Breathe With Me (Playing For Keeps #5)

by Becka Mack

Two years, and endless negative pregnancy tests. Two years, and too fucking many cracks in my foundation. Too many steps out to sea when I don’t know how to swim. Too many treks without daylight when I’m terrified of the dark.

I’m fucking exhausted, but the most exhausting thing by far? The grief that comes with each failed cycle, month after month, and the way I feel every ounce of hope leave my body. Just for me to manage to find a shred of it again the next month, to latch onto the idea of a miracle, battle against that giddy feeling vibrating through my body with each pregnancy test, like this really might be the time I get that extra pink line. Only to have all that hope torn from my grasp all over again.

“Why doesn’t my body work?” A single tear escapes with that one, peeling its way down

Some days it’s bitter, ugly resentment. Hours upon hours spent searching for an answer I’ll never get, an explanation that doesn’t exist. A vicious game of self-loathing, picking apart every piece of my body, a body I’ve spent years loving and respecting, suddenly hating every useless fucking inch of it. It’s a never-ending cycle of grief, one that starts over every single month, forcing you to shove aside pain you haven’t healed from yet or fall behind. And every day? Every damn day it’s fucking terrifying.

You. Are. Worthy. You are enough. Fertility is not a badge of honor. Your ability to grow a human does not, even for one second, determine your worth. Your

And finally, that my worth has never, not once, and no matter how much I believed it to be, been tied to my ability to reproduce. My body is a temple. My heart is good and full. My brain is powerful and magnificent. And me? I am fierce. Capable. Worthy.