I’m the girl who never wanted kids. I’m the now-grown woman who’s entered her 30s who is a mentor to other grown-ass women, and when they say they don’t want kids, I’m the first one to speak out and say, “Go girl! You do you and everyone else can fuck off!”

I’m the 31-year-old who’s (basically) happily married — who now wants kids. And my body wants otherwise.

I grew up in a devout, though liberal Catholic family. It was the family where the motto was “to each his own, but don’t you dare.” We loved on our gay brothers, we accepted and assisted our teen friends who were parents, we urged peace and well-being amongst men. We were warned that to BECOME them was to sin. So we were taught to love them because Jesus said so, but not to become them ourselves.

To me this translated to: don’t get pregnant ’til you’re married or your ass is out.

So through a combination of abstinence, luck, the pill, and a dose of Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) I met that requirement. I guess the PCOS meant there wasn’t so much luck after all.

In the intervening 15 years, I became an atheist, started two careers (ended one, am in the process of running from another), switched my party registration, and got married. In the process I came to believe I could do anything I wanted if I only tried hard enough.

I was lucky enough to fall in love with my best friend at 21. But we spent our 20s building careers, going to grad school, saving money, living separately but committed. He warned me never to get pregnant. I agreed with him. Life goes on.

Until we got married two years ago. And started building our concept of family.

Maybe it’s because his mother died two weeks before we got married. Maybe it’s because we spent our honeymoon in the happiest — and most family-oriented — place on earth (Walt Disney World ya’ll!), maybe it’s because we were bored, or unhappy. Who knows. But by our first anniversary I was off the pill, off my Prozac, and white-knuckling it while riding on the anxiety train towards motherhood.

My doctor assured me my regular periods meant PCOS probably wouldn’t have an effect on my fertility. Never mind I was diagnosed 10 years ago based on circumstantial evidence (excess hair, weight gain, ovarian pain) but they could never find the evidence on the ultrasound. I had been on the meds, I had lost the weight. Lost the weight meaning the death of my mother-in-law, the impending death of my dad, the crippling generalized anxiety disorder, and the chemical combination of metformin and Prozac combined to make food the thing I was least interested in (read: rapid, unhealthy weight loss). Everything was cool! Get to multiplying said the doctors!

And here I am 14 months later. The girl who never wanted kids wanting desperately just one kid. Who’s husband desperately wants just one kid. Who — if the existence of this article and the wine I drank while writing it are any indication — does not have a kid. Not even a little percolating possibility of one.

Because PCOS is a bastard. A bastard that doctors still don’t understand. And anxiety is a special hell. A special hell that means my husband won’t have sex with me, because he’s lost in his anxiety and depression hole, and the meds he’s on take his sex drive to level: non-existent.

He claims he is attracted to me, that he loves me, that he’s sorry. And I love and trust him implicitly so I believe him. And he desperately wants a baby as well. But he can’t bring himself to the act — no matter how hard either of us try. It’s been three months since I’ve last been touched.

So here I sit, the girl who never wanted kids, now a woman who desperately wants just one. And wish I had never worked so hard to fight it when I had the chance.