Negitive.

This morning I got up and for about the millionth time I got out a pregnancy test. I took it. I waited. I stared and analyzed. I dissected it. I stared and I analyzed again. I held it up to the light. I did all the crazy things an Infertile will do to conjure up a line, when there isn't even a chance of one to conjure. Of course it was negative. It's always, with few exceptions, Negative. White as the driven snow negative. Most months I find something that might, maybe look like a line. I wait and pee on another one and of course its white, save for the control line.

Every month I invent a whole slew of symptoms. My boobs hurt, I cry at the drop of a hat, I took two naps this weekend, I've been nauseous, and throwing up all weekend. I'm craving Rice Crispies. (The list this month.) So of course by the time I unwrap the pee stick I'm convinced it'll be positive. Most of the time, I'm able to push away the disappointment of it, and hide it away. Today though, not so much. I'm not feeling strong enough to lie to myself.

I don't think that a second baby is going to just happen. The first took a lot of time, work, worry, and frustration. But every month a little part of me grows loud, and screams out in hope that maybe this month is the month. It never is. It probably never will be. I feel a little like I'm asking for lightning to strike the same barren ground for a second time. I know that it’s unlikely. Especially, given the current state of my body.

I want another child so very desperately. I don't want to make Jack live this nomadic life of ours, without someone to go through it with. I don't want him to feel alone. I had hoped that the pain of not being able to have what comes easily for so many, would go away after I had Jack. It didn't. It just changed a little bit. Now I mostly think about Jack, growing up alone, without someone to experience things with. Without that built in playmate. I think about all the moves this family will make, and all the friends my little man will leave behind. I just don't want him to go through that by himself. I feel like it'll be my fault.

I know that there are tons of only children out there, and some even grew up in a family like ours. They turned out fine. We had plans for a house full of babies. I just feel like maybe that’s not in the cards for us anymore. It hurts, more than I thought it would.