Defeated.

I have never posted here before today but this marks the first, and probably only time, I ever will. I just have to spit out everything I'm feeling and thinking before it destroys me and this is the only place I feel like I can do it.

I'll start by saying that nobody knows of the struggle my husband and I have been having while TTC. We've kept our wishes and prayers for a healthy little baby from friends and family thus far with the hopes of surprising both of our parents with their first grandchild. And while the surprise sounded like a great idea in the beginning, it's left me with no one to talk to about these intense emotions that I didn't know I could feel. This will probably be all jumbled up and make little sense to anyone reading, but spilling here is all I have left. I honestly think TTC has officially pushed me into depression.

3 days ago marked 14 months TTC and finding out I wasn't pregnant this time was different. This time was the worst yet. We'd had 13 other months of false hopes but this one was easily the biggest punch to the gut. I've cried for nearly 3 days straight. Every tiny little thing starts the water works. To begin, I am very regular with my cycles - 28 days from start to start and each month of defeat was presented by AF showing up, right on time. 18 years of always being so regular. But not this time. This time, I was 9 days late. I was absolutely ecstatic. Elated. I had this feeling in my heart that this was it. I was just so positive. I was CERTAIN that this was it.

I started dreaming of how I would be able to tell my amazing husband that we had finally done it. After fighting adversity with some underlying issues that we both had, I was going to be able to tell this wonderful man that we did it. It took 14 months but somehow, we did it this time. God was finally going to give us the little baby boy or girl that we were both dreaming of. I was so excited to thank him for never loving me any less when I would lean on him for support each month when AF would pop my tiny bubble of hope. I was so excited to thank him for giving me this opportunity at motherhood that for years I never thought would appeal to me. Bottom line, I was excited for US and the family I was certain we were about to start.

I also started dreaming of how we would be able to announce at Christmas time! How exciting that would be for both of our families. I started dreaming of how we could take announcement pictures with a baseball theme this fall, since our baby would be due in the summer. I started dreaming of how our little boy or girl would have a summer birthday and with living on a lake like we do, how it would be so fun for them growing up to have their friends to the house for their birthday parties, to swim and ride the boat and play in the sand. I created our perfect future in my head and it was so vivid. It was going to be beautiful. The only thing that was missing was the BFP.

9 days late with a negative pregnancy test is definitely not unheard of. I have some friends that were/are pregnant that took longer than that to see their BFPs so I wasn't worried at all. And even when I saw the minimal spotting on that day 9, I really wasn't too worried about that either. Slight spotting is very common too, so no big worries there. But then came the pain. Then came the heavy bleeding. Was it AF or was it different? Why was it so bright red? Why was it clots? Why did it hurt SO much this time? With AF normally, I wouldn't really ever experience many PMS symptoms. Minimal cramps if any, occasional slight headache, but nothing crazy. This was so different. This HURT. And it was so sudden and heavy, so different than normal.

I was absolutely defeated. I AM absolutely defeated. I am lost. I still hurt physically today, but this emotional hurt is worse than any pain I have ever experienced before. My eyes well up with tears at every, constant, reminder that everyone around me is pregnant while I am still not. Every baby announcement spread on my Facebook wall...everywhere I look, there's pregnant women around me...every invite to a friend's baby shower...every comment from a friend about "we accidentally slipped up one night and oops, now we're pregnant"... It is never ending. And not only do the constant reminders take a toll emotionally but then I hate myself for not being happy for those around me so fortunate to be able to create a new life. I should be happy for those people, but I'm not. And that makes me feel like a horrible person.

This barrage of emotions and negativity isn't anything like I've ever had to try to deal with before. I feel so alone. I feel like a failure. I feel like a poor excuse of a woman. I feel like I'm constantly letting my husband down and I know this is taking a toll on our marriage. I look back to pictures of us from a couple years ago, before all of this TTC and we looked so happy. We are losing that every month we fail. But the worst feel of them all - I feel like I'm being punished by God. What did I do wrong? Where did I screw up so bad that he would force me to feel this way? Such a hate for myself. I wish I knew. I wish I could see now what the plan for us is, so that I could make sense of why God is testing us like this. I wish I could convince myself that I'm not worthless. But that convincing is going to be a long uphill battle. Being this low is not something I have ever dealt with before. I'm not sure I walk away from being defeated here.