dr. Keltz appeared in the lobby wearing a shoulder bag and an anxious expression. He stuttered an apology, explaining that the hospitals had summoned all doctors in New York – no matter their specialty – for emergency triage and he was leaving for St. Luke’s-Roosevelt at once. I still shudder at the thought of all those medical professionals gathered in the ERs on high alert, waiting for the thousands of victims who never came.
I slowly looked around at the other patients, who, like me, weren’t quite sure what to do next. We who were striving for fertility planned our months, weeks, and days around the probability of life. We were paralyzed by the certainty of death. My gaze shifted to the bulletin boards, filled to overflowing with birth announcements, baby pictures, family portraits, and holiday cards. There were a disproportional number of twins and triplets in the photographs. For months I had thought about nothing else but adding a picture to that collage. At 10:28 a.m., the North Tower fell.
The impulse to call Nick finally cut through my mind’s disbelieving fog. I’m not sure why it took an hour for me to pull out my cell phone. Was it an indicator of the times (cell phones were still expensive and only used when absolutely necessary), or did it take the collapse of the North Tower (joined by pedestrian bridge to 3 World Financial) to connect these surreal events to my own reality? By the time I opened my phone, there was no hope of service. The loss of communication towers at the World Trade Center, paired with the overload of calls across the five boroughs, meant there was no getting through to anyone else on the island of Manhattan, nor to the message ensconced in my voicemail.
I stared at the little envelope on the screen. Someone had called during the course of the morning. I always kept my phone on vibrate for fear of it ringing during a law school lecture, and I had missed the call. Now, sealed inside that envelope, was an irretrievable... reassurance? Or goodbye? I rubbed my thumb along the number keys like a rosary and prayed over that message icon.
When a couple is battling infertility, the RE’s office becomes the closest thing to an emergency meeting point. If Nick were coming for me, I told myself, he would come for me there. I had to remain where I was. The clock kept ticking. The radio kept broadcasting. I ran out of prayers and began reciting hymns instead. Other patients gathered themselves and left.
Three hours after the first plane hit the North Tower, Nick opened the waiting room door. He had walked five miles from the lower tip of Manhattan, through the dust and chaos. I didn’t give him a chance to take one more step. I was out of my seat and sobbing in his arms before he could cross the threshold.
It feels profane to acknowledge that moment shortly after noon on September 11, 2001 – the doorknob turning, the door opening, the instant of recognition, the wave of gratefulness that washed away my grief in its infancy – as perhaps the greatest in my life. Especially knowing how many people hoped, prayed, begged, wished for the same. Those who stood vigil on the streets holding signs with photographs and names. Those for whom life itself became a waiting room. My story is nothing compared to theirs. My loved one was never missing, never lost, never buried. My wait for him could be counted in seconds (roughly 10,800). Our reunion took place in this life rather than the next. We began to tiptoe forward again.
We hosted a friend from lower Manhattan whose apartment was uninhabitable. When the President encouraged all patriots to go shopping, we drove to the Woodbury Commons outlets and then chastised ourselves over the triteness of it all. Lehman Brothers moved to the midtown Sheraton, and Nick went back to work in the hotel basement. I went back to class but canceled a job interview in Seattle. I took Amtrak to DC to lay eyes on a friend. We attended memorial services for friends who died in the North Tower.
I took a home pregnancy test. It was positive.
We returned to the waiting room together at the beginning of October 2001. I looked at the bulletin boards and wondered which of those families was still whole and which had been ripped apart. The nurse called us back and, after a blood test, Dr. Keltz confirmed what we already knew. Our world had changed. It wasn’t just about the two of us anymore.
