Sand through the glass

So it has been one year ago this weekend that I stopped birth control. Wow....time sure flies.
One year ago I decided to open myself to hope, to keep a little secret to myself, and to be excited about sharing news I didn't have yet. It was a bit vain and very naivie to hope that such a small decision would have as drastic results as I envisioned, but I guess that is the risk I took.

One year. 365 days. 12 months. No matter which way I spin it, count it, or look back on it, all I feel is the pit of my stomach.
I am currently watching "Julie&Julia" and the scene where Julia Child finds out her sister is pregnant flashed across my tv. I couldn't help but tear up while Julia sat and cried all while professing her happiness. The fact that I teared up at all, but especially in a movie I've seen before is proof of my melacholy. I can't help it. I feel a piece of her pain. Obviously I am not Julia Child in any way. I am barely a cook, I cannot keep house, I am not tall or glamrous or funny. But I do know how it feels when many women around you get pregnant and don't know how to handle it while you long with every fiber for a child of your own. I know how it feels to try and be happy for someone while you choke back sobs.
I do, like Julia, have a man who loves me to death, and for that I am very grateful. In this whole ordeal he has been there to make me smile, tell me I'm beautiful, and cry with me when that line doesn't show up month after month. I couldn't have made it without him. "He is the butter to my bread"...a bright spot in my day.

Yet still my greatest frustration, my not-so-hidden secret, my privately public struggle has seemed to take over my heart and mind, has tainted many relationships, and has made me miss so many changes in our life this past year. We have grown in so many ways together, we've had the courage to pick up our whole life and relocate it, we've survived and made it a wonderful first year and a half of marriage (aside from this stuff, though it helped us grow in ways too). Why do I feel like I missed all of that and more even though I was there?

Because in a way I did.

I missed a lot and I don't know how to bring myself back so I don't miss anything else.

So one year later....a whole lot of hour-glasses full of sand, 525,600 egg timers, 17 home pregnancy tests, 4 blood tests, and too many terrible Doctors appointments later and I am trying to not give up on that hope I started with. One year later and I am trying not to listen to that nasty voice in my head that has piped up for years before this and every month since one year ago...

Tomorrow is coming in less than two hours and I guess I have to go through it. Just one day...
Seems harder than it used to.