Searching

I keep searching for the right image or meme or quote to describe this feeling.

I'm looking for someone else's words to encompass this feeling.

I was readying myself to make space. I was preparing my body and mind for sharing them with another life.

The panic of finding a place with a bathroom to insert my noontime suppository was a feeling I was getting used to. The routine of the 7:45 'warm-up' and 8:00 injection. Watching Wheel of Fortune on a heating pad, keeping the vial tucked tightly underneath my arm. The feeling of a cold, wet alcohol pad prepping the injection site. Making sure to lay flat and disengage my muscles while trying not to think about the 3-inch needle piercing my skin and depositing oil deep into the muscle.

I remember how lovely that day was together—watching the bright white lining of my uterus on the ultrasound, seeing the bright flash and the white spot nestling into the white line, thinking, 'This little light of mine,' and continuing to sing that song every day while driving home. I held my stomach, hoping that what I was feeling was the beginnings of life.

How do you explain what it feels like to pump your body full of hormones for weeks, only to abruptly stop? The feeling of breasts swelling 2 cup sizes, being painful to the touch, a belly growing rounder with hormonal changes.

How do you explain the grief of something that never was? Our one shot, gone.

I've gone through an unviable pregnancy, a D&C, 2 hysteroscopies, polyps, a failed egg retrieval, and a failed transfer. Each time, I thought I was preparing my body to carry another life. I was making room. Preparing for pregnancy is like preparing for a long-term houseguest. I dusted the cobwebs, cleaned the walls and the floors, and changed the bedding. I cleaned out the closet to make space for their belongings. Now, all I'm left with is an empty room and an empty womb.