I can't say that I ever really "played" with baby dolls as a child. I did have a couple of Barbies, a "Talking Drowsy" doll, a Blythe doll and some Honey Hill Bunch Treehouse set. I had them, but never carried them around, fed them, tucked them in at night or pretended to change a diaper. So I guess the 'maternal' instinct was never quite there.
I remembered around age 8 or 9 talking with my friends about how many kids we wanted to have. My answer was "I don't want any kids. It's too much work".
In my teens, I never had the blessed Aunt Flo' come visit me. Not really. I had some 'episodes' but nothing regularly. I always wondered why I couldn't be like normal girls my age, but did not envy them either. They were all scared of getting pregnant. I just wanted it to happen to me, if at all only once.
In my early 20's, I discovered I have endometriosis and what is called 'Amenorrhea'
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/amenorrhea/DS00581 . I never asked for this. I have been tested for many many years on exactly just what it wrong with me and everyone comes up blank. (No it isn't my thyroid either.) At age 24 I had emergency surgery for a D & C after hemorrhaging due to 'testing my system'. At age 25 I had what is called a LEEP procedure for cancerous cells on my cervix at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, MD.
I began infertility treatments in my very late 20's. I was seeing a specialist who gave me Clomid and other strict instructions (which really over hormonalized me) and her last straw with me was to perform a Hysteroslapingogram, which was the most painful thing I ever had to endure.
http://www.webmd.com/infertility-and-reproduction/guide/hysterosalpingogram-21590 . This test had me an audience of 4 people in the room. It was so painful I didn't know if I should scream or pass out. My doctor (with very lousy bedside manner) said to me that "You are now a patient of the Reproductive Endocrinologist across the hall". I was devastated. I did not know what she found, or why I need to see someone with a profession I didn't understand. I was scared.
I went to see Dr. Pierre Asmar, the kindest man I have ever met. He gave me hope! I went to him and thought that I was actually going to have my dream become a reality! He took a look at my test results and said "This is no problem!" He said I have a Bicornuate Uterus
http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Bicornuate+uterus , Polycystic Ovarian Disease
http://www.helium.com/items/143679-polycystic-ovary-disease-pcod-symptoms-treatment and a couple of polyps that should not be any trouble and he started me on Glucophage (or Metformin) and Clomid. Well, for two months, just as before, the Clomid did nothing. Then we went on to injectables. This was a drug called Follistim which I personally (daily for 7 days a month) had to inject into my stomach subcutaneously. I had health insurance at the time, and even then two and a half days worth of this drug cost me $540.00 AFTER insurance. For 14 days following, I needed daily (at 7:00 in the morning, no less) trans-vaginal sonograms to check my growing follicles. Meanwhile, I have hope that they will grow and I will have the most precious gift that I made that nobody could take away from me. But month after month, they fail and I wipe the slate clean for the next month and do it all over again. The last month I tried I had gotten a noticeably large follicle and I got to move on to the next step which was to have a major "shot in the butt" with a huge needle. This drug was to release the follicle from the ovary and hopefully have it implant and become my well earned child.
Since I have the PCOD, I did not release that egg and it turned into a cyst the size of a baseball. Then I gave up all this "promise" and "faith". I am decidedly barren (by a power well beyond me) and I will be lonely in my old age alone, unhappy and miserable. It is so hard to be different from every other female you meet. I see pregnant people daily beaming and happy (hell, I work with most of them). I see people who talk bad about their kids when they do simple "kid things". I also see people who don't deserve to have children, who neglect them and do not take to time to nurture them into the responsible human beings God intended them to be. This hurts me so much.
Infertility in a word "sucks" (I do have other words, but I am going to keep it clean). I am clinically manic depressive. I cannot tell you how hard it is to muster up the courage to go out and face another day. My body has deceived me. Of course I constantly ask "WHY GOD?" and wonder why I was chosen. People constantly say to me "Oh, your so good with kids!" and I want to blow their heads off. I love kids, I just don't want to get to close to them. It blackens me inside. I even have the comment "You'll have beautiful children". That one makes me want to hurt myself.
So, this is how infertility feels. I'd rather feel something else.....