In which I get a little TMI

Hey, you know what stinks?

PMS. PMS stinks.

Also?

PMSing hardcore when there are full Halloween treat bags just sitting there.

I mean, seriously, normally I might have a few of the pieces of candy a day for a couple days and then just send it all with Nik to work and be like "seriously, just take it!" Sure I'd leave some for the kids and probably have them pick out what they'll be keeping, but otherwise it doesn't need to just sit there and look so, so, sooooooo good.

And it's not even that good, really.

It's like bite sized Twix and peanut butter Snickers and lots of weird, gooey, not-chocolate things that I won't even touch.

But I can't stop eating the chocolate.

Mmmmm, chocolate....

So anyway, you know what else sucks?

Wanting another child and getting your period.

Yeah, yeah, I know, we expect this every month and we can adopt again if we want and put our minds to it and we have that foster care thing to try and persue and I'm not exactly desperate for a pregnancy right at the moment but....

But I wouldn't *mind* if it happened. In fact, I'd be downright ecstatic. I might not be actively trying, no more temping or charting or planning ahead, but that doesn't mean I don't wish and hope and dream.

Because it could happen.

The basic ingredients are all there, even if they're in shorter supply than they should be.

And every month when I start to twinge and cramp a bit I do wonder, just for a minute, if maybe this is actually the month. Maybe it actually DID happen, maybe we beat the odds. I try not to, but I quickly add up 9 months in my head or on my fingers, just to see, just in case, which month I might, possibly, if it happened, potentially give birth in, then I try to wipe it from my mind and not think about it.

And then I start bleeding and that's all over and I get sad for a bit. Not the hardcore depressed I used to be, no crying or laying in bed staring at the ceiling, and my blues now are far more hormonal than emotional, and I swing upwards again very quickly.

The truth is... every month that it doesn't happen, is another month gone. Another down. Another month older. During our marriage our "possible due dates" have gone from July 2006 to July 2012, and yet still there has been no pregnancy to even begin the countdown. If it weren't for our children I think this fact, this 6 years since we first started TTC, would drive me utterly insane. Instead it's just... sad.

I know I shouldn't but sometimes, pretty much only on the first day of my period, I feel broken.

Women from all walks of life, all ages, all cultures, all situations, become pregnant so easily. They conceive and carry and birth without any real issue. I wonder what it would be like to decide you wanted to conceive a child with the person you love and to just do it and have it happen and just bask in it. Even if we were to ever conceive it wouldn't be like this. It would either be highly planned, ie with doctors involved, or unplanned in the "not trying not preventing" sense. We could never just make love with the semi-assurance that a baby will likely come of it.

I know it's not my "fault" and yet I can't help that feeling of helplessness, of failure, in my inability to do something that the vast majority of those around me can do. I'm not so much angered by it, nor does it stick with me all day. My friends announce pregnancies and go on about their babies to be and truthfully I'm 100% happy for them. I can handle big bellies and newborns and birth announcements and parties and it doesn't get to me. In a way I think having my children and being their mom has sort of buffered me in that way.

So outside influences... well, for the most part they don't get to me, except for extreme circumstances.

My sorrow is for me alone, for the lack of a baby in my belly, for the lack of a set due date, for the lack of that joyous moment of seeing two lines, that moment of telling my husband, children, family, friends, for being able to tell the world, for buying maternity clothes and going to prenatal appointments and feeling kicks from the inside... I have so, so much and I know it and I'm so incredibly thankful and grateful for it. But that doesn't stop me from hurting, just a little bit, just one day a month, when I realize that another month has passed and it still, after six years, has no happened for us.

Wheeew....

K, time for a peanut butter Snickers...