Chapter 22

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

HIM — BEFORE

It takes another two years to finally get her down the aisle, and once I do, we start trying for a baby right away. Of course, she doesn’t know we’ve been trying for a baby for much longer than that, but now we’re completely unencumbered.

My timeline is wrecked. I was supposed to have a kid between the ages of thirty-five and forty. Over and over, that has been proven to be the most ideal window of time for someone to become a parent. Maybe it would’ve been easier to just find someone else, but Janelle is special. I refuse to have been wrong about her.

A few months after the wedding, I started talking about how she needs to see a doctor.

“It’s not that unusual, you know. I read it can take up to eight months to conceive on average, or even a year before it’s considered abnormal. I’ve told you my cycles have always been a little weird anyway, and I’m just coming off birth control. It might take some time.”

And she’s right. It takes two more months, two more misses, before she agrees to go.

At the appointment, the doctor confirms what I’ve long suspected. My sperm is healthy as a horse, but my wife is less than ideal for a mate. Her uterus isn’t a perfect host, her eggs aren’t healthy, and she doesn’t ovulate regularly. In general, there’s a less than ten percent chance we’ll ever conceive naturally, and neither of us can afford IVF. I don’t want to adopt, though the doctor mentions it as an option as well. My kid has to have my DNA. Period.

Now, not only have I waited and wasted so much time on this woman, but she’s not going to be able to carry my child anyway. I’ve never felt so defeated.

We could keep trying, I know. Janelle is only twenty-five. She’s young enough that she has a few good years left in her, but I refuse to be an old dad. My plan is important to me, and I’ll make it work.

I glance over at Janelle on the way home, a new plan already formulating in my head. An amendment to the plan.

“Maybe this is for the best,” she tells me, though there are tears in her eyes. “Maybe we’ll just get to enjoy each other for a few more years and then we can, like, adopt a kid from foster care. I’ve always thought that would be really special.”

I feel sick at the suggestion. How can she be okay with this? None of it is okay. As special as she is, I chose the wrong woman to marry. And now it’s too late. Divorce definitely isn’t part of the plan. I can’t admit to both a mistake and failure.

This won’t do. This won’t do at all.