One of the hardest things about not getting pregnant is the quiet expectation from our friends and family members for us to just be pregnant already.

I see it in the quick glances my sisters-in-law give each other when I say “I’ll just have water.” And then the subtle disappointment that emerges on their faces when I say “actually, I’ll take a beer.”

I see it in the Christmas cards family members sent us with notes like “Can’t wait to see what 2015 has in store for you?!”

I see it in the long stares my friends give my glass during parties, like they’re willing the liquid it holds to be some sort of fake wine or decoy drink.

One family member straight up asked us “Are you guys even trying?!”

As if we could just make it happen – and the fact that we haven’t made it happen yet means we’re lazy. Or really bad with calendars.

Now I realize some of this is our doing since we aren’t broadcasting our infertile status to everyone we know. To me, it’s deeply personal. And something I don’t want everyone around me involved in. It’s hard enough for the two of us to hold our breath in two-week increments, I can’t imagine the constant public disappointment we’d face if everyone we knew was holding their breaths too.

Which means the people all around us will continue not knowing just how much we really are trying and how incredibly bad we want this. If only wanting it bad enough could equal a baby. We’d have five.

And this constant, expectant wondering, the continuous open question marks on the ends of ellipses written on all their faces: It’s heartbreaking.

Slightly because it’s a recurring reminder that for so many of them – for the majority of people out there – to make a baby, all they had to do was try (and so often not even that).

But the real reason it’s so truly heartbreaking is that this baby, this fictional, not yet existent so hoped for baby, has this entire collection of awesome, loving, wonderful people who are ever so quietly waiting for it. And it may not have the chance to ever know how incredibly lucky it is.