Fair??

I know life isn't fair. I know it's not even supposed to be fair. And I know that for all the whining and hand wringing I do, there are a billion people who have stories to tell that are far worse than mine.

Like, for example, the two little orphaned African boys living in a mud hut, sleeping on tattered plastic sheets, eating when they can - like when the rain isn't pouring through the holes in their thinly thatched roof and putting out the fire they use to cook whatever food they can find. Their lives are immeasurably harder than mine, and from where I sat on my puffy loveseat watching theirs play out on the TV, my life kind of looked like a cakewalk. Mostly.

But even though I know I have a charmed life in a million and one ways, I still want to throw myself on the floor and whip up the world's biggest grown-up-lady tantrum. Legs kicking, arms flailing, screaming, crying, gnashing of teeth - the whole nine yards. And maybe one more yard for good measure.

Why oh why can't I get pregnant?

I've done it before. Granted, my record isn't stellar. We go to bed childless each night despite seeing two pink lines three separate times in the almost four years we've been trying. But I did it. I conceived. And had it not been for the fucked up medical system I would have put our toddler to bed a few hours ago. Read him a story, tucked him in, kissed him goodnight.

Instead I'm here ranting about the unfairness of life, and trying not to feel guilty about ranting about it.

Because, you see, I turn on the tap and clean, safe water pours out. I'm healthy (well, if you don't count the busted uterus). I'm loved. I love. I have money to buy food. I have money to buy the hiking boots I want. I was able to afford a good education. I had opportunities. I have opportunities. I have friends. I have family. I can see and hear. I can walk. Most of my hair isn't gray. I've lost almost 40 pounds. I'm full. I have security. I am understood. I have respect. I don't have insomnia. I'm not incontinent. I can run up the stairs. I have a backyard. I can dream. I have good memories. I am capable of making more. I have ideas. I laugh. I have straight teeth. I have a roof over my head. I have access to a doctor when I'm sick (or afraid I have breast cancer). I don't have to beg to survive. I don't just survive. I have nine million pens and about 15,000 balls of yarn in my stash.

But I don't have my babies - any of them. And someone - the gods, mother nature, fate - seems to think that's exactly the way it should always be.

That can't be fair. No matter what else I have, that can't be fair, can it?