When we started TTC we didn't tell anyone. I vividly remember wondering if I would be one of those people who got pregnant immediately, and then worried about being ready in time. Little did I know we would have more than a year to prepare for our first pregnancy, which we enjoyed for only 8 weeks when I miscarried. Those who were really close to us and knew what we were going through tried to be supportive by sharing stories about other miscarriages, or statistics, or stories about conceiving just months after a miscarriage during that "really fertile phase". I suppose it helps to hear other's stories and statistics, but it didn't change our reality. A year after the miscarriage, and still no pregnancy.

It's a different experience to miscarry when you have no baby at home already, and have not yet had a successful pregnancy. I haven't watched my body manage the changes and new demands. I don't know that my body is capable of seeing this through. I don't get to look at a baby at home and know that, at the very least, I got to have one (I would do just about anything for just one). Instead, I have been wondering if that one, short pregnancy was the one experience I would have - and it ended in heartbreak, and no baby.

It turns out my body can grow something - just not a baby. Benign tumours called fibroids is what my body is growing. For most women, these are not a problem; for me, however, I'm part of a subset that experiences infertility due to fibroids. One fibroid is as large as an orange, and is likely disrupting the blood flow that would allow a fetus to survive. The miscarriage was likely caused by this, but could also have been a blessing in disguise. There are no shortage of stories of women who have had an early delivery and their baby died after just a few days of life. I'm grateful this was not my experience. I'm not sure my heart could have managed that.

Fibroids can be treated with a surgery. Unfortunately, the surgery weakens the uterus, so you cannot TTC for at least three months, but maybe as long as a year, following the surgery. More waiting. And more hoping that in that time they don't grow back.

And even then (the doctor and surgeon were very clear on this point) the infertility may not be "fixed".

Some things just can't be explained.

And that is where the miracle lies. Because no matter how much medicine knows and can do, it still can't quite crack the miracle that is life.

And miracles do happen. Even though sometimes you need to wait years to meet them.