After four years of failed treatments, I thought I’d learned how to survive awkward comments, forced sympathy, and cruel jokes about my infertility. Then, at my thirty-fifth birthday dinner, my mother-in-law handed me a velvet jewelry box and smiled like she had finally found the perfect gift.
My husband, Thomas, and I had been trying to have a baby for four years when I turned thirty-five.
By then, I could give myself an injection without looking.
I learned to read Thomas’s face before he said anything, especially after appointments.
By then, hope had started feeling less like optimism and more like a habit I couldn’t quite break.
I knew which clinic rooms had the least uncomfortable chairs. I knew which nurses talked too brightly after bad news. I knew exactly how long it took Thomas to reach for my hand after a doctor used the word “unlikely.”
I learned to read Thomas’s face before he said anything, especially after appointments.
The worst appointment came six months before my birthday.
We had done two rounds of IVF.
Both failed.
The worst appointment came six months before my birthday.
The specialist folded her hands on the desk.
The smallest kindness from him sometimes felt bigger than entire conversations.
