To: Infertility - Love: Mrs. D

After meeting my friend's new 7-week old beautiful daughter for the first time last night, receiving all of my billing/insurance information to confirm prior to my first RE appointment, and waking up this morning to the most painful bladder infection I've had in years (yes, due to our strategic BD sessions TTC yet again this month), I am so fed up with everything. I'm kind of crabby. Okay, not kind of crabby... I am crabby. As I sit at my computer, slamming my third 15-ounce bottle of cranberry juice to ease the pain inside and outside down-there, I thought I would write a little letter.

Hey, infertility: YOU SUCK. Do you have any idea how much of my life you have now consumed? I think about you CONSTANTLY. Each time I use the restroom, make love to my husband, see a toddler running around at the park, have the pleasure of engaging in a conversation amongst women about breast-feeding, walk around the baby section at the mall, or find out that *another* friend is expecting, YOU ARE ALWAYS WITH ME. And you continue to make it feel like a dagger rips through my heart each time you remind me that you exist in my life. I hate you. I hate that you're a part of my life, and that you remind me about your presence ALL THE TIME. I have never felt so empty until you started screwing with my already-planned-out-thank-you-very-much life. You make me feel like I am not fully a woman. You make me plan specific times when I can have sex with the love of my life... screw the thought of true spontaneity. You remind us that, from your perspective, sex is all about the baby making attempts. You make me test, chart, and track everyday so that I can wait in anxious hope, only to be let down by another negative HPT right before delivering my monthly gift.

Infertility, as much as I am sick of you and never wanted you in my life in the first place, you actually have taught me a few things. First, I am pretty lucky to have the things I do have in my life, and maybe I did take them for granted at times. I am working on that. Second, I now have the most amazing sense of my body. I can feel when I ovulate, when I am getting AF, and when something just doesn't feel right. And third, you've taught me that I just cannot plan this out, and you are something I am just going to have to deal with. I don't necessarily like the third thing you've taught me, but it's becoming more and more of a realization, and I am starting to accept it and make plans to deal with you.

Infertility, you've taught me more than just the above. You've taught Mr. D and I both to be strength pillars for one another. I hate to give you credit for that, but it's true. I've never needed Mr. D more than I have in the past few months, and our bond is stronger now more than ever.

Infertility, if and when you ever choose to leave my life (or maybe at least ease up a bit and finally let me conceive a healthy baby), I promise I won't ever forget you. You've put me through more stress, anxiety, and emotional work than anything in my life, including a pretty tense career in Corporate America. You will stick with me like a bad-looking, faded, grayish-brownish-black tattoo that keeps getting uglier by the years. If your goal was to mess up my life, you can call this one mission accomplished.

But, I will win this war, infertility. In some shape or form... I will win.

So, in closing, infertility... you are welcome to leave anytime. I am sick of you and want nothing more than for you to leave for good.