Feb 5, 2012: Broken

The first time I saw Chad look broken was August 2002. I had turned 30 three weeks before, and was determined to set my "fine wine" philosophy of getting better with age into full swing. However, that day I'd had a call from my dermatologist telling me that the 1994 melanoma I hadn't thought I'd ever see again had indeed made a reappearance, this time on my upper left back.

I left work early, in the proverbial fog (yes, it's a cliche, but even now, 12 years later, when I think of that time, I see thick patches of fairytale-castle-esque fog wrapped around the memory of it all.) and left Chad a message telling him I needed to talk to him. When he bound (really, he bound) through the door of our tiny apartment in Vancouver's Yaletown, his face registered a look that can only be described one way: Broken.

I don't know what left a deeper scar, the jagged stain of post-surgery melanoma, or the memory of the broken look on the face of the man who, at 6-foot-2, typically exemplifies words that convey "solid". He is a sturdy Michelangelo. Not a fragmented Picasso.

The second time I saw Chad look broken was February 3, 2012. We had been waiting all day -- well, all day and the nine days previous -- for the results of our embryo transfer. We'd both agreed that imagining "good news" felt so hard for us, after two years of "bad news" coming from our adoption efforts. Yet, at the same time, we felt that we must be rightfully owed good news by now. As if the universe had a score pad. Like a friend who is continually left picking up the tab at the pub, deep down we were hoping that this time, the cocktails would be on the universe.

Nope. Yet again, this round was on us.

None of the three embryos (the triplets, we called them), had decided to stay. Where they went, I'm not sure. A friend's place? Europe? A better womb down the road? I don't know. What I do know is this: with them they took my optimism for the human creation process and my belief that good things have to happen for you if you're a good person. (We use enviro-mugs, we pay our taxes, we rescue animals.) What they left in their place, however, was the memory of seeing Chad look broken for the second time in 13 years of loving his perfect face.