The Years When Hope Started to Hurt
I can still see that parking lot outside the fertility clinic.
A woman walked past me holding an ultrasound photo like it was a golden ticket.
She looked like she’d just been handed the world.
I was so drained I couldn’t even cry anymore.
At home, my husband John and I moved around each other carefully.
Like our marriage was an old house with weak floorboards and we were both afraid of stepping wrong.
Every month came with a new surge of tension.
Every “maybe this time” felt like a gamble.
The miscarriages came one after another.
Each one felt faster.
Colder.
The third happened while I was folding baby clothes I’d bought on sale because I couldn’t help myself.
I was holding a tiny onesie with a duck on the front when I felt that familiar, terrible warmth.
John was patient.
But I could see fear starting to live behind his eyes.
Fear of losing me to my grief.
Fear of what all this wanting was doing to us.
After the fifth miscarriage, the doctor stopped sounding optimistic.
He sat across from me under cheerful baby prints on the wall and said gently, “Some bodies just… don’t cooperate.”
That night, John slept.
I envied him that peace.
I couldn’t find it anywhere.
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