Thirteen

On the longest, darkest day of the year, we honor the last of our three embryos.

Thirteen years ago, this would have been a due date. Thirteen years ago, there was so much wondering.

There still is.

And every year since, this day has carried a quiet truth: tomorrow, the light begins its slow return. The days lengthen. The dark loosens its grip. Because it never outlasts the light.

Today, that last embryo would have turned thirteen.

It has been fourteen years since our infertility journey ended without children. Some still look at us as if we are frozen in that longest, darkest day. And yes, there will always be wondering. A tenderness. Even sadness. A wishing it had been different.

And still, I know this too: I would never trade what has been born from that journey, from that loss, from them. And honestly, that kind of wishing no longer honors the trust I have in the story God has written for us. Because that story, the one He has allowed, the one we continue to write together, is everything. It is the story.

I feel these dates differently each year. I still wonder about them. And I am often overwhelmed by the gratitude I carry for the life we have built, for the love that has taken shape, for the becoming that would not exist without them.

So often, our light is born through the dark.

And still, the truest thing I know is this: the light is there the entire time.