On the radio today, they talked about a story that was in the paper, about a 15 year old kid who goes to my old high school and has that same last name as someone I had gone to school with from first grade until we graduated.  I thought, it couldn’t be his son, we aren’t old enough to have 15 year olds.  And then I remembered that his girlfriend had gotten pregnant shortly after we graduated, which means by now, his oldest would be about 17.

Fuck, that makes me feel old.

But more than that, it makes me wonder.

We’ve struggled with infertility since we got married 11 years ago.  It was something we knew we would be facing.  I lost an ovary at 15, and found out I had Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS).  So, it was no surprise that we would be heading down that road, but it hasn’t made the journey any easier.

When we were younger, and the rest of the fertility treatments hadn’t worked, we decided that we would not spend $10,000 on IVF treatment.  We were young, we had plenty of time, and ten grand is a lot to spend on the possibility to have a kid.

Now we’re older, still childless, the clock is ticking and I now have a hypothyroidism, which will make getting pregnant even more difficult.  And now that we know we would gladly be willing to pay for the possibility of having our own, or adopting one to make our own, our financial situation has drastically changed, and we can no longer afford to do so.

And so, I look at my friends teenagers, and my brother’s grandkids, and I wonder.

I wonder how much time we have.  I wonder if we will resolve our financial mess in time to have a child.  I wonder if I should take my dad up on his offer to loan us the money for IVF, even though it would be incredibly financially irresponsible.  I wonder if there is anything I could have done – lost weight, stuck to a low carb diet, stood on my head for 2 hours, sacrificed small, woodland creatures – that would have allowed me to get pregnant.  I wonder if I will ever know the joys of holding my own child in my arms.  I wonder if the empty spot in my heart will even go away if I don’t.