I started my period yesterday. Again.

This will be the 5th unsuccessful month for us.

Maybe you are reading that and rolling your eyes because you have been trying for 2 years or maybe you are reading that and you are relating because, like me, your period came again too. Either way, I’m so sorry you are going through this. Nobody deserves it.

I never dreamed it would take this long for us to conceive so each month that passes just takes a little bit more out of me. When I was 20, I had a one-night fling with my ex-boyfriend. We didn’t use protection so I took the Plan B pill the next day. 4 weeks later I tested positive on a pregnancy test. We just celebrated my perfect, beautiful, brilliant daughter’s 8th birthday and I thank God every day that pill didn’t work.

I married my best friend last year and while we weren’t planning on growing our family quite yet, we were thrilled to find out last October that we were expecting. Looking back at a calendar we realized this pregnancy also occurred from a one night encounter. My husband travels a lot for work and he was gone most of that month. I went for lab work around my 6 week mark and everything came back perfect. We went to our first ultrasound at 8 weeks and they were unable to locate a baby. Just an empty sac and fetal pole. I was told I had a “blighted ovum” and was asked if I wanted to speed up the process by taking some pill to force my body into miscarriage or if I wanted to just let my body take care of it naturally. I chose the natural path and they scheduled me to come back in 2 weeks for another ultrasound. If my body hadn’t rejected the pregnancy by then, I would have to have a medically induced miscarriage because of the risk for infection by that point. We spent every single day for the next 2 incredibly long weeks living in total fear, devastation, and mourning. My body had still failed to miscarry on it’s own so I went back for the ultrasound. There was our baby. Bouncing around. Strong heartbeat. Lots of growth. My doctor was astounded and didn’t have any other explanation than we were off on our date. I thank God every day that I didn’t take that pill at the first appointment. I still don’t understand any of this but I believe in miracles so I choose to go with that. They brought me in at 12 weeks for another ultrasound and the baby was there but the heartbeat was gone. They sent me in for a D&C first thing the next morning. It was 6 days before Christmas.

It took me 6 months to heal enough emotionally to try again. And now here I am, 5 failed cycles into it and 10 days away from it being one year since we found out we were pregnant with our sweet angel baby.

I’m sharing this with you because I feel defeated by this process. I feel empty in every sense of the word. I feel broken. I feel desperate. I feel rejected. I feel lost. I feel like I am failing. More than anything, I feel so alone.

How is it that I was able to become pregnant TWICE, by having sex ONE time, without trying? And now that we ARE trying, and doing EVERYTHING we’re supposed to, BEGGING God to let this be our month- only to be met with rejection over and over again? I can’t make sense of this.

I’m done. The ovulation strips, the apps for tracking, the temping, the expensive lubricants, the stress of timing intercourse, the anxiety filled two-week waiting period, the hope I felt with every sore boob or ache in my pelvis, the count down to how many days until I could test, the planning on how we would announce and when would we tell our daughter she was going to be a sister, the countless negative results, and the end result of a period being my answer at the end of all of that every single time. I’m done with all of it. I can’t do it anymore.

My cup is empty.