I didn’t need to be a health expert to know that it wasn’t normal to be married for over two years with no luck in the baby department

December 2015

You don’t know what will happen in the end. Whatever happens, though, make sure that you keep your marriage strong,” said the voice on the other line.

Strong. The word echoed dimly in my mind, as if I were hearing it through water. I was hunched over in the passenger’s seat of my car, too numb to move. How could I be strong when I could barely feel my body?

“You there?” asked Naomi, my dear friend and mentor.

“Yeah,” I mumbled, “but I gotta go… I need to…” my voice trailed off weakly as I tried not to cry into the phone.

“Okay. I’m here for you. The marriage is what’s important, remember that. We’ll talk soon.”

I hung up, then dragged myself out of the car and through the front door of our condo. I slumped onto the couch, curling up as the morning’s appointment replayed in my head — the tests that confirmed that I couldn’t have children naturally, followed by a brief meeting with the fertility specialist in his office. The feeling of hope draining as we heard the doctor say that we were free to try any treatment we wanted, but that we would probably end up needing invasive procedures to have a child — and even then, our odds weren’t great.

Finally, we were ushered into a meeting with nurses to discuss options for a variety of medical interventions. The nurses had barely glanced in our direction while handing us a folder with treatment and financing information, while my brain struggled to process that I was probably never going to have a baby on my own.

Now home, I took the folder out of my purse and flipped through it blindly, my eyes unfocused as they scanned through information about tests, medications, and procedure costs. My husband, Nat, walked over to take a look at the papers.

“You okay?” he asked gently.

“Nope.” It was the truth.