My husband and I have been happily married for ten years. Everything has gone well for us except the most important thing: we’ve been unable to have children.
A few years after we got married, when children weren’t happening for us we decided to adopt. We got almost through the adoption process when tragedy struck and my sister passed away.
We decided to give our grief a year before we started adoption processes again, but then COVID happened.
My husband struggled during the first lockdown. He was off work for almost six months, and he did nothing with the time. He’d sleep till 2 pm, then immediately go to the basement to play video games. He ate only junk, he drank only pop, beer, or pot drinks, he rarely went outside, he rarely exercised.
I tried to encourage him to care for himself, because I could see it harming him. He didn’t do anything, and after four months at home he announced he was leaving me.
It was sudden. One day he was cuddling me and telling me he loved me, and the next, he left, saying he wanted children, and it wasn’t going to happen for us, and he no longer wanted to adopt.
I’ve always wanted children. More so than him even.
I was devastated. Not only was I losing my beloved husband, but my chance for children as well. Plus, the two people I usually talk to about challenges, my sister and my husband, we’re no longer available.
After two dats he came back, and after talking forever, we decided to check out fertility options.
The doctor removed two masses from my Fallopian tubes, and said I was perfectly healthy and should be able to have children normally. We tried fertility treatments, but nothing worked. We tried IVF. The first round of embryos all failed. On our second round, we made eleven beautiful embryos that, according to the doctor, looked perfect. We decided to do genetic screening though, just to be safe. We were over the moon though. With eleven beautiful embryos we were sure our dreams were about to come true.
We were heartbroken a week later to find that all contained abnormalities. The doctor told us we would likely never create a biological child.
I was grieving my loss, but the doctor gave me hope. He told me about embryo adoption, and I was thrilled.