Sometimes I’d end up curled on the cold bathroom floor, shaking with sobs I couldn’t hold back.

Wesley would sit beside me, rubbing my back.

“Next time,” he’d say. “We’ll get there. Don’t give up on us.”

But as years passed, those words felt hollow, like promises from someone I didn’t know anymore.

The world seemed cruelly determined to remind me of what I couldn’t have. Friends shared glowing pregnancy announcements online, their ultrasound photos like daggers. Each smiling face on my feed was a stab at what I’d lost.

Coworkers passed around newborn pictures, their joy radiating as if parenthood completed them. I wondered if they noticed how fast I looked away.

At baby showers and birthday parties, I forced smiles, clapped, and said the right words. But inside, jealousy and grief tore at me like wild animals. Every “congratulations” left a bitter taste.