My Husband Threw Me Out Because I “Couldn’t Give Him a Family” — Eighteen Months Later, I Walked Into His Wedding Holding the Hands of Three Children
“We all need to be adults about this.”
There was that word.
Adults.
People always use words like that when they want the person they hurt to suffer quietly.
Elaine crossed her arms.
“Grant wants children, Claire. He has always wanted children.”
My fingers tightened around the envelope.
She continued.
“You’ve both spent years pretending love can compensate for everything else.”
Everything else.
She meant babies.
She always meant babies.
For nearly nine years, I had endured fertility specialists, hormone injections, ultrasounds, blood tests, surgeries, supplements, experimental diets, and strangers asking me questions about my body that I could barely answer without crying.
I had watched friends announce pregnancies.
Then second pregnancies.
Then send kindergarten pictures.
Meanwhile, I memorized the ceilings of fertility clinics.
Every month became a ritual.
Hope.
Waiting.
A negative test.
A locked bathroom door.
Silent tears.
Then starting over.
At first Grant had held me.
Then he had started telling me not to “obsess.”
Eventually, he stopped coming to appointments.
By our ninth year of marriage, I was experiencing the worst part of infertility alone while still technically having a husband.
Elaine never missed an opportunity to make it worse.
At Thanksgiving:
“A family table should have children around it.”
At Christmas:
“I suppose we’ll have to give all the family ornaments to Grant’s cousin one day.”
At a baby shower:
“Some women simply aren’t meant for motherhood.”
I had swallowed every comment.
Smiled.
Excused myself.
Cried in private.
And convinced myself that staying quiet was the price of keeping my marriage together.
I was wrong.
Seven weeks before Grant packed my suitcase, I met Dr. Lucas Mercer.
Lucas was the first specialist who questioned the diagnosis I had been given for years.
He ordered new imaging.
