By Laura Rennie
@laurarennie_

“Keep going, keep going!” I shout.

My husband, Andy, shuffles forward. I can tell he isn’t entirely confident if the voice he is following belongs to me or someone from the other team. I take my voice up an octave.

“You’re almost there,” I screech. “Stop! It’s on your right!”

Andy freezes, squats, and frantically feels the grass around him for a tennis ball. Coming up empty-handed, he suddenly pivots his entire body, likely trying to cover more ground, only now the ball is further away.

“Wait! It’s on your left! You’re so close! Reach! A little more to your left! Yes!”

Andy’s hand grasps the ball. We’re almost to the finish line. I keep screaming, guiding him to a bucket at the end of the field.

We’ve waited for this day for an entire year—ever since we made friends with a husband and wife who told us about an epic annual couples’ competition they host consisting of various mental and physical games. That is so up our alley, we told them, begging to be on the invitation list the next go-around. We put the date on our calendar months in advance. We picked our team color—neon yellow—and Andy surprised me with matching sports headbands. We watched episode after episode of Survivor in preparation, marveling at the endurance required to win challenges. We agreed we’d give it our best. We agreed we wouldn’t give up. We agreed the goal wasn’t to win but to have fun. How hard could it be?

“Run straight! Keep coming,” I yell. “Stop! Take three steps back! You’re so close! It’s on your right!”

Andy follows my directions, then turns his body at the last minute.

“Now it’s on your left!”

His arm shoots out.

“DROP IT,” I shriek.

Just then, the other blindfolded husband closes in on the target. I watch helplessly as he drops the ball he’s holding in the bucket seconds before Andy. My job was to communicate, and I failed.

Andy pulls his blindfold off and sighs.

“Do you think you were getting your left and right mixed up?” he murmurs as we reach for our water bottles.

“No, I don’t think so. I had to keep changing the direction because you kept moving your body,” I explain.

He nods. I watch as he takes slow sips of water, processing the disappointment of the loss. After what feels like forever, he caps the bottle and reaches out to hug me.

“You did great,” he says. “That challenge is harder than it looks.”

***

Don’t bombard him right when he gets home from work.
Don’t talk to him until he’s eaten.
Don’t start a hard conversation if he’s had a long day.
Don’t assume he’s upset with you.
Don’t use “you always” statements.
Don’t go to bed angry.
Do go to bed angry—you’re probably just tired!

A dozen voices of well-meaning older women buzz in my ear like pesky flies. I hear their words often: when I wait impatiently for Andy to finish his dinner so I can ask him about upcoming weekend plans; when his words sound harsh, and I remind myself he’s processing a difficult work situation; when his football team loses, and I wonder when is too soon to tell him the dishwasher needs repairing.

I always thought of myself as a strong communicator. I aced my high school speech and debate class. Oral presentations were some of my favorite assignments, second only to writing essays. I’m a whiz at games like Catch Phrase and Taboo. Perhaps I should say: I always thought of myself as a strong communicator … until I got married.

In our early years of marriage, there must have been dozens of arguments that scattered us to separate parts of the house. Me: in our bedroom, sobbing into a pillow and journaling my feelings. Andy: playing a video game in the basement (a world that made much more sense to him than his crying wife).

“Sometimes it feels like we’re not even speaking the same language,” Andy would say to me hours later. No matter how heated the fight got, we almost always made our way back to one another before bed. I’d nod in agreement and curl my body against his, resting my head against his chest. “I don’t want us to be like this forever,” I’d whisper in the dark. “We have to do better. We have to be a team.”

***

A large rubber tractor tire lies at one end of the field, flanked by two orange cones. Each of the wives will take turns flipping the tire down the length of the field, where two other cones are placed. Once the tire passes between the cones at the end, her husband will take over, flipping the tire back to the starting line. The couple with the fastest time wins.

I have never lifted a car tire in my life—let alone a massive tractor tire. I refuse to acknowledge the panicked thoughts trying to break through: There is no way. I could never. I position my feet at the starting line and listen for the countdown.

“3 … 2 … 1 … go!”

I squat, reach my hands under the rubber and lift, straining to get the tire off the ground. I pull up, up, up, then push it over with all my might. I want to throw my hands in the air in triumph—look what I just did!—but I can’t. I have to turn this tire over 20? 30? more times, and I have to do it as fast as possible. I remember my promise to Andy: I won’t give up.

I squat, lift, and push over and over, trying to ignore the sudden ache in half a dozen muscles in my body. The tire feels heavier every time I lift it. I channel my inner wannabe Survivor contestant and push through the pain. When I finally make it to the finish line, I no longer have the energy to raise my hands in celebration.

I collapse to the ground, exhausted.

***

“I’m ready to look into adoption,” I say, looking across the table at Andy with shining eyes.

It’s been two and a half years since our first stillbirth and one and a half years since our second. Andy told me he was ready to look into adoption six months ago, and I replied, “I need more time.”

Now, there is a glimmer of hope stirring in my broken heart. But Andy doesn’t look thrilled by my declaration. His blue eyes glimmer with emotion as he says the last words I ever expected to come out of his mouth: “I changed my mind. I don’t want to pursue having children at all.”

I’m speechless. He can’t be serious. But he is. He says it’s too risky, that we know too many people who have experienced heartache while trying to adopt. He says he doesn’t want to see me experience any more pain.

I can hardly breathe. Shock courses through my body. I feel angry, robbed of the beautiful future we had both wanted once upon a time. I stare back at him, suddenly feeling as though the man across me is a complete stranger.

We’ve already spent nearly three years navigating the challenges of grieving differently. Me: crying to my friends and blogging about my feelings. Andy: distracting himself with work and reruns of sitcoms. But we still grieved together. Andy read my blog posts and rubbed my back while I cried. I held his hand while we watched The Office. We survived our darkest days as a team.

Will this be the thing that finally breaks us?

I don’t want us to break.

“That is your fear talking,” I finally respond, an edge of conviction in my voice. “I’m going to pray God changes your mind.”

Somehow we go through the motions of moving on with our day. Weeks pass, then months. I pray constantly, desperate for God to do something big. I play a scene over and over in my head of opening our front door and finding a baby on our front stoop. Surely my husband wouldn’t say no to an abandoned baby. Give me a doorstep baby, I beg. I enlist everyone I know to join me in prayer. I fight off the fear that runs through my head: What if he never changes his mind?

For three months, Andy’s confession weighs heavy on my heart. I feel as though I’ve experienced another great loss. I keep moving forward, determined to cling to hope. Then, one afternoon, we get a phone call. A young friend of my mom’s is having a c-section the following week. She wants to know if we’ll adopt her little girl. I gasp. The moment I hang up, I run to find Andy, desperate to hear his answer.

I hold my breath. Time stands still. He says yes.

The following morning, I’m on cloud nine, calling friends to tell them the good news, frantically creating a GoFundMe, and stopping every two minutes to laugh in complete shock and joy.

Despite my elation and gratitude, out of nowhere, an intense pounding in my head knocks me over. I crawl on my hands and knees back and forth from my bed to the bathroom for the next eight hours as waves of nausea crash over me. I learn later there is a term for this: psychogenic pain—when the brain sends out pain signals due to psychological stress. After years of carrying the weight of grief, I finally crumble.

***

I ease myself into the hot tub and assess the growing purple and green bruise on my arm.

“You’re a beast, babe,” Andy exclaims as he climbs in next to me, a glint of admiration in his eyes. “I still can’t get over how fast you flipped those tires. You worked so hard!”

I flash him a smile.

“We worked hard.”

“I felt a little frustrated at times,” he admits, then adds, “but I thought we communicated well.”

“We’re a great team,” I agree.

Three other couples make their way over to the hot tub to join us. We sip cold beers and sparkling wine and ask the kind of questions we didn’t have time to ask while answering trivia questions, shooting a bow and arrows, and putting together puzzles. How did the two of you meet? How many kids do you have?

My mind drifts to those early years of marriage and the years of grieving together. Me weeping in the shower. Andy sitting numbly in front of the TV. Me always wanting to talk about my feelings. Andy pleading me with his eyes for me to give him space. The days when I thought our grief would either crush us or tear us apart. The days I collapsed in exhaustion, unable to see the future. The days when it was all we could do to put one foot in front of the other, when we couldn't even summon the energy to imagine the life we're living now. The life where we wear matching neon yellow sweatbands on our heads. The life where we are laughing in a hot tub after a day of teamwork. The life where a precious little girl is waiting for us to get home.

Guest essay written by Laura Rennie. Laura lives in Maryland with her husband and daughter. She has kept track of every book she's read since 2009 and loves giving recommendations. Check out what she’s reading and writing on her Substack.

Photo by Jennifer Floyd.