To my Husband,

I know this day is hard for you in the way that Mother's Day was tough for me. The world is celebrating the members of a club that you are longing to join. I see the way you look at fathers playing with their kids. I know there is a lump in your throat when Facebook displays the offspring of your friends. I've come to understand how much fatherhood means to you.

I don't tell you enough how much I love you and I don't thank you enough for the way you love me. When we were first discussing getting married, I told you then that I didn't think I would ever come to want children. I thought that would be a deal breaker, but to my surprise and delight, you still wanted to spend the rest of your life with me, even if it meant giving up on your dream of being a father. Maybe you sensed that I would come around one day, as you sometimes know me better than I know myself.

I don't feel that I've done enough to apologise to you. If we had started this process earlier, we either could have our baby by now, or I'd feel more optimistic about our prospects. I was too arrogant. I thought my knowledge could fast track our procreation attempts and we could circumvent the challenges of our ages. I'm professionally literate to the reality of infertility, as I witness cases on a daily basis, but I was just too stubborn to accept that I could be one of them. We are only as blind as we want to be.

I cringe inside every time I hear you say, "it's my fault". I assign no blame to you, just as you did not attribute any responsibility to me for losing our pregnancy. We're so intwined in this together, your gametes are my gametes and vice versa. We resected our uterine septum, it's our follicle development and our sperm count. There is no one else with whom I would want to procreate, and I wouldn't trade you in for the studliest sperm in the world.

There were so many ways our brief pregnancy was a dream come true. It was a total surprise and caught us off guard as we were getting ready to start fertility treatment. There was something poetic about the fact that you received the news on a hockey field -the same site where we first met. Yet it pains me to think about you standing alone wiping away your tears, as I was back at home counting down the hours until your return. I hope we are together to celebrate if another BFP comes our way.

I can't wait to see the look on your face if we're ever viewing the subtle flicker of cardiac activity on the first ultrasound. I know you'll hold it together until my RE leaves the room, but then may cry a bit and I'll fall even more in love with you. I can't wait to feel your hands on my bump as you try to appreciate our baby's fluttering movements. I can't wait to watch you melt, the first time the bundle is placed in your arms. I can't wait to observe the look of pride in your eyes when the little one takes his or her first steps. I want to see you teach him or her how to play hockey and how to set up a chemistry set. I know you'll be nervous at first, but you're going to be a natural.

I appreciate that there are going to be a lot of tough challenges as well. Nights where we play rock/paper/scissors to determine who gets up to feed the baby. Teething and the terrible twos. We may look at each other and ask "what were we thinking?" Teaching him or her about loss and death and the general unfairness of life. This is all years before the rebellious teenage years, where we're waiting at home hoping our progeny isn't doing anything we were doing at that age. I know they say that nothing really prepares you for parenthood, but I feel that this has been the best test to measure our determination and resolve. Infertility has made us stronger as a couple and if we make it to the other side, we'll be stronger as parents. I hope to able to experience it all with you.

Happy Father's Day to my darling Husband, and to A, B, C, M, CP, SH, Chris, Mike, Andino, Adam, Kenneth, Sarah J's husband, Amber's hubby, Mr Yeah, Science, Mr Closet Infertile, Mr Empty Uterus, Mr Rain before Rainbow, the Artsy Engineer and to all the other future fathers.