Physical Injustice

I saw a post on Instagram from the wife of a friend (who’s a former student, but now that I’m retired I call them friends). There’s a photo of an ultrasound and the heart-wrenching story of her miscarriage. I sent my sincere condolences, which may sound hollow as a post on a social media app, but I am reminded of my late wife’s miscarriage and the only time it seemed I was going to be a father.

We had been trying for a while, and then one month it happened. We were ecstatic, but of course concerned at the same time. Our lives were about to change forever. Still, we welcomed the change as we would welcome a baby into our lives.

But it was not to be. A few weeks later, the bleeding started. A trip to the gynecologist confirmed our expectations: a miscarriage. She underwent a routine D&C and that was the physical end of that, though the disappointment took its toll.

Eventually we tried visits to a fertility clinic and intrauterine insemination. That’s where I would have a brief but intimate relationship with a cup, and they’d deliver the fruit directly to the egg. But that never worked, and we found In Vitro Fertilization to be too expensive given the estimated low success rate.

We also discussed adoption, but never very seriously. Eventually, we felt we were too old to become new parents, and the moment was lost. Not having children has been a regret I’ve carried for a long time, and sympathize with others experiencing the same disappointment.