2 years, 4 months and some odd days

I don’t know what took me so long, but I’m finally here. Writing. Letting the thoughts, words, and feelings fly off my fingertips without time to even sort them out.

They have been gathering in my mind, in my throat, in my heart for 2 years, 4 months and some odd days.

That is how long we have been trying to get pregnant. It is how long we have been waiting. How long we’ve been fervently pouring our hearts and souls into the possibility of a family, steadfastly recruiting every last cell in our bodies to summon a life that is part me, part him.
For this long, we have been wondering what the answer is, subjecting ourselves to tests to determine the reason, gaining answers, rejoicing in anticipation of a solution that works, then realizing that sometimes even the answers aren’t enough to bring closure to this cruel detour.
It’s how long it has taken me to realize that no one really has all the answers, not even the best doctors in the world.
It’s how long we have been using our spare bedroom/office, in which I now write, as a “temporary” place to keep our books and computer until we make it a nursery.
It’s how long I have had a baby name book in the bottom drawer of my nightstand.
It’s how long I have paused at the magazine stand to glance longingly at the Parenting and Pregnancy magazines, hoping that this month would be the month I could buy one.
It’s how long my deepest wish, my greatest dream has been just out of my reach.
2 years, 4 months and some odd days.
That’s how long my heart has hoped, waited, ached and yearned without closure, without peace, without a baby.

During this time, we have struggled financially, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. Our marriage has received the type of strain that the pre-marital counseling left out. I have discovered that even my strongest, greatest friendships with people that have previously been my saving grace, are not as understanding or supportive as strangers in my fertility board online or at my local Resolve chapter. We have watched our hard earned savings slowly hemorrhage to a dwindling few hundred dollars in search for the right treatment. So far, I have been to 3 doctors, 3 acupuncturists, a psychotherapist, and a yogi. Time and time again, I have endured countless people conversing nonchalantly about the contents of my insides while poised seemingly eternally in the feet-in-the-stirrups position. I have pumped myself full of hormones, tried every pregnancy test on the market, enthusiastically consumed repungent herbal teas made of questionable ingredients, and I could open a small library with the collection of fertility books I have accumulated. And yet, I keep climbing.

Everything inside me tells me to carry on, to keep going, to continue to cling onto whatever hope I can muster. And truthfully, it’s all I can do. It’s all I can control. I cannot ignore that intuition that tells me there is a baby to be had. A baby that I will grow in my own garden. A child that can take the best of me and the best of him and carry on our legacy. A child that will be our channel of love to the rest of the world. And so I continue to follow my heart down this long, winding, undeniably rocky path.

I can’t predict what life will present in the 2 years, 4 months and some odd days to follow. I can only hope that it brings us children. Perhaps we will continue to ache, yearn, hope and dream. I don’t know. But what I can be sure of is that we will, in some capacity, continue to persevere. And someday, some how, we will hold a child of our own in our arms, and our hearts will fill with peace.