And then every time a woman on the board would announce her pregnancy, we’d all congratulate her, but I’d get a sick feeling it would never be me.

If it were up to me, I might have kept going with IVF until we were destitute, but it was Sam who brought up the idea of adoption. It will still be our child, he said. I resisted, having heard horror stories from other women on the forums about adoptions gone wrong, but Sam again pushed until I gave in. He was right—we wanted to be parents and this was our only option.

Once we became immersed in the adoption process, I grew cautiously optimistic. I had wanted a child for what felt like forever now—it was a dream come true that it would soon be a reality. Unfortunately, nothing in the adoption process was quick. After carefully deciding on an agency, we had to complete a homestudy, which was the full body cavity search of the adoption process—the agency’s social worker visited us repeatedly, requesting every legal document that had ever been issued to us in our lifetime. I didn’t understand how they couldn’t just look at me and Sam and realize we’d be good parents, but I guess there are guidelines.

After our approval, the search began for a child to match us with. Sam was open to older children, but I was adamant about wanting a newborn. During all those years of trying to conceive, I had dreamed of a tiny little infant, and I couldn’t let go of that. Sometimes I felt guilty about it, because I knew there were older children who needed homes, so we agreed our second adoption (and possibly third, if we got to that point) would be an older child. But I wanted to experience having a newborn. Just once. And it cost us a year of being rejected by multiple pregnant women until Janelle finally made our dreams come true.

Well, almost.

And now, after having it all for a very short time, we have nothing again.

“What now?” I whisper to my husband.

Sam drops his head back against the sofa, staring up at the ceiling, his eyes glazed. Sometimes I get so caught up in my own misery that I forget it means just as much to him as it does to me. He wanted a child even before I did. This is killing him—I can see it in his eyes.

“I think we should look into adopting an older child,” he finally says.

I suck in a breath. “Sam…”

“I know,” he says tightly. “I know you were hoping for a newborn. I know. But Abby, there are so many young kids out there who need a home.”