Emily Thomas

The things people say…
“Have you checked your vitamin D levels?”
“Have you thought about IVF?”
“Have you thought about surrogacy?”
So much can hide inside a question or a comment.
The assumption that I haven't tried.
That I haven't thought of something.
That there must be one more thing I haven't considered.
The immediate assumption that *my* body must be the problem.
When embryos are complicated.
When sperm and eggs both matter.
And there are costs no one sees.
Risks. Decisions. Ethics. Exhaustion.
And sometimes there is no answer that fixes it.
“You have time.”
As if more loss is worth gambling with.
As if I haven't already given enough of myself.
And then there's “Have you thought about adoption?”
A path so casually mentioned.
As though it were an easy answer to a complicated loss.
“Have you thought about doing Big Brothers Big Sisters?”
“Do you have nieces and nephews? Well, then, at least…”
And then there's the “crazy cat lady” jokes.
As though my life needs an asterisk because it doesn't include children.
As though I am something to laugh at.
Lay off me.
Lay off my family.
You don't know what I've lived through.
You don't know what we've lost.
You don't know anything.