I am exhausted. I am overwhelmed. I am overstimulated.

This post should be longer, but it it 10:15 pm and I have to be up at three am.

I am having an emotionally horrid month.

I am a first year surgical resident. I love my job and would never dream of giving it up. However I have been on three very demanding rotations in the past three months, and I am emotionally spent.

I turn thirty-five in two weeks. I have been married for two years. We have been trying to start a family for the better part of that time. Every month, I straddle the line between hope and heartbreak. Every month, heartbreak wins. Every month, I ask myself what I did wrong. Where I went wrong. How we ended up here.

I used to be so in sync with my body. I used to know what my body needed when it needed it-rest, sleep, motivation, stimulation. I prided myself on knowing the differences between the different things I felt in my body-the small twinges that heralded the start of another cycle; the one squeeze in my underbelly that meant I was in Mittelschmerz; the prickle behind my eyes signaling my brain needed to shut down, that I needed sleep, needed a reset; the shoulder pain that meant post workout soreness vs the one telling me my tendonitis was acting up again.

These days, I do not trust my body anymore. In September 2025 I had a missed period for five days. I was at a gathering with my entire family. I was elated. I was riding the wave of hope and joy. Until I returned home that evening, rushed to the bathroom to empty my bladder after a two hour car ride and saw the blood trickle down. All my hope turned to despair, and I had not even seen it coming. My body had failed to warn me, to help me by amplifying the signals.

I have curled in fetal position on my bathroom floor more times than I can count these last few months. I have held floods of tears in, with just enough time to flee to an empty bathroom in another corner of the hospital and let the dams burst open. I have wept in every location I have set foot in this week-the hospital, my doctor’s office, the lab, the call room, my house, even church. I have started at my body in disbelief, unable to comprehend the magnitude of this betrayal.

My pain has been unimaginable. I am grieving, but what am I grieving? A concept, an entity, a child that never was, and may never be? Time wasted? Spilled eggs? Why am I grieving? Why does this hurt so much? 

How can I explain to my husband that it is not the same for him as it is for me, this grief? How do I explain that my outbursts at him are not from a fleeting sensation of annoyance, but that my soul is irritated at its core? How do I stop myself from directing my anger at my body, at time, at the universe, at God, to him?

I know that many women, many couples out there suffer from infertility. I know that there are couples out there whose relationship is strained as a result. I never thought we would be one of them. But no one ever does. And here I am. Here we are. 

My soul is irritated. My heart is hurting. My body feels unfamiliar. I feel as though I were drowning. And yet I have to go to sleep, to find a way to quiet the voices in my head and the pain in my heart, so I can show up for my patients tomorrow and every day after. So I can be there for my family. Be present in my marriage. 

How I will get past this phase, Only God knows.

I always advocate for therapy. I think it is time for me to get therapy. If for other other reason than I need an objective hand to pull me back from the edge of despair.

This too shall pass. Hopefully with my soul and body still intact.