A word that isn't

"There is, I am convinced, no picture that conveys, in all its dreadfulness, a vision of sorrow, despairing, remediless supreme. If I could paint such a picture, the canvas would only show a woman looking down at her empty arms." (Charlotte Bronte)

My heart aches. Even in the midst of keeping on keeping on, it just -- aches.  Frankly, the word ache isn't sufficient to describe it.  I know no word that truly describes it.  And I don't know if it'll ever go away.

Proverbs 30 reads, "...weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning." 

So... when is this morning they speak of?  This night has been awfully long.

Is it really always darkest before the dawn?  

My night has certainly taken a turn for the dark over these last several months.  It's not the same grief as it was seven years ago, or three years ago...   Even just a year ago, I still hoped.  Hope evened out the grief. It was a roller coaster ride, to be sure, but the hope that the next cycle might just be the one...  the next treatment might just work... maybe, just maybe I'd be a mom soon.  This hope always brought me back.  That hope is gone. 

Infertility with no hope for momdom - with no options left - is just...  well, it's a word that isn't.  There is no word to describe it: ache, grief, sorrow, pain...  they only scratch the surface.  This wordless place is one that even my dear IF friends don't understand - because they have hope.  Wonderfully so, many are even coming out the other side - with arms full.  But I realize now that fellow IFers only understand up to a point - up to the point where the road forks. 

It feels like uncharted territory here, as if I'm (not so) boldly going where no one has gone before.  Those who are still trying, oh - I truly hope and pray they never get here.  When they reach the fork in the road, I pray they take the road more traveled, one way or another - the road to momdom.  As hard as it is to be here, I don't want any of them to join me!

Yet I am grateful to not have to go it alone; Ar makes for awfully good company.  He wishes he could stop this word that isn't; I believe he'd stand and fight anyone or anything to the death to stop it - if only he could. 

Nothing seems to stop the word that isn't.  I wonder if it will ever go away?  

Even so, "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 'The Lord is my portion,' says my soul, 'therefore I will hope in him.'"  (Lamentations 3:22-24)