The definitive answer: No.

The journey began here and here.

It ends here.

This week was the week we were to know if it was a yes or a no.  If we would be on the trek to having a child.  The answer my body gave me was no.

I've never been one to look forward to my cycle and this time was no different.  Except that I dreaded it.  I spent the last two weeks pretending that I wasn't spending every moment dreading what I knew would come.  Hoping, against hope, that it wouldn't.

Life's a bitch.

When the answer came, I fell apart.  I wish I could say that I met it with a stoic bracing of my shoulders, a nod to the whimsy that is the reproductive system, and a knowledge that something else was meant to be.  I wish I could say that I didn't curl into the fetal position and sob.

I can't.

Luckily, The Guy was home on a rare extra day off.  He took care of me while my world -- the one I had planned in my head -- crumbled around me.  He brought me tea, held my hand, did what good men do.  He felt helpless because he couldn't fix it.  But, who could?

I slept a few hours and then moved to lay motionless on the couch.  We watched TV and just waited.  A few hours later, I fell apart again, dissolving into a boneless pile on the floor.  The Guy picked me up, got me to bed and waited with me while I grieved.

I am grieving.  I didn't expect that.  I didn't expect the similar pain to a death of a loved one.  The pain in my heart where I knew a hole had been bored and could never be filled in the same way again.  I am grieving the loss the children I have already named.  The children I have waited for since I was a teenager.  The ones I have saved things for with the thought that I will share them with my daughter, read them to my son, experience them with my children.

I am grieving the daughter with my mother's eyes.  I am grieving the son who copies the behaviours of my husband because he wants to be just like him.  I am grieving hours of diaper changes, late nights, fighting over homework, learning to ride a bike, and playing with the dog in the park.

We don't know what the future will bring.  Maybe we will be the couple who travels the globe and experiences everything and who cannot say their life is not as full.  Maybe we will be the dog hoarders who behave as though the 4 legged creatures are children and act as though that fills the void.

Maybe we will try again when we can afford it and when The Guy doesn't live in terror thinking that I will fall apart again.