When did I join the club of women weeping over plastic sticks with pee on one end and a single line on the other? I've never liked my period, but now it's an uncomfortable mess and a sign of failure. The love my husband and I share might move mountains, but it can't seem to make a baby.
We shouldn't be upset. I'm 44. We knew when we got married that more kids were probably out of the question. We agreed that we probably don't have the energy for it anyway. We have full custody of his daughter, so I get to do mom things every day.
Despite the lack of privacy, we have a great sex life. He had never been in a relationship with a woman who was open to having his child. In some ways, it's like being the first. I'm the first person to truly share themselves with him without reservation. He's the first to actually love me.
I wasn't expecting the urges I feel. I can't explain why I want so badly to give him a son (yes, it's that specific, even though I generally think of myself as preferring daughters).
I thought I'd mourned my fertility when I turned 40. My best-if-used-by date was past. It wasn't impossible that I still had some good eggs, but it wasn't likely. I went through all the steps of grief. I cried. I bargained. I started to picture myself as lonely old cat lady (which is weird. I don't like cats). Whatever came next in my life wasn't going to include making a tiny pink copy of myself. Worse things have happened.
Now that I'm married and 'trying', I get to go through the process again, every month. The steps of grief have gone from being a finite flow chart to being a dance step where you come to the end just in time to start all over.
I want to grab all the workaholic young women I know with five year plans hanging out with Mr. Ok-for-now and scream at them that their career can wait. To stop wasting eggs on guys who don't want to be husbands and fathers. To stop having relationships with reservations and give themselves to someone completely.
But mostly I want to be holding a wrinkly little boy with dark hair and big brown eyes like his dad.
