Matthew Speiser

It’s a tale as old as time. I open my fortune cookie and it says “if you don’t get your wife pregnant, I will.” Nervous, I look over my shoulder. There’s a family of four eating lo mein. Husband and wife. Two sons. “You will soon experience a great business success,” my wife says, reading her own fortune cookie. I don’t tell her what mine says. Instead, I pop one half of my fortune cookie in my mouth. It tastes good. Really good, actually. I eat the other half.

The next day I schedule an appointment with a urologist. His next availability is in three weeks. I spend those three weeks looking over my shoulder. And avoiding fortune cookies. The urologist is tall and skinny with narrow glasses. He has cold hands that he uses to cup my testicles. Another short asian guy stands off to the side and takes notes on a tablet. The urologist asks how frequently I masturbate. If I’ve ever suffered an injury to my penis. If I’ve ever had a venereal disease. I tell him my penis feels fine. I tell him my wife and I have been trying to conceive for a few months. I tell him I often wake up in the middle of the night to pee. He concludes that I probably have nothing to worry about. My wife and I simply need more time. Couples are supposed to try for at least a year before looking into medical intervention. He adds with a chuckle that men who come see him this early in the conception process often do so because their wife put them up to it. He laughs. I laugh. The short asian guy laughs. I don’t mention the fortune cookie.

The urologist refers me for a semen analysis. “It’s just to be sure,” he tells me. So I call Reproductive Medicine Associates of New York: Helping Families Grow Since 2001. A young woman answers and asks me many of the same questions the urologist did: how long have my partner and I been trying to conceive? What types of perscription drugs am I taking? Do I have any trouble getting or maintaining an erection? Then she asks if both my wife and I will be coming to the appointment. I remind her I’m going for a semen analysis. “Oh, so a solo trip,” she says with a giggle. She asks which RMA location I’d like to visit. The closest option is in Downtown Brooklyn. “8:30 AM or 8:45 AM?” she asks. I say this seems awfully early for a semen analysis. This time I put emphasis on the “semen” to make my point. She catches my drift. I imagine her role has made her well-versed in inneundo. “Just so you know, you don’t produce the sample on site, you bring it with you,” she says. I hadn’t considered this. The idea that I’d take my “sample” with me to a new location. My “sample” has seen very little of the world to date. And New York City isn’t particularly convienient when it comes to “sample” transportation. But there’s more. The woman explains that all samples must be delivered within an hour of being produced. So now I’m faced with an enormous supply chain challenge: produce a “sample” at my apartment in Greenpoint next Thursday morning by 7:30AM, and deliver that “sample” during rush hour to the RMA offices in Downtown Brooklyn no later than 8:30AM. I ask if there’s anything else I need to know, and the woman says I should refrain from ejaculation for 3-5 days prior to my appointment to ensure semen quality. “Sounds good,” I say out loud. In my head I’m thinking of places in Downtown Brooklyn where I can produce a sample at 8AM on a Thursday to avoid rush delivering my semen. A gym locker room, perhaps? A Starbucks bathroom? It all seems so risky. So I hang up the phone. The young woman already hung up 5 minutes ago.

On the eve of my semen analysis, I leave my apartment to purchase a sterile collection cup. This is the medical receptacle RMA has requested I put my sample in for delivery. The woman on the phone told me they’re sold at any CVS. But the clerk at CVS has no idea what I’m talking about. “It’s for a semen analysis” I say. He recommends I speak to the pharmacist. “What do you need a sterile collection cup for?” the pharmacist asks uncertainly. “It’s for a semen analysis,” I say. She tells me they don’t sell sterile collection cups by themselves. She guides me to a cabinet behind locked plexiglass containing fentanyl test kits. Each of these kits contains a sterile collection cup. But they’re $25. That seems expensive for my purposes, so I go down the block to Walgreens. The pharmacist at Walgreens asks what I need a sterile collection cup for. “It’s for a semen analysis,” I say. The pharmacist says with certainty that Walgreens doesn’t sell sterile collection cups. So I leave and head back to CVS. On the way I pass CityMD, and go inside. I ask the woman at the counter if they have sterile collection cups. She says yes. I ask if I can have one. She looks at me uncertainly. “Why do you need a sterile collection cup?” I’m about to reply when another woman behind the counter interjects: “we can’t give out those items” she says. I tell her I’ll pay. I tell her I have insurance. I almost tell her about the fortune cookie. But she has a no-nonsense look about her. So I go back to CVS and buy the fentanyl test kit.

I don’t really know how to tell you about the morning of my semen analysis. What I can say is that I showered and dressed for work before I collected my sample because I knew I needed to be out the door as soon as the process was complete. I also found the whole experience to be pretty nerve-wracking given the time constraint. Far different from the headspace one usually finds themself in during this ritual. It makes sense though. After all, I’m doing this for my family.

The sterile collection cup is warm in my hand as I bound down the stairs and into the street. A few moments later it’s in the cup holder of my Rav4 as I make haste for Downtown Brooklyn. It’s an overcast drizzly morning, and the cars clog the exit lanes on the BQE. A podcast disusses the upcoming Knicks-Cavaliers playoff series. I fantasize that someone is hiding in my trunk and they’re about to leap over the backseat and spill my sample onto the highway. A eighteen-wheeler will swerve to avoid it and a 50-car pileup will ensue. Or maybe I’m just thinking about how I’d feel to find out my sample isn’t good. That I can’t reproduce. And what that’d mean for my family. My marriage. My conception of myself. I drive with one eye on the highway and the other fixed longingly on my semen.

I arrive in Downtown Brooklyn 15 minutes before my sample is due to expire. I throw my hazards on and illegally park on a sidestreet next to the Long Island University campus. This is as close as I’ll get by car. I jog two blocks on foot to my appointment. The RMA offices are on the second floor of a high-rise. The first thing I notice when I walk in is that every single person in the waiting room is female. Ditto for every staff member behind the front desk. I feel sudden relief that I had the presence of mind to put my semen in a tote bag before leaving the car. “Do you have an appointment?” a woman behind the desk asks. I say yes. “Who are you seeing today?” I tell her I’m not sure. I lean in closer and tell her I’m here for a semen analysis. I subtly motion my head towards the tote in my right hand. Unimpressed, she hands me a clipboard and asks me to fill it out. The questions are the same ones the urologist and the RMA receptionist already asked me: have I ever fathered a pregnancy? Do I have undescended testicles? Do I use any lubricants during intercouse? The sterile collection cup sits on the ground between my legs. The same position it was in an hour ago. It feels like everyone in the room knows that I’m carrying my own semen in a tote bag. What else would a man bring to a fertility clinic? I hand back the clipboard and a few moments later my name is called. A nurse ushers me into an office with a glass wall and asks if I’ve brought my sample. I pull the cup out of the bag and place it on the desk. She picks the cup up and holds it close to her face, like she’s examining a piece of fine jewelry. I’m hoping she’ll compliment me on my semen. Instead, she pulls out a sticker sheet with my name and birthdate printed across it. She asks me to sign each sticker. Once I do, she peels one off and sticks it to the side of the cup. Then she places the cup in a ziploc bag. Then she takes another sticker and sticks it to the bag. It’s a very practiced motion. “You’re free to go,” she says as she walks away with my semen. I sheepishly make for the exit.

It takes four business days to analyze my semen. My brain itches with possibility. I think about all the questions I’d answered. Had I actually suffered an injury to my penis, and just forgot? Should I have used more lubricants? I read articles about declining global fertility rates. Manosphere-adjacent influencers start selling testosterone supplements in my Instagram feed. I think about what my dad would think of all this. I think about how my mom had me when she was 42. But mostly I think about the fortune cookie. My back stiffens whenever I feel someone behind me. I wish I had eyes in the back of my head.

Relief comes in the form of an email with the subject line “Matthew Speiser | Semen Report.” A link sends me to a secure portal with a document attached. The document is a table with a list of numbers with my results on the left-hand side, and the number that’s considered “normal” on the right-hand side. My eyes scan across the digital page, my fingers jittery.

Volume (ml): normal

Liquefication: normal

Viscosity: normal

pH balance: blank (!)

Concentration: normal

Motility: normal

Progressive motility: normal

Non-progressive motility: blank (!!)

Immotile %: abnormal (!!!)

Vitality %: another blank (!!!!)

Total motile %: normal

Total sperm count: normal

Normal morphology %: abnormal (!!!!!)

I allow my semen analysis results to wash over me. 8/13 normal. 2/13 abnormal. 3 blanks. What does it mean? Is it normal to have abnormal results on certain metrics? Is it bad that they couldn’t determine the pH balance of my sperm? What the heck is semen morphology, anyway? After some furious googling, I ascertain that morphology is the shape of my semen. The normal morphology % range is 4% or higher, but mine is only 2%. So I have some badly shaped semen. The revelation hits me like a brick to the face. Did I do something to affect the shape of my semen? (Another Google search reveals that heat exposure, enlarged scrotal veins, and genetic factors can all affect semen morphology). How much does this matter for my overall ability to conceive? How should semen be shaped, anyway? I start bargaining: maybe I gave the doctors a bad batch. Hence why they couldn’t determine the pH balance of my semen. My wife enters the room and I show her the results. She proceeds to do her own furious googling. I consider sharing the PDF of my results with ChatGPT to help me understand what it means. Then I consider what it could mean for a big technology firm to have valuable data on my semen and decide against it.

“I think you’re fine,” my wife tells me while reading something on her phone. Her article says semen morphology is just one of many factors that influence a man’s overall fertility, and a below-average amount of “normal”-shaped semen matter less than having a good sperm count or motility (my abnormal immotile % is also non-consequential because a majority of my semen are motile … or something). I exhale a bit. I’m a fertile man, according to data. Two weeks later, my urologist confirms this analysis. I’ve scheduled a virtual follow-up appointment to have him walk me through the results. I join the video call via the My Mount Sinai Health portal a few minutes early for our 4:10PM appointment. At 4:33PM he hops on the call and starts right in: “I’ve got the results of your semen analysis here…” I stop him and ask if our call was scheduled for 4:10 PM. He says yes, then continues with what he was saying. I interject again: “It’s just that, I called your office because I wasn’t sure if you were going to be joining…” “When you go to the doctor’s office in person, you don’t expect to see the doctor at the exact time of your appointment. It’s the same with these virtual calls,” he says. I feel the sudden urge to yell at him. Tell him how anxious I’ve been over this process. Tell him I drove my semen across Brooklyn for him. Tell him about the fortune cookie. But I don’t. Because that would just make things worse. Because adulthood is full of casual indignities. Because I really want him to tell me I can have a child. And he does. He says my semen is completely normal. “Congratulations,” he says in a way that feels like he’s preoccupied with something else.

I feel my body untense. The traces of a smile on my face. I take a deep breath and reach for my wallet. I pull out the fortune. “If you don’t get your wife pregnant, I will.” I crumple it up and throw it in the garbage. What a ridiculous sentiment. My wife is in the other room working. Mango sits on the couch. I close out of the Zoom call. The doctor already hung up five minutes ago. Suddenly, Mango jumps off the couch and slinks behind the chair. My ears perk at the sound of footsteps in the hallway. The apartment doorknob turns.