Ok.. so the first bit is....
I used to grasp at names like they were pieces of parchment floating through the air. Precious scraps of feather light substance that I would craft together and fashion into my armour. A patchwork quilt of promises: Abigail, Emily, Oliver, Thomas, Evelyn, Elizabeth, Rose, Ella. Each letter in each name a thread I held against my cheek as comfort; a faint whisper of things yet to come.
That started in my mid teens. Drifting off into daydreams about Moses baskets and high chairs. I would get lost in the romance of motherhood, certain that it was my only destiny. Yet here I am. In my thirties and the only thing that has changed is the intensity of my desire. Every waking second is another moment without my child. It starts as I wake up - would you have sneaked into my room, too excited by the day ahead to sleep a minute more? Would you jump on my bed, bursting with impatient energy because the world is still your oyster? Would I get the chance to brush my teeth, wash my hair, smooth in the body lotion I use, before you dragged me into your world? All the tiny, mundane things of every day stick in my side like little pink fingers, a cruel reminder of what I don?t have.
Not for lack of wanting. I want you with enough force that it amazes me all the time that you don?t just Appear. That I haven?t just woken up one morning to find you inside me. A tiny knot of hope, swelling my belly with pride and love and arms and fingers?Even now, writing this, everything inside me reaches for you. I feel the air in my lungs and the blood in my veins pushing against my skin; even the hairs on my arms stand up in the effort to brush against you. How can it be that I don?t even know what you look like and yet my heart beats echo inside me, because I?m empty without you.
I would have sex and during it I would be begging with my partner, silently pleading with him to empty himself inside me. Of course, that never happened. Although that never seemed to matter. Afterwards I would walk around, convinced that this time was the time I would conceive, revelling in this heated secret I carried in the pit of my stomach.
I never was pregnant though. Obviously. Every day in the week leading up to my period I would wake up and walk to the bathroom fearfully. Each day that I wasn?t bleeding was like a reprieve, a day filled with light and colour because Of Course, I was pregnant. Some months, my period would be late by a week or two and I savoured each morning, triumphant. Perhaps this was the month I had done what it took to convince whoever it was in control of these things that I was worthy of this gift.
Inevitably, my period came. A flood bursting through my dam of prayers and need and want. And then I would cry. Great tears of pain that my partner would try to wipe away but I couldn?t let him touch. The hurt I felt inside would manifest itself into something so physical that if he touched me I thought my skin would fall off my bones, chunks of weeping flesh sacrifices to a God that wouldn?t give me a child.