Back fifty bajillion years ago, I used to talk about wanting a baby. Do you even remember that whole infertility thing? Was it a phase? No. It wasn’t. I assure you, I still carry those Punk-Ass Ovaries and Busted Uterus around with me on a daily basis. We’re tight like that.

But what happened? Did the lackluster lady-bits go the way of my book and my painting and that whole small-batch baking thing? Are they all just sitting around gathering dust and growing cobwebs in the corner of my “Things I Thought I Might Do and Also Blog About” room? (Well, no, I assure you that the full-size, nothing small about it half of an Oreo cheesecake in my fridge is growing no dust OR cobwebs. But we had COMPANY! For DINNER!)

Infertility is awful. You don’t forget the Clomid-fueled periods of rage. You don’t forget the negative pregnancy tests. And most of all, you don’t forget the miscarriages. The emotional theme park ride of a positive pregnancy test followed by the inevitable diagnosis of “non-viable pregnancy” is not a sting that ever loses its potency. And sometimes your heart just has to take a vacation.

And then? You totally convince yourself that huh… maybe you are RELIEVED. Maybe you didn’t really want that hassle of a KID any-damn-way. And you take some time and revel in your child-free status and maybe even try and fool yourself that it all worked out just the way you secretly planned. Oh sure, fine, you’ve gained seventy freaking pounds from the lethal combination of questionably-legal Clomid bought from Thailand and the cocktail of self-medication fondly known as brownies and red wine. Pshaw… whatever.

But dude? You are TOTALLY fooling yourself. Maybe you were protecting you wee delicate flower little feelings. Maybe you needed a “break”. Whatever. But guess what? You still want a baby. And suddenly you find yourself googling “adoption” a little more often and wondering if maybe that’s the way to go. Until you run it by your husband and he is just… not as receptive and jazzed about the idea as you expected. And then you just get pissed off and stew silently about it for a few days weeks because what does HE know? His part of this whole mess is the easy part. HE isn’t the one who is broken. HE isn’t the big fat failure at pregnancy. HE doesn’t even like to talk about it.

The wanting is different this time around. It is less specific. It isn’t about being pregnant and giving birth. It isn’t about a genetic combination of the two of us. It’s about being a mother. I think I need to be a mother. I think it’s really time. I’ve wasted enough time. Selfish has left the building…