A Fresh Miracle

We've been through the ringer in these three years, and the hits just keep coming.  But today was an a-ha day.  A breakthrough.  A touchstone moment.

We met an old friend of the sperm donor at some bar with his new wife.  They just moved back to town after years.  The gossip is the divorce of another dear friend.  So fun, so full of life, with an awesome marriage.  They had a miscarriage, and the marriage just couldn't take it, and it fell apart.  Divorce pending.

Don't get me wrong, miscarriage did a number on my marriage, and I get it.  But after what we have been through in three years, it's like having our house swept away by a hurricane and someone else complaining when their water heater breaks.

I would never say this out loud, and I barely know this guy, and I'd never met his wife.  And then she said it.  We've been through four failed IVF cycles, she said.  She's 41.  And if anything can strengthen a marriage it's that.  Pssh.  One silly miscarriage.  Everyone has that.

I mean, yea, maybe looking back now, four embryos down, almost dying, five figures, 80 doctor visits, shit.  Maybe that does make our marriage stronger?

And this new wife.  41.  A doctor.  Never wanted kids.  Four failed cycles, my god.  And if she could go back in my shoes she would do it fresh and have no regrets.  Wow.

And then, when we got home from the bar, we talked about it.  We have been through so much.  If we can make it through this, we can make it through anything.  Certainly a piddly little fresh IVF cycle is no big deal after all of this.  We are stronger.  We are united.  We are doing a fresh cycle.  We will stand together and we will have no regrets.