I don’t know how to tell you. But I wish you understood what I’m going through

Dear Mommy,

Life has been hitting me hard lately. Infertility is awful — and it’s not just about the waiting, though that part is agony. It haunts me every second of the day. All I can think about is how much I want to have children. But there’s so much more to it than that sense of emptiness. There’s the medical side — the exhausting, relentless, invasive part that no one sees.

That’s why it hurts me when you tell me to “just grow up and call XYZ” about something. I know I’ve always hated making phone calls to strangers, but Mommy... do you have any idea how many people I’ve had to speak to over these past few years? How many times I’ve pushed past my comfort zone, over and over again? Doctors. Nurses. Rabbanim. Counselors. Fertility organizations. It never ends.

Mommy, I’ve done things I never thought I could do. Things that go against every part of who I was. I was the kid who turned green at the whine of an ambulance siren. But now? Now, I can inject myself with medications like it’s nothing. And I want you to know. I want you to be proud of me, of the way I pick myself up off the floor and try again. Proud of how I go on and on, without a break, without an end in sight.

And still, at the end of it, all I’m left with is a broken heart and one lonely pink line.