Part of the struggle of infertility/adoption can be the toll it takes on a marriage. In fact, couples who suffer from infertility are three times more likely to end up divorced. The flip side of this is that couples who cling to one another through the highs and lows are amazingly strong because of it. I imagine this is true for any adversity that befalls a couple. 

The way I see it, you’ve got to be a rock solid team in order to survive the heartbreak that comes with infertility. I’m learning each day that this is is even more true with the adoption process. The uncertainty, the waiting, the hurting, all are easily capable of compromising a marriage. I’m exceptionally lucky that I just happened to be married to a man that is both strong enough to handle the unpredictability and heartache and also shares my “whatever it takes” attitude. He also happens to love me a whole bunch, and I am also rather fond of him. 

Today, I’ve been trying to keep myself busy as we wait for “The Call.”  Then I started having a movie montage of our lives running through my head, and I have to write it out of there or it will keep playing on a loop. Is this normal behavior or do most people experience montages from time to time?  Hmmm. 

Seven years of our nine year marriage has involved the struggle to build a family one way or another. From day one, we decided to go after our dreams together.  It wasn’t hard to agree on a game plan; we both wanted children above all else, and couldn’t imagine our lives without them. So while other couples were buying new cars, or traveling, or spending money on things other than the pursuit of children, we banked all our extra nickels and dimes for the next fertility treatment. When we decided my body had been through enough, we started putting whatever extra we had away for adoption.  I’m definitely not complaining; I’m grateful we have had a little extra to squirrel away a bit at a time. The Internet is full of couples trying to fund their adoptions using “Go Fund Me” or other methods of crowd sourcing, because it’s their only hope. 

I wouldn’t change a thing about our life, the good or the bad. But I can’t help but wonder what our lives would have looked like if we hadn’t been an infertile couple. I think it would be pretty cool to see our lives in an “alternate universe” like tv shows do sometimes, where the main character sees how desperately unhappy they would have been if the biggest burden they carried in real life had never existed, or if it had been someone else’s problem. The point of course, is that the main character always realizes at the end that they are so much richer in character and happier in their situation than they ever could have been in the alternate universe. I already know that’s true for the hubs and I, I just think it would be interesting to see what it would have looked like. I think we probably wouldn’t have E, and I don’t want anything to do with a world that’s missing our sweetest miracle. 

Right now though, I could definitely live without the anxiety that comes with waiting for this phone call. I really could.