My IVF journey started a while back, before I ever met my husband, before I had any idea of what my future family would look like. It started with my 40th birthday and the fight that day that made me fairly certain the year and half long relationship I had been in was not the one I would be staying in long term. A month or so later, having fully realized the toxicity of the man I had been living with, I walked away. Away from his functional alcoholism, away from his verbal abuse and into the unknown of being 40 and single, wanting a family but unwilling to settle.…