Since you asked

I generally don't directly address comments here, for no other reason than it feels kind of strange in some way - like we should be stepping into another room and talking privately, even if the conversation isn't something that actually needs to be private.

But in lieu of actually having a room to step into...

Alex, thank you for your comment. I do understand that you meant no harm, and that you're simply puzzled by my desire for a child and my unwillingness to take additional steps to have one, biologically or otherwise.

The simple answer is: you can't always get what you want. And you have to be wise enough to know when enough is enough - when trying to get what you want means peeling away the last remaining protective layer around your heart and mind, leaving yourself completely exposed with absolutely no guarantee that you haven't just pulled the grenade pin.

Yes, we wanted a child. Children, plural. We lost five of them trying. I could list, in great gory detail, all the steps - the surgeries, ER visits, fertility treatments, catastrophic (and life-threatening) complications, mental and physical damage - that collectively make up our attempts to bring home a live child since we started trying in 2003.

I could, but I won't. Because it probably wouldn't help you to understand. You need to feel what I feel. You need to have seen what I've seen. And there's no way to do that save to climb inside my head and sit there awhile amidst the memories, grief, guilt, fear, and frustration.

I just don't have anything left. My proverbial tank is empty.

We are spent. And so, instead of pushing ourselves to the breaking point by undertaking yet another potentially fruitless campaign, we're choosing instead to live the life we were given. We have learned the hard way that there are no guarantees, and we just don't have it in us to take anymore leaps of faith with our fingers crossed, hoping for a happy ending.

We leapt, Alex. Trust me. Over and over again we've held hands, closed our eyes and leapt.

The thing is, we have happy, right here. Yes, it's a childless version of happy. And yes, I'm bitter and angry sometimes, even still. Clearly. But we do have happy. It's our weird version of it, but it works.

We laugh like idiots. We hold hands when we're out for walks. We send stupid e-mails to each other during the day. We snuggle close at night. We indulge in the simple things that make us happy and let us forget, for just a while, that there are things that make us sad.

And why shouldn't we be allowed to have that fragile peace we've so carefully carved out of the mountain of grief we were handed?

You can't always get what you want. So, as they say, the secret is wanting what you've got.

And that's what we're trying to do. Every day. We know this isn't what we planned. We know there are other options. But this is what we have to do, for a million reasons no one but My Beloved and I will ever totally understand.

I get that people will always look at us wonder why, and I get that it probably seems frustratingly simple when you're on the outside looking in.

But from here on the inside, things look very different.

I guess the short answer to your question is that I have done everything I can. It may not look like it to you, but I have.