infertility: beginnings and endings

I've talked before about where infertility histories end. I don't think they do ever end. Even though I've turned out not to be infertile - it's my husband who has that dubious honour - and even though I have a gorgeous daughter who ought to make me forget all the pain, my scars remain prominent (although they feel different now because when I hurt I have my Ninja to squeeze). I still ache at pregnancy announcements. I'll never stop wishing that I had a 'normal' conception story - that I woke my husband early one morning with a squeal and a still-damp positive pregnancy test.

But where do our infertility histories start? Does it start when you don't conceive immediately? Or with the passage of an unsuccessful year of trying? Or the first visit to a specialist?

Perhaps I'm asking the wrong questions here. Sorry to get all philosophical here, but the assumption that the story has a beginning and an end is not the way in which stories are seen anymore. Our stories are fragments, whisperings, leaps from here to there. Infertility is no exception; our history with it swirls inward on itself.

Jackie over at Beyond the Brick Wall wrote an interesting post about her infertility history. It's a reminder that, as another poster commented, infertility is "the culmination of a lifetime of experiences that for almost every little girl has revolved around becoming a mommy one day." Please read it.