Someday

This story is a complete work of fiction. While I draw some inspiration for a few elements from my own life, any resemblance to real people or events is simple coincidence. Be aware that there is a slow burn before the graphic sex gets under way.

I sincerely hope that you enjoy this tale.

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"Premature menopause," came the words, crushing like a sledgehammer into Sarah Fuller's soul. Doctor Hampton delivered the diagnosis calmly, like this was some everyday conversation instead of a devastating blow to all of Sarah's plans and dreams.

"But... but I'm only thirty-six!" Sarah nearly wailed in response. "How can this be possible? What can we do about it? What treatments are best for this?"

Sarah slumped in a plush chair across from Doctor Hampton's ornate wooden desk, with her husband Keith in the chair next to her. He held her hand as the doctor patiently explained.

"Sarah," the doctor spoke, "there's no easy way to put this. Once menopause begins, there is really nothing that we can do to reverse that. We can put you on hormone replacement to help with some of the side effects – like hot flashes, night sweats, vaginal dryness, that sort of thing – and at your age, you absolutely need to go on HRT to help lower your risks of osteoporosis and heart disease. But we can't actually stop menopause."

The pretty brunette fought back tears. "Are you sure?" she asked, desperate hope in her voice. "Could it be anything else?"

He shook his head. "You haven't had a period in four months, and have only had three periods in the last year. Your bloodwork shows drastically reduced estrogen levels. Sarah, this is a textbook case."

Sarah cut her green eyes at her husband, whose face was unreadable, before she looked back at the doctor. "This means that I can't have a baby, doesn't it?" she asked, her voice cracking.

Doctor Hampton frowned. "Technically speaking, as long as you are still having periods, it is possible - at least, mathematically - for you to get pregnant. But you've been trying for close to two years now with no success. And as I understand it, your husband has been tested and there are no issues with his fertility. Given this diagnosis, your chances are essentially zero without any help. You could go on fertility treatments, of course, but given the fact that we don't really know when – or even if – you will ovulate again, the odds are heavily against you."

Sarah swallowed, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice. "Thank you, Doctor Hampton," she spoke. At that moment, she gave up hoping that the man couldn't see just how gutted she felt.

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Sarah and Keith had been married for eleven years, now. She was an athletic brunette with mysterious green eyes and an easy mischievous grin. He was a lanky blonde, with blue eyes and a surfer build, standing three inches taller than his wife at his five foot, ten inch height. They were both scholarship students when they met and fell in love in college, but had they decided to wait until after graduation to get married; it was the sensible, practical thing to do.

Keith came from a well to do, if not truly wealthy, family – but Sarah's background had been less privileged. She had seen her mother, her aunt, her older sister all struggle through hard lives. Every one of them had gotten married young; every one of them had set their life plans on hold to have children; every one of them had done a lot of living hand to mouth and had never made much of themselves beyond being mothers.

As a result, Sarah was bound and determined to make it in the world before she would even consider children. It's not that she didn't want to be a mom; far from it, as she loved kids and absolutely wanted her own. But she wanted to be able to provide for them, have a safe and comfortable life for them – independent of her reliance on Keith and his career in finance. She loved her husband desperately, but she had seen how hard it had been for the women in her family when they ended up as single mothers; Sarah's father had died when she was young, her uncle had gotten his secretary pregnant en route to their divorce, and her sister had married a deadbeat who ran off with some skank. Sarah would be damned before she had a child that she didn't know with absolute certainty that she could care for.

Keith had always wanted kids terribly; this was something that he and Sarah agreed on not long after they began seriously dating. He wanted to pass on his family name, he wanted to teach his children all sorts of things. The man actually had a drawer in his closet with a few baby clothes he had picked up over the years. What sort of man bought baby clothes?

A kind, decent, giving, loving man... that's who. Keith was all of these things and so many more.

Above all of this, Keith was supremely respectful. He understood Sarah's worries about children and being able to provide for them. So, in the time they had been together, they had purchased a house that was now almost paid off, they owned two cars free and clear, they had grown a decent nest egg and a vacation fund. Sarah had opened a business, struggled for a few years, earned a tiny foothold, and had now been in the black for several years with excellent, sustainable growth year after year. While Keith made his desires about children known, he accepted Sarah's need for stability and her commentary about how she wanted kids "someday" - and never pushed for anything more.

Now, it appeared that someday would apparently never come.

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The first thing that happened after the doctor consultation was that Sarah went on hormone replacement – an estrogen-progestin pill, to be precise. It definitely improved her quality of life; within a month or so, the hot flashes and night sweats had almost completely gone away. Sarah's sex drive – which had been fairly dried up for some time, truth be told – returned with a vengeance; she was suddenly far more interested in physical intimacy than she had been for at least five years.

Speaking of dried up, the HRT was a godsend in one very private area, as well. For years, the Fullers had kept a container of Astroglide in a drawer near their bed; Sarah had suffered from vaginal dryness for a long time now, and that tended to make sex painful. Lube helped, but it could be messy, it wasn't perfect, and it made Sarah feel like less of a woman even though her husband always treated it as a non-issue; these were all likely contributing factors to why she and Keith hadn't had as much sex as they might have, otherwise. The pills seemed to totally fix that; for the first time in longer than either of them could remember, Sarah was getting wet for sex – and not just a little wet, either. She seemed to constantly be what she might call "damp", but as soon as Keith started kissing her neck, playing with her nipples, giving her any sort of serious touching - her poor panties would be sodden almost immediately.

The next thing that happened is that Sarah went on Clomid, a common fertility drug. It was... not pretty.

For the first few months, she seemed to feel great. After six months on the meds, Sarah had still only had one period, and there was no luck in getting pregnant – despite no lack of trying by the Fullers. Indeed, in previous years, if sex happened twice in one week it was a noteworthy thing. Now, they were having sex three, four times per week – with Keith always careful to ejaculate as deeply as he could inside of Sarah's vagina. But no matter what, pregnancy just didn't seem to be in the cards for them.

Then, the side effects from Clomid started to pile up. Sarah found herself growing more and more sad, more and more tired. She would openly weep at sappy television commercials; in depth movies or books would just ruin her emotionally. She found herself having difficulty pulling herself out of bed in the morning, she was always so fatigued and blue. Soon, she started to become snappy, short tempered, erratic; there were far too many days when she would lose her temper at Keith over the tiniest perceived slight, only to break town into tears minutes later. Predictably, their sex life crumbled once again.

After ten months – and only one more period – the Fullers decided that it was time to stop the Clomid. If Sarah was teetering between wanting to die and wanting to kill someone all of the time, the chances of her getting pregnant seemed remote. Fortunately, she returned to her old self within a couple of weeks of discontinuing the fertility meds; soon enough, their sex life was back to being regular, adventurous, and hot.

Desperate to have a baby, Sarah brought up in vitro fertilization - IVF - to Keith. They talked with Doctor Hampton about it, but he cautioned them to be very careful with their hopes. "IVF is really only an option for women who are not yet menopausal," he explained. "It is very expensive, and given your history here, I would be concerned that the success rate will be extremely low."

Nevertheless, Sarah would not be discouraged. Her eggs were still viable, right? After all, she wouldn't still be having periods – no matter how infrequently – if they weren't. Keith's sperm was strong, his count was excellent. It would work. It had to work.

So, the Fullers paid the exorbitant costs to have a few of Sarah's eggs removed, have them fertilized by Keith's sperm in what amounted to a test tube, then have the best embryo implanted in her uterus. As a cruel jab of fate, Sarah had a positive pregnancy test a month after the procedure, but the pregnancy didn't stick; three days after the test, she experienced what amounted to a heavy period, and that was that.

They tried one more time, but nothing at all came of the second attempt. At more than thirteen thousand dollars per try, with Doctor Hampton trying his best to talk them out of IVF due to Sarah's poor likelihood of conception, the Fullers made the difficult, painful choice to abandon any further hopes of conceiving.

Someday was indeed never going to come.

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The next few months were a truly dark time in the Fullers' marriage. Keith focused on his work; he had received a promotion at the bank, and while the salary and perks were fantastic, he did have to put in longer hours. Sarah, on the other hand, withdrew into herself. She felt like such a failure, like a sham, like a shadow of a real woman. Her friends would joke about sex and condoms and "whoopses", apparently not realizing what Sarah would have given to have those same "worries". She grew angry, resentful – with much of that anger turned inward.

Oh, Keith never said a thing against her. He held her while she cried, he told her it would be okay. He offered to adopt if she was interested, but he never pressed anything. He loved her and respected her space and let her be.

And she hated him for it.

She had known for years how desperately that kind, gentle, good-hearted man had wanted to be a father... but he never once had he tried to force the issue. He had always respected her, respected her choices, respected her boundaries. All he'd ever done was love and consider and cherish her.

Fat lot of good that had done him.

Likewise, Sarah had realized for a long time that they were already financially secure, but she had kept making excuses as to why it just wasn't the right time yet to start a family; what had she been so fucking scared of? "Don't worry, we will have a baby someday, someday soon," she had loved to say. Now, someday was gone.

Sarah wallowed in her loss, in her sadness, in her anger. She bathed in self-pity, soaked in self-loathing. All of those negative feelings manifested themselves in ugly ways; she found herself snapping at Keith for the silliest reasons. She avoided him as much as he could; limited most of her conversation with him to short answers – even monosyllables, where possible. Needless to say, their sex life crashed into the deepest pit that the marriage had ever known.

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Four months passed since the Fullers had decided to give up on trying to get pregnant. Sarah had dealt with exactly one period in that time; she had grown to dread them as just another symptom of how useless she was as a woman. She couldn't have a baby, so why in the hell did she have to put up with the cramps and bloating and mess of a random period here and there?

One Friday afternoon, Keith met her at the door while carrying a duffel bag. "What are you doing?" she asked, a look of pique on her face.

"We," he corrected. "We are going on a long weekend trip. You have fifteen minutes to pack and meet me in the car."

Sarah made a face as if to object. "Keith, I..."

He cut her off with a raised hand and a firm voice. "Too bad. You're sad and upset all of the time. We barely talk. So we are going for a little trip to reconnect and spend time together. You have no choice in the matter."

Despite her best efforts, Sarah found herself grinning. "But what do I pack? What are we doing?"

Her husband shook his head. "Sorry, no spoilers. Pack something sexy, we will have at least one nice meal. Pack something comfortable, we will be outside a little bit – and we will be driving some, too. We aren't coming back until Monday night... and you now have thirteen minutes. Move it!"

Sarah tried to be annoyed. She tried to be outdone. She had so much to do, she was...

She was kidding herself.

Maybe this was exactly what she needed. Maybe she needed to get out of these four walls, out of her routine, out of this depressing environment... and mentally reset. Maybe just the two of them, with no "real life" to distract, would be good for her.