You see, we both lost a parent when we were very young, she her Mum and me my Dad. We both grew into adulthood wanting to be able to give children of our own the love we were both denied when we were growing up. This has been such a strong driving force in my wife’s life, that her entire working career has been dedicated to the education of young children.When we met I had recently was coming out of a divorce from my first wife that had been finalised the year before and to whom had gone the primary care of my young daughter. Hindsight being what it is, I now realise that the loss of primary care of my daughter haunted me then and has continued haunt me even more as the years have gone on. Perhaps this was part of the attraction in that my now wife to be saw a longing in me for the love of a good woman and the loss of a primary fatherhood that she could help me attain again.She helped me become a whole person … she put me back together again after my divorce to become a person who is able to operate successfully in the world, and we have prepared for many years now to welcome our baby into or loving embrace … that has not happened.After the first year of marriage we were not overly concerned as these things take time, but after eighteen months we thought we should seek some advice. At the two year mark we were informed that while we were both medically fertile, we may be suffering from unexplained infertility … in other words we were infertile, but the medical profession were not advanced enough in their diagnosing capability to know why.We tried a fertility drug called Chlomid for about six months in the hope that this would help, but it didn’t. So we pursued a shot in the dark. As we were living in the UK at the time we were eligible for two rounds of IVF through the UK National Health Service … neither rounds worked. In fact the first was round was done in such an incompetent manner that they torturously harvested my wife’s eggs before they were mature simply because they did not want to work on the weekend. The second round was even more tortuous because of the mental anguish inflicted by the first round and because it was also unsuccessful. This process took about a year to go through.So with four years into our marriage, we took about six months off to lick our wounds and to decide what to do next. I was going 40. My wife being three years younger than me started to become aware of her own biological clock and we were becoming quite worried that children might be beyond our grasp.It was around this time that I first proposed that if she wanted to leave me and find another partner who might be able to provide her with children then I would understand. This was not taken well. She thought I was trying to let her go because she was unable to have children. It was not the case … I love my wife dearly and am very upset that being with me may mean she cannot have a baby. It weighs very heavily on me and this isn’t helped by the fact that my wife truly is glorious to be around and is about the only person who I’ve ever come across who truly “gets me”.[Writing this is very hard.] I am now very conscious of the fact that my daughter was born after four years of marriage without protection with my first wife who had Polycystic Ovaries … at the time I put the delay in my daughter’s birth down to my wife’s condition … now I’m not so sure. Maybe it was because of me.After some time for reflection my wife decided to invest her entire inheritance and equity from her home at two rounds of IVF with the top infertility clinic in London … nada! Now, not only am I unable to give my wife a child, but she is penniless because of it …[I suddenly want to write a lot of unprintable language! I think I will get a coffee, breathe a bit and come back to writing the rest of this.][I decided] a life change was in order — my daughter was now old enough to be able to fly by herself, so we moved to Bermuda, my home … a change is as good as rest, right?Moving home has had it’s own challenges which has taken some of the attention off of our infertility, which has been both good and bad. We have been preoccupied with other things, but the infertility has been lurking in the background of our minds, weighing us both down. So after two or three months back on the island we started having IUI with my wife taking Chlomid again. This could only be done for about a year because of Chlomid’s side effects. So we have had IUI every two months, and the highs and lows that have gone along with it, for about a year … no luck. And during that year my wife went 40.We have now been in limbo for about four or five months.We are now contemplating a life without children of our own. We have talked about a number of other options — donor egg, surrogacy, adoption, more IVF … who knows where we will go next. I know my wife’s will is still strong and she is the driving force about what we do next.I’m just gutted that I haven’t been able to provide her with a child of our own. I now find myself throwing my life at other avenues that may give it meaning. I feel lost on a sea without the love of our own child … I have even got to the point now where I find it difficult to be around other people’s children for very long … this is proving problematic for friends and family who just see me as spurning their children.I just want to love my wife and wrap myself up in her lovely character. I want to enjoy my life with her and my close friends and give something to my community and country that will give my life meaning.The worst thing is that I pictured my little daughter and son in my mind years ago, playing in the backyard of the house I now live in … and I can’t shake it. It hurts every day.