With little fanfare, we suddenly found ourselves suspended in a murky underworld inhabited by the reproductively challenged. Looking for answers, I frantically thrust my arms out into the shadowy abyss and immediately did the one thing that rarely provides the reassurance that one is seeking and almost never quells any confusion – I started Googling. One of the first emotions that had overwhelmed me when we heard the news was not that I may never give birth to a mini-me, but rather anxiety over how my husband Paul was handling the revelation coupled with a fear of what this new reality would do to our relationship.

Infertility is one of those circumstances that can explode a marriage in one fell swoop or slowly erode away at it with insidious precision. Riddled with worry, I typed away at my computer, creating increasingly fatalistic phrases such as, “can’t have baby divorce” and…