Nope.

It's all over except for the beta. 14dpo, no line, and the pre-AF spotting started today. No surprise, really; I've known for over a week.

I think I'm coming up to an important turning point, because for the first time ever, I'm not sure I really want to try again. Usually after a negative I get all determined and scrappy, and put my fists up for the next round. This time I just feel tired. The thought of scraping together the meds, sticking myself every night, getting up early and going to the clinic every morning - it's just too much.

I have a lot of feelings about "giving up." One of the biggest problems I have is the sense that it'll just be one more way in which I'm not a real woman. And there are already so many ways. You all know I'm single. Well, here's confessional time. I didn't date until I was in my late 20's, didn't have sex until my mid-30's, and since that partner I've fooled around a bit but not often and not "all the way." Of course there are many reasons for this, starting way back when I was very young. And it's insanely embarrassing for me to admit (although the fact that I can admit it at all is a testament to how much therapy I've had in my life). But my point is that already for me sex, while not entirely out of my grasp, is not the same as for other women.

So I'm not a real woman in that I don't have a partner, don't share my life with anyone, don't have someone who loves me more than anyone in the world. Sex is not a regular part of my life. I am weird. And now if I can't get pregnant, and don't ever give birth, I will be that much different from other women. I won't go through that rite of passage, won't be able to know what it feels like to have a baby kick inside me, won't have the incredibly empowering, life-changing experience of giving birth, won't be part of the circle of life, the sisterhood, whatever. I just feel like I'm always the strange one, on the outside looking in.

I'm also struggling with feeling really, really old. In absolute terms I know I'm not, but the fact of the matter is that I am too old to have a child. I have always, through all my struggles, been able to hang on to the thought that other people have managed to pull their lives together and I can too - it's not too late. Well, now it is too late. Truly. And there's nothing I can do about it. So I am keenly aware of time having passed me by.

In French they use the same word for "failing" an exam and "missing" a train or bus. It's also used to describe a life, as in "he failed/missed his life." So that's the feeling I'm having now that I stare failure in the face.

J'ai raté ma vie. Or rather: Je me suis ratée la vie.*

*If you know French you'll understand the difference here; it has to do with me being the one who's responsible for what happened, as in "I did it to myself."