When songs about motherhood come on, I dream of a child of my own. I usually turn it off before the melody reaches the chorus. I can’t let that crescendo build. I can’t let that pain grow. I want to be a mother — but how can I want that when I’m not yet a wife?

I have a list of names pinned to the front page of my siddur — couples who are spending tens of thousands of dollars for their chance at parenthood. They’re waiting for the doctor to say that, finally, after years, it’s their time to have a child.

All I’m waiting for is a husband. There’s no reason I can’t start a family right now — except that I don’t yet have someone to start it with.

Can I say that I feel an ache? Can I share that when a friend mentions she’s baruch Hashem expecting again, I bite my lip in order not to cry? Can I tell you that when someone walks into the room with a sweet little baby my heart painfully skips a beat? When someone mentions that their kids kept them up, I think about my own fitful sleep?

Sometimes the image of my one-day family helps me sleep at night, but the faith crashes when the dream ends each morning. When I wake up to another day of wanting, another day of davening for two things at once.

I want to find my husband, and I want to meet my children. I can’t have the second without the first, and I want them both.

There was a time when I noticed every couple walking down the street. I saw the way they spoke and laughed and smiled endlessly at each other as though they were the only people in the world.

Today, I notice every stroller. I see the way the moms peek over and the soft smiles they offer at the bundle inside. It’s there — this gaping void. This lack. This hope that hurts.

I feel it each time another month passes, every time another dating saga ends. I’m still a stage behind — the one who isn’t married. That heartbreak is festering and growing and pulling and tingling.

You see me as single, not childless, but most days, I feel both.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 786)