Remember when I wrote about how nervous I was that I might have a baby? I think I'd written that while waiting for the little pink plus sign to appear.

Now I'm writing for the opposite reason. It is ten months later and there are only negative signs everywhere I look. Negative signs for me, and yet more soon-to-be-moms all over. New baby pictures splashed on every newsstand.

I regret any past minuscule second of wanting to delay motherhood. Of thinking that it was must be so easy and focusing on prevention. (Health class only teaches avoidance, never the opposite. I suppose it adds to the teenage feeling of invincibility: Total control.)

I'm reading a novel by Orson Scott Card called Shadow Puppets. Two of the characters get married and right away have IVF (in vitro fertilization) done. It was pretty funny to read this whole procedure in a novel...with the character taking drugs that when described, sound like Folistim and Clomid. It made it all sound so easy. These drugs that I want and don't want at the same time. (I'm trying to be natural and holistic, but too impatient, to in over my head without a naturalist in sight.)

My mom knows this TTC journey is starting to get to me. Mother-in-law doesn't know that we're having problems, just that we are open to having a baby now. She makes so many comments about wanting grandkids, about wanting photos from us. Doesn't she understand we'd have a child yesterday if we could! DH doesn't want to tell her because he thinks it's embarrassing. He, like me, thought this would be so easy.

I wish I could write a letter of complaint. "Dear Sirs: Enclosed, please find the dysfunctional ovaries and uterus. Please repair or exchange as soon as possible. Signed, Disgruntled Woman Who Wants to Wear Maternity Clothes While They're Still Fashionable."

A month ago, I apologized to DH ("darling husband," as all the ladies call them these days).

"I seem incapable of giving you what you want so dearly--a child of your own," I said.

He was quiet until he was sure he had my attention. And he fixed his eyes to my eyes. "Never think like that," he said, stern and loving. "I married you for you, because I love you. Not because you're my baby-maker. No matter what, I love you just the same."

I cracked a smile. And I try not to think that way. But it still hurts deep inside.

DH is happy to adopt, is planning to adopt no matter what. And I am all for it, too, but...

Is there something selfish in me that wants a child of our own genetic makeup? One that could be like he was as a boy? Or one that I'll recognize myself in? Or one who is totally different than either of us, but is absolutely perfect because he or she came from us?

I know I would love any child just the same. I know we're going to have our own story of falling in love with a baby in India and doing whatever we can to bring her home with us.

Maybe that's why I don't want to go to India in January....because I know I'll see all the babies and children and know that I can't bring them all on the plane with me.