Dear Childless You

A letter to my past self during the hardest time of my life

Photo by Ryan Holloway on Unsplash

Dear Childless You,

You just found out that you and your husband can’t have children. You’ll try not to think about why or place blame because that’s how you cope with a tragedy borne of genes and biology and plain old bad luck. How can you be angry at anyone when it’s no one’s fault? Certainly not your husband’s. Certainly not yours.

You’ll be blinded by tears that’ll sneak up on you when you let your guard down — primal sobs that make it difficult to see or breathe or even know how you’ll go on living because all you’ve ever wanted with your whole heart and for all of your life was to be a mother.

You’ll hide in the basement so your husband doesn’t hear you crying. You’ll cry in your car and at work, and once you’ll even start crying in the middle of a long, long run and have to stop beside a half-dead tree to reign in your sobs before you can make it the rest of the way home.

But eventually, with time and love and countless conversations, you’ll find another way — a path that you couldn’t have imagined when you started. You’ll decide to adopt.

You’ll write a letter you hope will convince someone to choose you and your husband as parents for their baby. You’ll fill out paperwork on…