This morning, again, I let a single drop of urine fall onto the test strip. I hold my breath as it spreads—shhh—across the pale window. When the second line fails to appear, the word next time claws at the back of my throat. I have lost count. Beneath the bed, a heap of discarded tests lies like the sticker albums of childhood—bright, useless, forgotten. Each single-line negative swells inside me like a promise that will never ripen, then dries to dust.
Why do you want a baby? That isn’t your desire. Biology is tricking you.
I swore I would stop being fooled, yet I am still deceived—whenever I rip open the silver blister of the pill, whenever I wake at 3:30 p.m. and realize I forgot another dose. The tablet is small, white, perfectly round. Chew it and a faint sweetness spreads. This, too, must be a kind of love, I murmur every morning as I place it on my tongue, knees trembling. Close my eyes and I dream of a tiny hand curling around my finger.
Seoyeon goes to the clinic every Monday. Twenty-nine, three years married. Her husband, Minseok, works for a conglomerate. From their first date they spoke of children; she imagined the hairs on the back of his hand as soft as newborn down. Each time the doctor says, This time it’s grown a little bigger, she feels herself alive, throat wet with the certainty that something is taking shape inside her. Yet her womb remains an empty paper cup, nothing rising within it.
Afternoons, she cries in the hospital corridor. When the tears dry, Minseok takes her hand: Let’s go get dinner. His hand is cool; even that coolness she mistakes for the temperature of a baby’s skin.
Dasom hides her boyfriend’s condoms. Thirty-four, unmarried. She conducts a clandestine affair with Jaehyeok, a senior manager at her company. Each time he visits she removes one foil packet from the refrigerator drawer and secretes it away—twenty so far. Jaehyeok does not want a child; he already has two sons. So when he nears climax she closes her eyes and lifts her hips higher, counting silently: Today is ovulation day. Twenty-five percent chance. After he withdraws, she slips a pillow under her belly and lies still for twenty minutes so no semen escapes. Her tears she wipes away, believing they will one day become her baby’s tears.
Pregnancy is taboo—when the relationship is not what you wanted, when the timing is wrong, when the partner is not the one you would have chosen. Still we say the body has gone mad. On ovulation day the skin burns, the breasts sniff the air like hounds. The nape of a man’s neck conjures the color of an infant’s hair.
This craving is no mere maternal instinct. It rises from deeper, darker places. You want to create someone who is not you, someone who will live on your behalf, who will be granted the fresh start you failed to give yourself. The baby is only another version of the self you longed to become.
This morning I let another drop fall. Two lines appeared. The first time ever. Yet I felt no joy; I was still swallowing the pill, he was still wearing the condom. I sank to my knees on the bathroom floor. No tears came. I already knew: I never wanted a baby; it was only my body, mad with the wish to be pregnant.
When you lie on the bed and your eyes ignite, ask yourself: do you truly desire a child, or do you simply want to witness the spectacle of your own flesh in rebellion?