It's just a bottle of pills.

I bought a bottle of prenatal vitamins about a year ago, the day I peed on a stick and it showed two lines.  I was so excited.  I bought a pregnancy book, too, which promptly scared the shit out of me and was banished to my bookcase.  (Who knew ham was bad?  Holy crap!)

My surprise only stuck around for a week, and then a week after that it was all over; my life was back to "normal".

I banished the prenatals for a couple months, then my hormones went into overdrive and I could think of nothing but getting pregnant again; I dug them out of the closet and started taking them nightly, so I would be prepared, covered, all set when the next set of double lines appeared.  

It's been almost a year; the vitamin bottle is empty, the book has been passed to my pregnant sister/cousin, and if peed on a stick right now, there would only be one line.

I think I'm okay with it all, with the way everything has played out.  I'd say "no big deal", but then I'd have to ascribe another cause to these tears welling up.

I thought I'd be a mom by now.  I really did.  I thought for sure nothing would go wrong and everything would be perfect.  When things went wrong, I was shocked.  How cruel reality can be.

Then I was going to be pregnant by Christmas.  When that didn't happen, I thought, "Surely by summer."  It's September.

I'm accepting that maybe "parents" isn't a title we're destined to claim.  As I type those words, I'm thinking in the back of my mind, "but I'm only 31.  Lots of women have babies at 32, 33, 34..."

Getting pregnant is something I always thought I'd be able to do whenever I decided I was ready to do it.  Even now, I still hold this little thought that says, "If I bought some of those ovulation predictor things, or charted my temperature; if I really TRIED, I'd be successful."  Maybe it's true.  The fear that maybe it's not is what keeps me from taking those steps.

I thought we'd be parents by now.  I thought for sure it was our reality.

I believe things come to you when you're ready for them; that the universe has a way of putting people, places, things in your life at precisely the right moments, just when you need them, or maybe not until you're able to cope with them.  I hope it's just not our turn yet, not our time.  I fear it may never be our turn, but maybe there's something different, better out there for us.  The not knowing is the hardest part; I feel like I could accept the answer either way, if only I could just know what it is.