I dedicate this column to all those moms in the world who don’t have children. Not those that lost a child to death because God forbid I don’t know their pain and don’t ever want to, but those who have the overwhelming love of a mother inside them but don’t have a child to cradle in their arms.

Like most women I know, I went into marriage thinking of spending the rest of my life playing the primary caretaker roles of a wife and mother. I was thrilled when I became a wife. It was the happiest day in my life. I have a wonderful, understanding and compassionate husband who I love tremendously and have grown to respect earnestly as time has rolled forward.

I didn’t marry young and was quite upfront with my husband about my intention of wanting a family straight after we got married. Slightly taken aback and amused, he conceded with my thoughts and our journey began. Now, five years later we still don’t have any children.

It has been a turbulent five years, both on an emotional and personal level. Both individually and collectively we have been pitted against the worst odds, we have felt like the world has literally closed in on us , yet astonishingly we have emerged closer and more connected as a couple. This intense pain called childlessness has forced us to positively communicate in ways which we might not have done had we conceived straight away. It has been a long road though, where our relationship at times could at best be described as strained and at worst, at the verge of collapsing. We held strong, it must have been love, for else I cant think of any other reason why anyone would want to put up with the venom I am capable of spewing, as a means to exit my anguish.

On another perspective, my relationship has changed tremendously with my parents. I have never been fond of my parents as individuals. I love them as my parents of course. They have been selfishly focused on what they wanted me and my siblings to be. In many ways that has been good and bad for us. I will not talk more about that as I might digress. However, while they believe that they have been completely altruistic in bringing us up, I beg to disagree.

In the last five years, I have gone from hating them with a passion unknown , primarily for having children so easily and not knowing how to care for them to feeling a tremendous amount of compassion for them as they age and for accepting and coming to terms with the fact that they tried and did their best. The best that they knew and that is enough.

Like most people I have had my share of ups and downs in life, but nothing quite as emotionally crippling as infertility. I am not trying to understand it, just trying my best to pull through this without letting it lacerate my spirit beyond recognition. Every single month I am reminded with a vengeance, how completely vacant and barren my womb remains. Every single month I lose. I feel lost because I hope. If I were to stop hoping that would be akin to killing the spirit within, would it not?

For those who have gone through it or are going through it would know it is a dark, lonely and confusing journey. Even if you know a few people who don’t have children, they sooner or later do, of course sooner than you.

My friendships have grown up and some have grown apart. For those friends that I talk to, they listen to me, understand me and repeatedly assure me that "It will happen Dee, I don’t know when but it will, just believe it". I know they are trying hard to say something appropriate.

My husband and I are now thinking to adopt a child from Pakistan. I have been inspired by a very close friend of mine who has recently adopted a child and is happier now than I have ever seen her before. May God always be with her and her family.

While this thought excites me, I get cold feet when I think of the infallible commitment and love I shall have to provide a child that is not my own. Will I be able to bring the child up with all the love that I am capable of? If not, wouldn’t that be injustice? While I remain entangled in this web of thoughts , I would like to end with a prayer that we find the strength to do what brings out the best in us and that every women who holds a desire to become a mom, goes on to have a healthy happy child to hold in her arms.