There is a question that I hate being asked, both because it is painful, and because there is no correct answer. That question is, “Do you have any children?”  If I say no, then I am denying two people that I love more than anything.  I do have children, but I was not blessed as most are, to have my children alive.  If I say yes, there is the dreaded follow up of “How many? How old are they?” And I don’t want to go into the horrible, personal details of my life with someone that I don’t really know. There is also the case where it is a student who asks this question, and I find myself saying “No” because I can’t and won’t discuss that with a child. 

I hate being asked this, because it is a painful reminder of what I have lost. Because it makes me feel like a failure. I don’t care what people say, how many times someone tells me it isn’t my fault, being unable to produce living children twice makes me feel as though I have failed. 

I was told by a doctor that I probably would not be able to have children without medical intervention, but to my surprise about a month later I found out I was pregnant with my first child. My joy was very short lived.  About a year later, I had been feeling strange so I took a pregnancy test again. When it was positive, I felt equal parts elation and terror. We took every precaution to ensure this baby’s safety.  I left my job, we left our home and moved in with Ryan’s parents.  I was careful what I ate, and what I did. I got exercise, but not so much as to strain Nico. I went to every doctor’s appointment. I took my vitamins. I prayed every day for his health and safety. I loved him, and I felt him grow and move and take on a personality. I talked to him and I sang to him. I wrote him letters.  I prepared our room for him, I planned our lives. We had a shower and I went shopping several times to have everything he needed.

That horrible day still came.

My body still failed me.

That made two times that I had to go from carrying a growing life, to carrying a corpse inside me. Two times my body went into labor without the reward at the end. The first time I was put under anesthesia and my body delivered the baby on its own.  The second time, labor had to be induced and I spent a very long horrible weekend waiting for my body to be ready to deliver Nico.  

I felt empty.

Twice now, I had gone from feeling a person grow inside of me, to being an empty vessel with nothing to show for my hard work and pain.

I struggle daily with finding a purpose, for a reason to justify my existence. Two times, I thought I’d found my purpose only to lose it. I struggle every day with seeing people with children, feeling a horrible burning jealousy and anger. It isn’t their fault that they are so blessed. Yet I wonder if they have any idea what they have, how lucky they are.

As I go through the motions of life, be it cleaning, cooking, reading, watching TV or working, I find myself asking why? What is the point? In what way is my existence beneficial to the universe? And I don’t say this in a way to imply that I feel suicidal at all…that’s not something I would ever do. I know that I am loved and that people would be affected by me being gone. I am simply saying that I feel lost.

I feel like somebody dropped me off in the middle of a desert with no canteen, no shelter and no map; and I have to push myself every day to keep looking for water, to keep walking with hope that I will find life and the edge of the desert. It would be so much easier to dig a hole, climb in and give up. There is a very tiny, very quiet voice inside me giving me hope, encouraging me to continue.  Insisting that one day it will be better. Some days I believe the voice.  Some days I am certain that I will never find what I am looking for.