On Thursday I woke up early to go with V. to the fertility clinic. A brief summary of what has happened up to this point. We've had three rounds: round 1 - no viable eggs. round 2 - two viable eggs, one does not "jumpstart" after fecundation, the other stops splitting after a few days. Round 3 - no viable eggs.

This is round 4 and we're feeling skeptical it's going to work. The prognosis was not good, on the ultrasound they see four eggs but in the past we've seen between six and eight but only a fraction are viable. V underwent the procedure and came back more disoriented than usual. Each time she has had a different anesthesiologist, and it seems each one of them has a different opinion on how much to administer.

The pattern we had observed was that, when there were viable eggs, a nurse would come shortly after the procedure with a cup for me to fill with man juice, when there were no viable eggs they would come back after she had breakfast to tell us. So, when the nurse came to ask us what she wanted to break her fast, we knew there were no viable eggs.

I perceived V. grow quiet and serious, which is her way of expressing sadness. I held her hand in sympathy, though inwardly I was feeling relief. Behind this endeavor there's a bunch of insecurities, it's incredibly difficult to explain this, even to myself. I feel as if life wants to come through V, that she will be a great mother, and I'm here to assist in this process. There is no desire to become a father, but the aversion is not there either, so I simply rely on my internal guidance system trusting that things will turn out OK.

V. was apathetically munching unto her toast with butter and jam when the nurse came in with a cup and handed it to me. V. lighted up with a huge smile and I probably made a face of surprise. In any case, throughout this adventure I've gone through the motions without any resistance. Sometimes I accept doing things that I don't really want to do and I almost accidentally find ways out of it. If I felt this was truly not supposed to happen, I might have not woken up on time or messed up very badly. But none of that has happened, I experience mental resistance and yet I do everything I'm supposed to do (except smoking, more on that later).

I went into the bathroom to do my deed.

V. really lightened up, and I was happy to see her happy. She had been ready to let go of the fifth round if no viable eggs were harvested, and after leaving the clinic we went for breakfast. I said it was strange, something inside me was resisting to a fifth round, that wanted to have a nap because I barely slept the night before, and I tend to get grumpy when I'm sleep deprived. She said OK, let's speak about this after a nap.

We went to her house and we slept till lunchtime. We then went to a nearby restaurant and resumed our conversation about the fifth round: I'm still unsure about it, I want to wait out the weekend, I said. If the clinic needs an answer before this then the answer is no, I must take my doubts seriously. V. said OK.

For some reason we begun talking about drugs. V. mentioned Plutarco, a friend we have in common, and how she was surprised that he used to do a lot of drugs, that at one point he was addicted to cocaine, and that he was able to leave it all behind because of a yoga book that he read at the time. Plutarco is a really brilliant mind so I perked up my ears and asked if she knew the title or the author of the book. V. looked through her whatsapp messages and found it: The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga by swami A.P. Mukerji, who was unknown to me. I said I was not surprised Plutarco would have done psychedelics, but I was surprised he would have been addicted to cocaine.

After lunch we lay in bed another while. At around 6pm I told V. I was getting restless, she had the doctor's advice to rest as much as possible, but she will do that even without the doctor's advice. I said I would be going to yoga and then to the gym, but I lied, I wanted to go to the smoke club to score some weed. As I was leaving I checked my pockets and noticed my keys were not in my pants, I told this to V. who went to the bedroom to look between the sheets.

She came back with my keys and a lighter that had fallen out of my pocket. She gave them back to me with a wry smile, as if saying "I know what you're doing but I won't give you a hard time about it". I biked to the smoke club and had a joint. As I was walking back I connected both things... perhaps there's an answer in the book that helped Plutarco. I ought to read, if only because these two events are seemingly connected. I would like to be liberated from this dependence, nothing chips away at your self-esteem more than being a slave to a substance, and then concealing this relationship to your loved ones.