For seven long years I lived within the suffocating confines of a quiet hope that slowly transformed into a crushing weight. It wasn’t just the endless cycle of fertility appointments or the way every month felt like a legal verdict handed down in a cold silent room. It was the realization of what that waiting was doing to the foundation of my marriage. My husband Michael didn’t just want a child; he was obsessed with the idea of a son. He spoke of baseball games of carrying on a family name and of a future he had already scripted in his mind long before a life had even begun. I tried to treat it as a phase reminding him gently that children are not custom orders to be fulfilled. Sometimes he would laugh but more often he wouldn’t. Once after a particularly difficult appointment he said something that should have been my final warning. He asked what the point of all the struggle would be if we simply ended up with a girl. I told myself he was just stressed that people say things they don’t mean when they are hurting. I wanted peace so I chose to ignore the truth.
Continue reading next page…