It was a year ago yesterday that I wrote my first diary entry. It seems like nothing much has changed in that year. I had hoped so much that I would be pregnant by now, but that is not the case. Throughout this past year I have learned that my husband and I really are infertile. We have discovered some reasons why conceiving children is difficult for us, but we have been unable to overcome those difficulties. Therefore life is continuing on much the same as it has since we were married over four years ago.

Tomorrow I will be signing a contract to teach school for another school year. This week a one student of mine got a new sister, and another student found out her sister is pregnant. They are are all reminders to me that my dreams have not come true. Maybe next year will be my last year of teaching. I keep saying that every year, but each potential last year ends up becoming the second-to-last then the third-to-last. It's a never-ending cycle.

Today I was reading The Trumpeter of the Swans by E. B. White. There's a part in it when the father swan asks the mother swan how she can bear to sit there all day on the eggs, not able to move. She says that she is willing to bear all those uncomfortable things for the sake of her baby swans.

That's how I feel. I have been told by a good friend that if I adopt I won't have to go through labor. Right now though, I would be willing to endure all the pain and discomfort just to have a baby of my own.

I had hoped that I would be over my slight depression by now, but I'm still not. I'm sick of infertility. I hate how it makes me feel. It makes me miserable. No one can see it one the outside. I hide it well, but inside it is tearing me apart.

I expect things to have changed a year from now. If I'm no closer to motherhood by then, I don't know how I'll be able to bear it.