A New Year Begins

I'm a teacher. I'm sure that I've mentioned this before. I love my job. I love the students with whom I work. There is very little about my job that I dislike.

Tuesday will be the first day that the students come back to school. A time for renewal, a time for a new year. A time to face the questions.

I have a deep, foreboding feeling about the new year. Last year, when I was new at that school I faced the barrage of questions:
Do you have kids?
Why don't you have kids?
Are you going to have kids?
When are you going to have kids?
You know, my mom is your age and had four kids!
I managed to laugh off most of those comments and questions. It is hard to get angry with a child for asking those questions - even if that child is 17. They mean well. They are curious and just want to know more about you. One girl in particular likes to say "tick tick tick" to me every time she sees me. Luckily she graduated this past year, so I won't have to see her everyday. She thinks she's being cute, and I've shrugged her off with the old "oh, I have lots of time". The whole time I'm crying inside.

I know that the kids don't mean harm, but it still hurts. It makes me feel less than human. It makes me feel broken.

The past few days I've really been feeling down. Part of it is that summer is ending and winter always makes me sad. Part of it is that now that the HSG has shown that my tubes are clear, there is only one reason I'm not pregnant - my body isn't producing eggs. Part of it is the wait for the next cycle and the lack of concrete knowledge of when that cycle will start. But a big part of it is the fear that I have about going back to work and facing the questions.

I wish I had an easy solution for this, but I don't. The feeling will be there until I can be sure that I am pregnant and that it will be sustained. Hell, it may even be there until I bring home a healthy newborn... I don't know. I don't think that pregnancy or a baby is going to seem real until that point.