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babies...

so, maybe it's the ticking of my biological clock or maybe it's that I can't look at Facebook for more that 15 seconds to see my friends with their beautiful babies but I feel like I am literally losing my mind with baby fever.  I've wanted a baby for as long as I can remember, I did go through many a phase of "I'm never going to have babies" but anyone who knew me knew it was just exactly that - a phase.  After getting married 5 years ago, Ryan and I had several baby "scares" - they may have been scares to him, but to me, they were moments of pure excitement.  Unfortunately, no babies ever came.  We are at a phase now where I think people are assuming that we just don't want to have children.  Where a few years ago we couldn't go more than a few days without someone asking "when are you going to start a family??" we now only get the awkward question "you guys don't have kids?"
Seeing friends complain about how hard life is with kids or how jealous they are that we can go to the movies or out to dinner if we want makes me want to scream.  We are taking advantage of being married with no kids, we go on weekends away and out to dinner mid-week, we sleep in late on the weekends and that stuff, but no amount of naps in the afternoon or spontaneous days at the lake can fill the pain of longing for a child.
For everyone who says they understand - only a handful of you do: everyone's pain is different.  For everyone who knows someone who had a hard time conceiving and now has children: every body is different - for some, those stories hurt more than heal.  For those people who think adoption is as easy as filling out a form: it is not - and for some, it is especially complicated.
Each and every day, I wake up praying that I will make it through the day without a breakdown, that I can smile and be excited for new parents, that I can be enthusiastic over baby pictures from friends and family, that I can show love to those parents who don't show appreciation for their children, that I can avoid judgement on those who abuse and neglect their children, and that I can have faith that one day this pain and longing will be taken from me, or I will have a child to hold in my arms and teach to love the world and all that comes with it.

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