Kate, Hayden, Emma, Colette, Sophie, Mia, Nora, Amelia, Quinn, and Lily.

Jackson, Samuel, Noah, Elijah, Colton, Gavin, Myles, Elliot, Sebastian, and Owen.

Growing up, these were the names I held onto for my future kids. From an early age, I knew I wanted a big family. Growing up in a close-knit neighborhood, where kids ran freely in and out of houses, it gave the feeling of growing up with tons of brothers and sisters. Most of the time you ate at whoever’s house you were closest to come suppertime. Neighbors weren’t afraid to punish any kid that was getting out of hand, and it was completely normal to have so many bikes in one front yard that it looked like a junkyard. I loved the chaos and activity that came from so many bodies coming and going.

I would tell my mama all the time that I was going to have a big house with a wraparound porch, and six kids-three boys, three girls (if you know me, or read my article on OCD, then you’ll see that I’ve had OCD my entire life). Her only response, whenever we would talk about this, was that if I wanted that many kids I better not wait too long to start. I remember going to see Cheaper by the Dozen with her on Christmas Day when I was 18.

After the movie, already lost in the daydream of my future family that was now expanding because of the movie, my mama just turned to me as we were leaving the theater and said, “Twelve is too many. Get that out of your head.” At 18 I knew this, but it was still fun to imagine. What I didn’t know at 18 was that my life would be so far from what I let my imagination run with, that I wouldn’t even know who I was anymore.

When I was about 15, my mama and I ran into a classmate, Joey, from high school at the mall. As we walked away, my mom turned to me and said, “Why aren’t you dating him? Think of what your kids would look like!” I could only roll my eyes and tell her to calm down. Imagine how she felt when I started dating Joey a few years later, just after we graduated high school. Still, as my mother, she was quick to remind us frequently that she was too young to be a grandma, and we were only 19, and too young to have a kid. There would be plenty of time. It didn’t stop us from being stupid teenagers, though.

Joey and I had our share of sheer panic after being careless. 60 seconds of staring at pee on a stick would straighten us out for a while, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say it happened more times than it should’ve. Each time we would breathe a sigh of relief, although, in the few years that followed that start of our relationship, we stopped panicking, it was still a relief to see the negative sign on those pee sticks. We talked about a family, and although we were both in agreement of wanting kids (four instead of six, a boy first, then a girl, and then boy and girl twins), we weren’t going to purposely try. It would happen when it happened as we built our lives together.

I never thought that peeing on those stupid sticks would eventually bring us heartache instead of panic. When I was 23 my dad died. In the following months, my mama would ask when Joey and I thought we might get married and start a family. We’d been together for four years by then, and already had the talk about letting things happen on their own. I didn’t dare tell my mom this because she was ready to drive us to the courthouse and get things rolling.

When she had turned 55 she said she started to feel this impending doom, something that every woman on her side of the family felt around this age. No female on my mom’s side of the family has ever lived to be 60. When my dad died, they were both 58. I knew her pushing to have grandkids had to do with this, and seeing as I was the only one in a serious relationship, she thought I was her only hope.

I’m not sure what’s more heartbreaking. The fact that my mom died six months after my dad, at the age of 58, a month prior to my brother finding out he was going to be a dad. She was going to finally be a grandmother.

Or the fact that as much as I needed her, needed someone, while I battled infertility that eventually led to a hysterectomy, I was glad she wasn’t around to go through all of that. To see my dreams of a family I had memorized in my mind in such detail slip away. To watch as all the things she wanted for me never happen. There is a box somewhere that holds a piece of paper with these names written on it in my 22-year-old handwriting:

Franklin Kenneth VanDerLaan (Kenny)

Amelia Irene VanDerLaan

Joseph Myles VanDerLaan (Myles)

Nora Alice VanDerLaan

Joey’s dad died when he was 7. His name was Franklin Kenneth. My mama’s middle name was Irene. I wanted one of our sons to have their father’s name, but we would call him by his middle name, Myles. Alice is my middle name, the name of my mama’s own mother.

Something changes in you when you become aware that there is even the smallest chance you can’t have kids. And it only grows and takes over every part of your life and your significant other’s life. Yes, it’s physically happening to your body, but the emotions that surface between the two of you will surprise you. When I was first told I was having infertility problems, my first thought was that I didn’t want to be the person keeping Joey from having a family.

I told him if it came to the point where we knew having kids wasn’t going to happen, I didn’t expect him to stay. The guilt I felt was indescribable, and he refused to partake in any conversation I tried to have about him leaving. Frustration and anger soon took the place of guilt, between unspoken words and unanswered questions. I was so desperate for answers that I set myself up for disappointment when they finally came. In June of 2015, I was officially diagnosed with Celiac Disease. My endless health issues were suddenly explained. What should’ve been a relief was a death sentence for the future Joey and I’d been building.

Celiac, NOT a food allergy, but an autoimmune reaction to gluten, has over 300 symptoms, including infertility. For unknown reasons, gluten damages the reproductive organs. So in addition to the infertility issues, my hormones were creating chaos in my body, and my uterus had no idea what was happening. I was put on birth control to entirely stop my periods while I started the only treatment out there for Celiac Disease- a strict gluten-free diet. My gynecologist and gastroenterologist gave us some hope, saying that women often found success in getting pregnant once their body healed. I had no such luck, though.

My body wasn’t healing, even after 2 years, and those 2 years hadn’t done anything but shove the reality of our lost life in our faces. I couldn’t work. We lived in a tiny, converted garage, with no privacy, no money, no life, and no end to our misery in sight. There was no way a child would fit into this life, and there was no way we could give a child a life they deserved.

I’d heard from too many women who were diagnosed with Celiac later in life that they felt guilty and overwhelmed about not being the kind of mom they wanted to be, used to be, or thought they should be. Guilt was at every turn in my life not being able to provide a family, not being able to contribute to our finances, and most days, not able to get out of bed. A combination of the disease and depression made me unrecognizable. I was still adamant about trying to convince Joey he could have a life with someone else, and he was still adamant that having a family wasn’t a deal breaker.

It wasn’t long, and so appropriate with how my life was going, that my gynecologist told me a hysterectomy was in my future. She was honest with me and said in a year, we would come back to this because I wasn’t emotionally ready to handle having a hysterectomy. She suggested I see a psychiatrist, but Joey had already beat her to that. A month before getting this news, Joey very kindly, but sternly, told me I needed to see someone. For a guy who is so passive, and who I lovingly call a pushover, this was a big moment. It was also a turning point.

For once, I knew what was coming, and could prepare for it. This was something I’d never had when it came to the many life-changing events I’d been through at such a young age. My mental health slowly improved while my physical health declined. In July of 2017, at the age of 32, my gynecologist had me admitted for an emergency hysterectomy. I thought I would have more time, but in all honesty, not having the time to overthink and obsess over what was about to happen turned out to be a blessing in disguise. In the days that followed, I could feel a difference in my body.

There was no denying that I felt significantly better without a uterus. I was taking fewer medications, too. Recovery was quick, and I was ready to go back to my measly 3 hours of work a day long before my doctor would clear me. I was riding the high of feeling healthier and more energetic than 4 months flew by, and the holidays slapped me in the face. I can’t speak for other women, but coming from someone who hated holidays after the death of my parents, Christmas without a uterus was undeniably heartbreaking and soul-crushing.

I had always counted on my Grinch attitude changing once I had kids and my own family to make new traditions with. I didn’t even think to prepare myself for a Christmas without having a mother or being a mother. Then came the reality that I’d been in denial of-I was never going to have my mom back, and I was never going to be a mom. Even though I’d never once actually gotten pregnant, I still felt like a mother in my soul. I constantly felt like something was missing, like it had been taken away. I was a motherless child that couldn’t shake the feeling of being a childless mother.

In the aftermath of my hysterectomy, every feeling I’d ever had would surface out of nowhere. Everything I’d been through felt like it was happening all over again. One day I’d be so grateful for the way I was feeling, and then in a split second, I was overwhelmed by all that had happened, all that was taken, and everything that I would never get to experience as a woman.

What got me the most was the experiences Joey and I would never have as a couple. Feeling excited instead of scared while we waited for that pregnancy test. Telling friends and family, getting a room and our lives ready for our first baby, imagining how they would look. We were robbed of that, and it’s baffling and maddening how these thoughts will suddenly take over my life.

It’s like a complete replay of everything I’ve written in this article. Take everything you’ve read, give it images in your mind, and then hit repeat and shuffle. You don’t know when it’s coming, but you’ll know when it takes you over. I don’t know if I’ll ever get over this, or if I’ll just eventually get used to this.

Grief is a funny thing. It never really leaves you, because even when it’s not rearing its ugly head, you can feel it lurking. They say scars are souvenirs we never lose, a reminder that we’ve survived.

It’s only been six months since my hysterectomy, and yes, the scars on the outside have healed. But the ones on the inside are the souvenirs that remind me how cruel life can be, a reminder how of how strong I’ve been, even if at times it felt like I was weak.