Sometimes I really feel like I’ve made it. I’m coping with my reality and managing to forge ahead and smile despite the pain. But then, something always comes up that shakes me off balance, and I’m reminded of how fragile I really am. Like the time I came to work one morning, and as I turned on my computer in the school office, the date on the screensaver stung me like a slap across the face. April 11. It was my due date. What’s a due date without a bag packed, help on call for the other kids… without a baby?

It was a really hard day at the office. Trying to ignore the tightness in my throat, I swallowed hard and got to work. Just a few minutes later, a morah walked over to my desk with a shy preschooler trailing behind her. “Give a big mazel tov to Yaelli! Her mother just had twin boys, and we’re here for some posterboard to make a mazel tov sign!” I barely managed to choke out a response as I got her the paper she needed — I pasted a smile on my face until they were gone. After they left, I crumpled. I tried not to let my mind wander, but the contrast was too much to bear. I came home that day dejected and hopeless.

At that point, I had only lost two. Only.

Strangely enough, I felt more confident about my most recent pregnancy than I had about my others. We all say that Hashem only gives us what we can handle, and I knew, I really knew, that I couldn’t handle another loss. This would be our rainbow baby. Our yeshuah, our light at the end of the tunnel. So when it didn’t turn out that way, we were completely blindsided. I remember the technician looking at the silent screen and pursing her lips; “I’m not supposed to say anything, but I think we both know what we’re looking at.” I was more devastated than I thought possible. If I thought this would get easier, it doesn’t. Each time feels more isolating, feeling like I’m more of an anomaly as I find that fewer and fewer of my family and friends can say that they’ve also been through this.

Since this nightmarish chapter of my life began, I feel like I’m living at the edge of my seat, frantically turning page after page waiting for things to get better, to get normal. It’s tough leaving the questions unresolved, being told that there’s nothing wrong with me when nothing seems to be going right. Like the page that you think should come next, that you’re certain should be there, is missing. After you’re expecting, you have a baby. For sure if you made it to the second trimester, right? Isn’t that what comes next? I always thought so. So many assumptions and conclusions that used to make up the fabric of my life just don’t feel like a given anymore. I’m coming to learn that they never were.

But if there’s one thing that is a given, it is this: I’m not the author of this book, and neither are the doctors. I could never write a story like this, so it’s a good thing I’m not the one in charge. I remind myself every day that the author is Hashem, my Father, and He’s penning the events of my life with love and wisdom. Even as I struggle to function through the fog of pain and uncertainty, I have the reassurance that these difficult chapters are not cruel plot twists designed to tug at the heartstrings of a faceless audience, nor are they random acts of chance. As I brace myself to face each day, with its unknown challenges and hurdles, I allow that knowledge to comfort me.

At first, every woman I saw wearing maternity or strolling with a newborn hurt me deeply, as if she was a personal attack and tangible reminder of my own emptiness. Until it was my neighbor who confided her upcoming simchah. She didn’t know how impeccably awful her timing was — that I was a couple weeks after a loss, that her due date so nearly matched my own.

It really is too painful to compete and compare, but my mind tortures me sometimes, and the thought caught me off guard: It’s also her fourth pregnancy. You never made it that far. After the conversation ended, the thought rolled around in my mind, until I held it for a moment and said aloud: “You don’t know that.” Do I know that this is her fourth pregnancy? Why make assumptions that are bringing me grief and throwing negativity at my friend, or anyone else? I don’t know their story any more than they know mine.

When Hashem decides for me to have another child, I will greet that simchah with so much happiness and even greater relief. I’d never want someone to resent me for it, or begrudge me that joy. So through my tears, alone in my kitchen, I silently wished her the best. I can honestly say that I’ve never said b’sha’ah tovah to anyone with as much feeling and heartfelt wishes as I do today. Because ultimately, that’s what I’m davening for, too. Whenever that time will be.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 909)