The Most Dangerous Side-Effect

She gave me five white pills with specific instructions on when to take them. They were small, these white pills. One morning, I almost forgot to take one; another morning, I almost dropped one down the drain as I wrestled it from its packaging.  They were little, these white pills, but they had a big job. They were supposed to right the hormones and balance things out and make my body do what it is supposed to do. They were supposed to slant the odds in our favor.

They came with a list of possible side-effects, these small, white pills. You know the ones: headache, nausea, dry-mouth, dizziness, heart attack and death... Yeah, those kind. I had researched and read about stories of these side-effects, and I hoped I'd be part of the lucky few who escaped unscathed. Well, no such luck.

It was the day that I took the fourth pill that the side-effects started. For thirteen days in a row, I battled headaches from the moment I woke up until the time I could finally go to bed again. The nausea came in waves; I cramped at times when I shouldn't have cramped; I was unrecognizably irritable; I cried at commercials and got unreasonably frustrated at baked-on scum as I did dishes.  For over three weeks, I felt like I didn't know myself. The side-effects were strong, I only hoped it was worth it. But perhaps that which was the hardest of all, the most dangerous of all the side-effects, was that tiny sliver of hope that wormed its way into both of us. This month we had a reason to hope. And that was hardest of all.

After over two years of trying, our hope seems to be waning. After all, it does seem a bit ridiculous to continue doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for different results. So, even though every month is full of hope followed by disappointment, our hope is somehow tempered by a bit of reality that says, "You didn't do anything different this month. Don't expect too much." But, this month was different. Those tiny white pills changed everything. And, in an instant, the walls that we'd built around our hope came crashing down allowing hope to soar - that tender, delicate thing - making its crash landing all the more painful.

I can handle the nausea, the cramping, the headaches... but this hope? It's just too much for me.