What's worse than going through IF? Watching your spouse go through IF. Having to watch Mike grieve in a way I didn't know a man could makes this more unbearable than it already is.

We have rarely ever been on the same page in dealing with our IF grief, and I hear and read about other couples who experience the same thing. You would think that as a couple you are in it "together", but this is rarely, if ever true. Now is definitely one of those times. I think the main difference for us is that I've grieved for the past 2-3 years, slowly, intensely at times. It seems to be hitting Mike all at once. I know that IF has made him sad in the past, but like a true male, he doesn't ever talk about it. I think he has always hoped for a biological child, believing in the midst of all the bad test results and reports for the RE's, that God would give us a miracle. I think it's finally hitting him that the miracle may never happen. I've always believed that it wouldn't happen. In the past I know he would get upset with me because he thought I didn't have hope, that I was giving up. I think I was just trying to accept reality. He is in a really bad place right now with this. It's frustrating for me because I feel ready to move on, as hard as that is, but I don't think that he is. I think he is still needing to accept reality and it's terrible watching him go through it. and the thing is, I can't help him, I can't tell him it's going to be ok because I don't think I really believe it myself. It may never be ok. When he tells me how much his life sucks and how unfair it is that he is in his 40's and still no children, when he tells me that it stinks that his unwed friends are having babies while we remain childless, when he tells me he feels like God has disappointed him because he always felt called to fatherhood and now feels like he has been misled........I can't help him because I agree. It all sucks.

But, as sucky as it all is right now, I am trying to be hopeful in an alternate plan to parenthood that God can create for us. I don't know if he is ready to accept an alternate plan yet. I don't know how to get him there, or if he even needs to get there. What if there is no alternate plan for us? I think right now I can handle any other alternate path to parenthood, as long as it results in parenthood. what I can't accept is a truly alternate plan, no children at all. this is my biggest fear, while I think Mike's biggest fear is no bio children. I think that's where we are right now. I hope we don't stay here long.