I desperately wanted children. Here's how I learned to live without them.

My husband and I tried everything to have a baby. When we couldn't, we learned firsthand the stigma that comes with being a childless couple.

A woman tries to conceive for 10 years.
(Image credit: Zoonar GmbH / Alamy Stock Photo)

Come on. Come on. Two lines. That's all I wanted. Just two lines.

But I saw only one line in the plastic window, and chucked the pregnancy test in the waste basket. It was the first of several hundred trashed sticks in my decade-long attempt to have children.

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Shelley Moench-Kelly

Shelley Moench-Kelly is a freelance writer and editor from Vermont via Los Angeles and Tokyo. Her freelance clients include Google, L'Oreal Paris, and MedEsthetics magazine.