The Greatest Thing I’ve Never Been Able To Create

I’ve never met you, you’re not even a real living thing; and yet, I love you so much that just to think of you makes my heart ache. I want so badly to make you, to be half of you, to grow you. I can’t stop thinking about what you might look like, how you will sound, what kind of personality you will have. These thoughts, all about you, consume my mind from morning to night. You are the greatest thing I have not been able to create.

As a teenager I couldn’t wait to grow up. I couldn’t wait to be 22. I thought that was going to be the most perfect age. I would have a boyfriend, be in college, do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, and I just knew that by then, at 22, I would have no more pimples. And I was right, with the exception of the pimples. 22 was a fabulous age. And at 22, I dreamt of a future with my boyfriend, getting married, buying a house, and starting a family. And again, I was right! Married at 24, bought a house at 28, and then there was just one step left to this dream life I had.

It’s a common question once you get married, “So, when are you having kids?” If I had a dollar, no a quarter, and by now, even a penny for every time we’ve been asked I would have quite the full piggy bank. The question never really bothered me much. My husband and I both own businesses and we keep very busy, so it was easy to waive the question askers off with a simple, “Oh, not right now!” But as the years progressed, and I started asking myself the same question, it was starting to strike a nerve. “Well, it’s none of their business.” I would say to my husband, “What if we were trying and it wasn’t happening, how awkward!”

Slowly, as the weeks, months and years went by, we both started to entertain the idea of having a baby. My best friends were all on their second child by now, and everyone had pretty much given up on asking “when” it was my turn. They all told me that one day I would just wake up and know that I was ready. I thought that was a strange idea, until it happened.

I was 29, it was a warm mid-August morning, I opened my eyes, sat straight up in bed, the sun shining through the window, and the thought hit me, “I want to have a baby.” I sat on the idea for about 2 weeks. Let it ruminate back there in my brain, imagining having a newborn, a toddler, and what my sweet husband would be like as a dad. Then one day while driving in the car, with the most gigantic smile on my face and a little tear in my eye, I said to him, “I think I’m ready to have a baby.”

We started trying immediately. I did so much research and reading, it completely consumed my days. How did I never know how much goes into making a baby?! People get pregnant left and right all the time! What is this about ovulation and timing?! I crunched the numbers and knew when I should be ovulating, I continued exercising and eating healthy, I began taking prenatal vitamins shortly after that mid-August morning, I was doing everything right. “You’re pregnant.” My oh-so-optimistic- for-once- in-his-life husband would say to me, as I stressed and researched and read my way through that brutal two-week wait. Like periods and cramps, I’m fairly certain that the two-week wait is just a mean joke created to drive women literally insane. I long to be one of those that were not trying to have a baby and only realized they were pregnant because they missed their period. They were able to live in a state of pure bliss during those anxiety ridden 2 weeks while you wait to find out if you have a fertilized egg imbedded in your uterus, or not.

I attributed every nauseous feeling and every flutter in my stomach to that of maybe, just maybe, being pregnant. “Is that what it feels like when implantation happens?” I would think. along with, “Is it just me, or is my sense of smell heightened?” and “I think I am feeling more tired than usual…” To which all of these thoughts were immediately followed up by my realist/pessimistic self telling me that I was crazy and that I needed to calm down because all of this stress was surely going to guarantee that it didn’t happen, and we had only just started trying. It took some people years, YEARS to get pregnant. Who was I to think I was special and that it would happen right away? “Wait, is that a tummy flutter or gas?”

It.was.exhausting.

So when I did get my period that month, right on schedule, I was stunned. I felt deflated and more sadness than I ever knew I could bare. I wanted to curl up in a ball and cry, but how could I feel that much sadness over something that had never even existed? I was trying to maintain a state of “It will happen when it happens.” But I had clearly failed at being so nonchalant. My hopes had risen as high as the clouds and now I just wanted to bury into a hole.

Fast forward 3 more months, it’s now December, and I am once again in the two week wait. It hasn’t gotten any easier, I haven’t found that magic thing to do with my time to keep from thinking about whether this is the month or not. But I do know that I can’t wait for the moment that it is my turn, and I will cherish every moment of growing and caring for our sweet baby, because i know, just like when I was a teenager, my time is coming and it’s going to be wonderful.