ache

I never dated much before I met DH. I guess I haven't dated much since then, either, but that's not the point.

When I was in college, I watched many many people around me pair up and find their mates. My roommate was one of these people, hooking up with a guy she's now married to and has had three kids with. Shortly after college, more friends ended up getting married. I'd watch this with a deep sense of longing, an ache in my heart. I'd look around and see no prospects, and wonder what it was that they knew that I didn't know, how they were finding these wonderful people to pair up with, when I was still alone.

I felt like my heart was a vessel filled to overflowing, and I needed to find a second vessel to contain what was spilling over. I knew I could love, I *wanted* to love, but there was no one for me to love. It was hardest during the hard times, such as when my grandfather died – my parents clung together, my sister had her boyfriend, and I had several friends who were more than willing to be there for me, but no one who could hold me and kiss me and make me feel safe and secure.

Then my best friend got married, and I met her husband's best friend. It wasn't love at first sight, but it became love, and suddenly that void I felt was gone, filled. I'd found the second vessel, and though neither of us was less alone, somehow we became more together.

The day we got married, I thought to myself, "I will never feel that void again. I will never again have to face that ache of loneliness and longing for someone else to help me contain all this love I have inside, ready to give."

I was wrong.

My husband and I are still very much in love, very happily married, and have finally reached a point where we're both working in stable jobs, neither of us is going to school, we have a home and a wonderful life together. But there's something missing. Our family is incomplete.

And that ache is back. That feeling like something is missing, that almost desperate search to fill the emptiness that has once again found a corner of my heart in which to dwell.

This is the start of a brand new cycle for me. It is the end of our chances to try to conceive naturally. This cycle I will start taking medication to help me ovulate, and then for the rest of the year the drugs become more powerful, and the process becomes much scarier. The number of doctor's appointments increases, we will learn how to mix and administer medication through shots, our hopes will rise and fall in the few seconds between the phone ringing and the voice on the other side saying "I'm sorry, but…" And when this year ends, if we are not still not pregnant, we will begin the process of gathering the thousands of dollars we will need to pursue IVF. DH wants us to take time and save up – I am willing to beg, borrow, and steal to get what we need.

But we're not there yet. This cycle, it's just five nights of a little white pill, a few ultrasounds, and one minor outpatient procedure. And yet I dread it, I dread it all.

I don't have to do this. I know that. But this desire for a child pierces my chest and consumes me. I must keep moving forward, I must find deeper and deeper reserves of strength, I must exhaust all my options before I can accept that it over, and we must find another way to grow my family.

Because only one thing is certain to me at this point – I will not give up, I will not stop, I will not live out the rest of my life without knowing what it is to be a mother. I will raise a child, and I will know the joy and heartache that comes with it.