Trying to conceive a child should be one of the happiest times of a couple's lives, but for some it brings stress and heartache.

This is her story.

Pregnancy is a tricky thing really.

For some it’s wrought with stress from long before the stick shows two lines. For some of us, there is nothing joyful about trying to get there.

I have a child; one single beautiful wonderful child, who is the light of my life. I could not have envisioned a more perfect being when I thought about becoming a mother.

The road to her conception wasn’t easy. We struggled for well over a year to create her. Month after month, hoping, waiting, and trying. I became convinced that pregnancy tests were a farce; that never would I see two lines. For something I hadn’t always known I wanted I was sure having a hard time accepting that I might not get it at all.

It was awful.

I mean, it’s supposed to be relatively easy isn’t it? Two consenting adults proclaiming their sweaty love for one another during the window of opportunity should at some point result in a child, should it not? I mean, all of my friends and family members – and I do mean ALL OF THEM, have had not a stitch of trouble in that respect. Surprise pregnancies, first tries, initial “throw caution to the wind” stuff has left them all with womb fruit, practically immediately. So what the hell was wrong with me?

The medical professionals will tell you this is normal. That even a healthy couple takes 6-12 months to conceive, that this isn’t anything to worry about. Sure I suppose, but tell that to my heart, my empty aching uterus and my overactive frontal cortex.

The resentment that built from that time was suffocating. It wasn’t fair, no one understood, and I was alone. Even my husband didn’t know the extent of what I was going through. It was the worst time in my life. I thought.

Until now.

You see, I obviously did eventually conceive. I don’t know if it was the position of the moon or the right number of gin and tonics but my husband’s swimmers finally broke through what I can only assume is my hostile uterus to create the world’s most perfect child. And we have contentedly lived there for quite some time.

Except now, a horrible thing has happened.

Apparently we are equipped with more than one biological clock, which I have to see is grievously unfair.

At some point, I started to feel that desire again; the one to make a child, and give my current child a sibling. I knew going into it that it would be hard. I knew that we weren’t hyper fertile, and I knew that soon I’d be back to the obsessive waiting, temping, peeing, checking, waiting, thinking, obsessing, peeing, waiting, waiting, waiting. I knew it all and yet, I allowed myself to feel a sense of hope. Maybe this time would be different.

Sure we were older, but our bodies had sorted it out before, so maybe they would remember. Perhaps this time it would work. Maybe, just maybe I wouldn’t spend two weeks out of the month waiting for one thing, to spend two more weeks waiting for the other, to have it all end in suffocating tears.

Sure, maybe, but no, not really.

So, here we are again, only this time, it’s arguably worse. All my friends are on baby 2+. They have lapped me, and beyond that, they are in my fucking face about it.

It’s so dark here. So very lonely. I don’t have anyone to reach out to. No one wants to hear me whine month over month about not getting pregnant. No one has time to listen, they don’t care, and frankly no one understands because I have a kid so I should A – be happy and B – there can’t possibly be a reason I can’t have another.

But I’m not, and somehow, there is.

Then there is the kid I have, asking why everyone else has a brother or a sister, asking me for one, telling me how good of a sister she would be.

And the thing is, I know. I know she would be, and she deserves to be, and I want her to be.

It’s just that I can’t seem to give it to her.

This whole process is wrought with ten thousand painful moments. The way my daughter fawns over new babies, the way my painfully fertile friends exclaim things about their perfectly timed children, the way people assume that the only reason I’m not pregnant is that I’m not trying.

People don’t understand, or maybe they don’t care. I don’t know if I’d care if I was one of the people who got pregnant bumping into her husband in the hallway one night. I don’t know if I’d get the crushing pain of seeing a negative test over and over if I’d literally never seen one myself. I don’t know if I would be able to listen to someone cry about something they want so badly, when I already had it.

The way I handle other people’s pregnancy news is also a bone of contention I have with myself. It’s just so childish and pathetic. Jealously over wanting something someone else has, tears over their joy, more realization that I’m alone. That is not what the forming of life is about. It’s not about me, or what I can or cannot have. It’s about a child being brought into the world, and a fully grown adult being unable to see that for what it is borderlines on the ridiculous.

The face of the matter is people aren’t maliciously trying to cause me resentful little panic attacks which later cause huge fights with my husband because the raw hurt feelings and confusion are simply insurmountable at times. They don’t know that flippantly asking my child if she wants Santa to bring her a brother or sister causes a domino effect of questions I can’t answer and tears I can’t explain.

They aren’t cruel. They are simply enjoying the life of people whose bodies work effectively, and their perfectly timed children, and their ignorance to the loneliness that is this world. And frankly I should be happy for them, but honestly I fucking hate them for it. Every single time.