PART 1 — THE FAREWELL FLIGHT

I secretly booked a seat on my flight attendant wife’s final flight because it landed on our anniversary.

I thought I was going to surprise her.

Instead, halfway through the captain’s farewell announcement, I heard him tell an entire airplane that my wife was pregnant.

Everyone around me started cheering.

I stopped breathing.

For twelve years, Penelope and I had built our marriage around plans that rarely happened when we originally intended them to.

Dinner reservations disappeared beneath thunderstorms over Atlanta.

Birthdays moved because crews timed out in Denver.

Christmas morning once happened at 4:20 in the afternoon because Penelope landed from Madrid, slept for six hours, then walked downstairs still wearing the faint imprint of her sleep mask across her forehead.

“Our marriage has more layovers than most vacations.”

she liked to say.

I always answered:

“That means we get more destinations.”

It had become our joke.

You learn flexibility when you marry someone who works in aviation.

What you do not learn is how to make infertility flexible.

That part of our marriage obeyed no schedule.

At first, trying for a baby had been exciting.