Today, I turned twenty-nine. I don't know what it is about that number that bothers me most, the fact that it's my last year in my twenties or that in another 365 days I'll be a member of a new decade. After all, 29 is really just the gateway to 30.

I'm not so much worried about getting older as I am about my "to-do" list. You know. The List. The list of stuff I wanted to accomplish before age 30. And now, realizing I have a year left to cross those things off, I'm kind of fretting.

Don't get me wrong. I'm young. I'm not 99 for goodness sake. Still, I can't help but think about the here and now and the accomplishments I've yet to achieve.

For example, the last few years I've contemplated a second child. I have always wanted a lot of children. Five or six at least. But I'm a card carrying member of the Infertility Brigade. It took 3 years to conceive Dawson.

I've blogged my feelings about this subject time and time again. And it never gets any easier to deal with. Knowing that my biological clock is ticking is unsettling. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Can't you hear that? It's menacing.

I, myself, get sick of talking about it sometimes. I try to push those negative feelings to the back of my mind. I ignore them. I pretend it doesn't bother me. I shrug off every remark from family and friends. When others are announcing their second, third and fourth pregnancies, I smile and make the obligatory congratulations while worrying that I'll never be next.

I've played the game where I say, "It's all in God's hands" or "Someday it will happen" or "When the time is right" but really, I can't help but cry in the night, when no one else is around to hear me.

I don't want to be that woman. The one who is insanely jealous of other pregnant women. I don't want to be her. But when I see an expectant mom, I feel the pain twisting inside. I can't imagine what other women go through, the ones who've never birthed a child and so desperately wish to do so. I mean, really. I'm lucky, right? But why do I still feel incomplete?

Don't get me wrong. I love my son more than anything. More than life, he is my blessing. And I try to use that love to make myself feel better, but it doesn't.

"At least I have Dawson." I say. I don't want my little boy to think he isn't enough. But why shouldn't I want to share my love with another child? Why shouldn't I want to give my son the gift of a brother or sister to love?

With every birthday that passes, I fall a little more into the depression of not being able to conceive a second child. I just don't get it. Why do I feel this way? How do I overcome these emotions?

Why can't I enjoy my birthday without thinking about that damn biological clock and all that it reminds me of?