I read books. I took herbs. I bought two different thermometers. I made tedious notes in the morning and evening on the nature of my vaginal discharge and my basal body temperature. I peed on white ovulation strips. I saw several doctors. I had my uterus cleaned out and my fallopian tubes flushed with a black dye. I was told my ovaries were small. I was told my ovaries were just right. I went to acupuncture, where I was told my body was a cold environment, so, for a while, I ate only warm foods.

         I had sex every night. I had sex every other night. I had sex only when I was very sure I was ovulating. I propped my hips up on pillows after he came, so I’d have gravity on my side, then set ten-minute timers and lay very still so the semen could make its journey undisturbed. I cut out alcohol. I cut out coffee. I ate handfuls of almonds and many hard-boiled eggs. I drank herbal tea that my sister's boyfriend's mom said helped women in ancient times. I tried “not trying” [cue sarcastic laugh]. I rubbed oils, lit sage, burned incense, rubbed stones, and said prayers.

         If anything, I was always afraid of getting pregnant. I dreaded the vomiting and the dilating and the pushing. I never considered that I might not be able to get pregnant.

         My mother had four children, her sister had five, and both of my grandmothers had several. My Nana once told me, “I was pregnant the minute his pants hit the floor,” and I took that as a good sign since I was a lot like her.

         When we started trying in the summer of 2016, I was a twenty-seven-year-old, full-fledged-period-having, ovulation-oozing, operating machine of a woman. The most agonizing days were the ones leading up to my scheduled period. I’d become a highly attuned animal, analyzing every slight symptom. Were my nipples darker? Were my breasts larger? I’d hang, bent over, naked in front of the mirror, cupping one then the other, each of my hands a delicate scale.

         I endlessly googled “early signs of pregnancy” to confirm my suspicions. I googled it even though I had googled it the last time and the time before that. Is a sore throat an early sign of pregnancy? Is acne, is dizziness, is cramping, is spotting, is being thirsty, is forgetfulness, is heavy discharge, is increased sex drive. Unfortunately, the early signs of pregnancy were ambiguous and frustratingly similar to period symptoms. According to one source, an early sign of pregnancy was “being pregnant.”

         Then there was the moment my period would start, and another cycle of longing and wondering would end. I grieve for women everywhere who experience this. I want to meet them right there at the toilet. I want to be there when they wipe, or stare at the stain in their underwear, or look into the toilet bowl and realize once more that it didn’t work. I want to kneel down, put my hands on their knees, and tell them that they are not alone.

         After a year of trying, I decided just to believe I would get pregnant. To prove my faith, I bought a present for the baby. I nearly changed my mind as I walked up the stairs into our local bookstore’s baby section. I felt like an imposter in that world of amber-beaded teething necklaces, parenting self-help books, and woodland-printed onesies. I took deep breaths as I passed books with titles like Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes. I caved and pulled On the Night You Were Born off the shelf, then quickly put it back when I started crying. I felt ridiculous.

         Doctors have told me that infertility is often unexplainable. Meanwhile, doctors operate on the brain, cure cancers, conduct heart transplants. After all these years, some 107 billion births later, we resign to the mystery. Me. My body.

         What do I imagine goes on in there? I have several narratives. One is the volcano experiment from elementary school. Like vinegar and baking soda, the semen just fizzles, almost burns instantly upon entry. Another is that both the semen and the eggs are lost in a thick fog and cannot seem to find each other. They call out and call out until they tire and drift off into the vast universe of my body, untethered from any sense of responsibility. Sometimes I think that something starts to happen, but then I take too hot of a bath, or I twist too much in yoga, or I just worry too much, and it dies.

         Sometimes I entertain all the ways in which I would break the good news to my husband if and when a pregnancy test comes back positive. In one scenario, I can’t stop smiling, and so the secret sits only momentarily between us in the ten feet between our driveway, where he pulls up, and our front door, where I stand. In another, I am cautious. I hold the secret for six weeks, not wanting to give him false hope. I secretly attend my first appointment and drive home in perfect bliss. But by far, the most likely episode includes me emerging from the bathroom, a crying, screaming, pants-less bundle of joy.