I’d kept a critical piece of information from James while we were dating. Something he had a right to know, but that I didn’t tell him because he might not have married me if I had.
When I was twenty-one, I was diagnosed with severe endometriosis. I’d been bleeding abnormally and finally went to see my ob-gyn, who, after an ultrasound, grimly delivered the news: scar tissue had developed around my ovaries and could keep eggs from being released. Pregnancy would be difficult. Unlikely.
“How unlikely?” I’d asked. I was so young. At an age when not getting pregnant was the priority. I wasn’t that concerned. My only experience with babies had been when I’d babysat. And all I remembered was drool, poop, and crying.
Dr. Reynolds narrowed her green eyes. I’ll never forget their color—like moss on the back of a wet rock. “You might have a twenty percent chance of conceiving.”
“So I have a twenty percent chance?” I was naive. Twenty percent seemed doable. Plus, my reproductive prospects at that time were limited to a guy I’d met at a dive bar in Redondo Beach who used the word legit to answer almost any question. Back then, a family seemed so far away. So surreal.
James brought up having kids on our first date. I’d smiled and thought how different he was from the other men I’d dated recently—whose noses scrunched up if the word baby was mentioned, even in passing. He brought it up more seriously the night after he proposed. We were lying in bed, me wrapped around him. At that time I was like a sponge, desperate to soak up every drop he gave me. I’d sleep with my body pressed up against his each night, our legs twisted like a pretzel.
“So, when do you think we should start?”
“Start what?” I asked. Things I thought he’d respond with: training for the 5K he’d mentioned, getting our real estate licenses to flip houses because that was all the rage back then, or saving for a trip to Italy we’d talked about.
What he actually responded with: “A baby.” Then before I could respond, he continued on. “How many kids do you want? I’d like three, maybe four.”
The conversation with my doctor came rushing back. The way she’d looked at me like I didn’t understand the seriousness of what she was saying—that there was an 80 percent chance I couldn’t have a baby. The way I’d looked at her like she didn’t understand how young I was, how that wasn’t something I was even thinking about.
I was so devastatingly ignorant.
But now my future husband wanted to know when I could make him a father. Not if. He kept going, telling me about how he wanted to give his mom a bunch of grandkids.
And I wanted nothing more than to do just that—I was dying to see if our brood would inherit his brilliant-green eyes, the deep dimple on his right cheek, the shallow one on his left. Or would they possess my dark hair and quiet intensity? I felt desperate to know.
“Oh!” I responded in surprise.
James’s eyes narrowed. “I know that’s a lot of kids. But you’d be a great mom, and I’m going to be a dad who’s totally invested. I want to coach their sports, teach them to swim, everything.”
My silence must have concerned him, because he grabbed my hands and gave me the most serious look I’d seen from him at that point. “I should have told you something sooner. I had a younger brother who died when I was six. He had leukemia. My mom was going to have more children, but after he passed away she just couldn’t do it. She was so afraid of losing another child. And my dad, he was so upset. We’re Costa Rican. We have big families. My dad has five brothers. I have so many cousins, I forget their names.” He laughed gently. “I just feel compelled to continue our bloodline for him.”
I was beginning to see the downside of a whirlwind romance. In the few months we’d been together, we’d been busy falling in love and having fun, not discussing important details like this.
And now, after he’d told me his heart-wrenching story, how could I share mine? Because that would have been the time to do it. If I’d been honest, if I’d just repeated the three words my doctor had said to me—20 percent chance—would he have scooped me up in his arms and told me those odds were good enough for him?
I’ll never know.
I guess I was afraid he wouldn’t say that. That he’d leave me. And I loved him. God, how I loved him. And I wanted to be his wife. And I wanted to be a mom. And there was a chance. Maybe not for multiple kids, but at least for one. Because I could be that one in five.
And if I wasn’t, I thought the longer we were together, the more it upped my chances—not necessarily of having a baby, but of keeping him. Because I loved him in a way I’d never loved anyone. He got under my skin in the best and worst ways. So instead of telling him what I’d heard as I sat on my ob-gyn’s table in my paper robe, I said, “Four kids sounds wonderful.”
Because it was true; it would be.
But we didn’t have four kids. The only four we experienced was the number of years that went by without children.
It was New Year’s Eve when I finally told him. We’d been married for a little over three years at that point. Lots of unprotected sex had been had. There was no baby. James wanted answers. And for some reason, at 11:58 p.m. as one year was about to turn into the next, I decided to give them to him. I couldn’t start off another year with lies.
Let’s just say we didn’t kiss at midnight. Or for a while after that.
James was so angry. I’d never seen him that mad before. He called me a liar. He said I’d trapped him. That he’d have never married me if he’d known. I cried. And when I screamed at him that he’d only wanted me for my offspring, he told me I was the biggest mistake he’d ever made, and if it wouldn't cost him half his 401k, he’d have divorced me. He shattered the mirror hanging on the wall next to me with his fist, and I retreated into a stunned silence. And suddenly our argument shifted into what he’d done instead of what I’d done. And I let it. He finally apologized profusely, literally down on his knees, and swore to me he was sorry if he’d scared me. That he wasn’t violent. That he didn’t mean what he said. I chose to believe him.
Our marriage was never the same again. We were a broken version of what we’d once been. I’d betrayed him. He’d told me I was a mistake while shards of glass splintered in the air around me. Neither of us could undo the terrible thing we’d done. And he changed. The man I’d said my vows to was replaced by some other guy, a guy I didn’t like very much.
But I tolerated him. Because I’d made him like that. The temper. I had given it a reason to take up residence in our relationship. The holes he made in the wall with his fist? The broken objects he smashed in a rage? The angry words he couldn’t take back? Those things represented the children he’d never have.
We went to specialists—reproductive endocrinologists, holistic healers, psychics. We tried acupuncture, hypnotherapy, in vitro fertilization.