As long as she could remember, she wanted to be a mother. While other kids were gathered around, trying to guess what they wanted to be when they grew up, she always said the same thing. A mom. By the time she was six, she knew she wanted to have ten kids.
She began dating Matt, my husband, at age thirteen. Before they could even consider married life, they spoke about having kids. Of course, she had to know they had the same vision for the future. magically, he managed to sway her ideal number down to four. They married at age nineteen and chose to take a year just for the two of them. Age twenty brought my first miscarriage. Not one person knew except Matt. “One day, she came home from the doctor and just curled up under our Christmas tree and cried. “The very next day, she went back to work. Taking orders at the drive-in, she heard someone complaining about their children and all they had going on. “You’re lucky you don’t have kids,” they said. “Oh, you know what? I just miscarried, and I’d take your place!”
The weeks that followed were full of nightmares. She heard phantom cries of babies, walked in her sleep, and woke up panicked, as if she had misplaced a child that never came back. One night, she literally tore the house apart looking for the child. Later, she sat herself down and reminded herself of the words others had told her before. She was young; she could try again.
Years passed by without a pregnancy. At twenty-nine, the treatments began—blood tests, surgeries, medications, and sperm counts. Then the diagnosis came quietly but with a punch. She had PCOS and another condition that her doctor never actually spelled out. Her body produced antibodies that attacked sperm cells as if they were a threat. Without IVF, pregnancy would be highly unlikely. “I laughed along with the doctor,” she said, “but deep down I was miserable. Every time a pregnancy test turned up negative, I was filled with rage and sorrow and self-blame,” she says. “I felt I’d squandered my life and wasted my husband’s life too.”
At thirty-five, she started talking out loud to God while driving because she felt that this was a time when she could finally think. She asked God for peace. She asked God for a child if that was His will. Otherwise, she asked God for the strength to release her dream. She cried until she felt a change within her. She decided to trust. That January, she flew out to visit and celebrate her grandmother’s seventy-fifth birthday. Travel was bad. She missed a flight and broke down at the ticket counter, crying so hard she could hardly talk. Some staff came to assist her. Later, on a flight, she hardly recognized herself. During the visit, she cried a lot, too. Her mother knew this.
But when she went home, she was sick for weeks. Everything was negative – except one. The pregnancy test. She blamed the doctor for being wrong. The test was retaken. She was pregnant. Thankfulness overflowed from her heart in tears. At the sixth week of pregnancy, bleeding started. It could be normal, but she was scared. Nausea made it harder. She lost twenty pounds in the first trimester of pregnancy. She ate nonstop but vomited everything. She told herself every day that they would make it.
On the 21st of April, she took a routine test and felt dizzy and unwell afterwards. It was normal, so she was told. She believed it to be so. Later that day, she knew something was not right with her condition. She would not be dismissed from the hospital. It was in the early morning that the doctor told her the heart of the baby had stopped beating. She would give birth to him naturally.
Adam was born at 10:44 a.m. on April 22 at sixteen weeks of gestation. She was holding him, apologizing for her presence, for her life, over and over. The pains were unbearable. There were complications, and she underwent emergency surgery. “Later, she awoke to the cry of a baby in the maternity ward.” The following weeks were tough. Meaningful words hurt. She stopped eating, wouldn’t take her meds, and blamed herself for everything. She decorated Adam’s grave throughout the holidays and birthdays. They’d been saving money to put up his headstone. He existed. He was loved. She realized there would be no rainbow child. IVF and adoption were simply too expensive. So for now, she waited; she waited with the love she carried, nowhere to go, trusting that one day she would see her son again and give him all of it.
