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 nta chafar 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.
"I don't want to tell you something impossible," she said. "But based on everything we've seen, carrying a pregnancy will be extremely difficult."
Thomas squeezed my fingers.
The smallest kindness from him sometimes felt bigger than entire conversations.
I stared at a framed photograph of a sailboat behind her shoulder because if I looked at either of them, I knew I would cry.
That night, I deleted three baby apps from my phone.
On the drive home, Thomas said, "We don't have to talk."
So we didn't.
That night, I deleted three baby apps from my phone.
For a while, I stopped going to baby showers too.
Thomas understood.
She knew about the failed transfers, the medication, the specialist, all of it.
His mother did not.
Susan knew everything.
Not some vague version.
Everything.
Susan had a talent for making cruelty sound almost conversational.
She knew about the failed transfers, the medication, the specialist, all of it.
And somehow, that made her more comfortable making jokes.
Susan had a talent for making cruelty sound almost conversational.
If a cousin announced a pregnancy, Susan would glance at me.
"Some women are just luckier than others."
