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"P'ru u-r'vu": Be fruitful and multiply. God issued the first and foremost commandment in Genesis 1:28. Believe it or not, human beings as well as animals needed instruction in this matter; so much so that God so directs human beings twice more in the Torah in Genesis 9:1 and in Genesis 9:7.

With the world's population numbering at approximately 6.7 billion as of January 2009, one would think this commandment is the easiest to fulfill. Reproduction is the natural order of a perpetuating universe -- especially for perpetuation of a people whose very existence has been threatened time and again throughout history. But attempts to carry out the natural order of things can often result in an outcome we hadn't bargained on. Unfortunately for many, "p'ru u-r'vu" is the most difficult, ironic, impossible commandment to fulfill.

It's like this for a Jew: When you're single, everyone wants to know when you'll get married. When you're married, everyone wants to know when the first kid will arrive and, when it does, when the second one will appear; etc. Early in our marriage, a relative pronounced my husband and me personally responsible for restoring to the world the majority of the six million Jews lost during the Holocaust. At a work function I endured the publicly stated query, "So have you tried yet?" from someone I barely knew. So the difficulty begins with high expectations from the community in the form of assumed verbal ownership of one's unborn offspring. It continues with the intricacies of family planning with your spouse. In the ideal situation, both parties plunge equally into the phase we shall delicately call, "It's time!" But ideal situations occur only in novels and sitcoms. All too often, far more often than the Jewish community cares to discuss publicly, that difficulty culminates in the failure to conceive. Enter a new companion: irony.

Irony for us meant "the joke's on you." That, after time and care not to get pregnant, for all we knew it couldn't have happened anyway. Irony became our roommate as our only pregnancy resulted in a miscarriage. The roommate became a boarder who refused to leave as that miscarriage necessitated a surgical procedure, then medication (used in cancer patients to stop cells from reproducing) which, we found out later, prevented me from ever again conceiving. The boarder became a mocking poltergeist when I attended a professional convention to find that every one of my former classmates (now rabbis and cantors) was either expecting, had delivered, or both. I reached the breaking point during a late-night jam session led by two new parents (from different families) who churned out endless Harry Chapin and James Taylor covers that they dedicated to their children. Feeling that I was suddenly no longer a part of the world, I fled to my hotel room in despair.

Rock bottom, along with no roommate at convention, afforded me the luxury of reflection. Although I was certainly the exception, I was by no means unique. Certainly I had colleagues in the same boat as me; it just so happened that none of them were at this convention. My spouse and I considered ourselves extremely lucky to have found each other. We had made a solemn promise prior to "It's time!" time that we would never sacrifice what we already had in order to attain a goal yet on the horizon. We knew many couples who had lost themselves, and each other, in the quest to be fruitful. Savings, houses, even marriages were the sad cost of parenthood in such cases. Irony had visited these families too, and destroyed the foundation of the very ingredients necessary to add a child. What could we possibly bring a child home to if there were no home to give it? And we truly had a blessed home filled with love. The biggest reason for falling in love is that we made each other laugh. For us, laughter lit up the good times and got us through the tough times. Our only chance at triumph, no matter the outcome, was to bring our greatest strength as a couple to the forefront.

So although we continued to try, we employed an antidote for Irony: Humor. We gave our fertility clinic a CD of Barry White's Greatest Hits because urban legend stated that thousands of babies had been conceived to the music of Barry White. Hey, it couldn't hurt. Our doctor took the gift in the spirit it was given, and promptly set it up to play over the office stereo. As we sat listening to the Sounds of Philadelphia and waiting for our appointment, we noticed that the office staff now carried out their tasks with a rhythmic flourish. We smiled as the other couples in the waiting room lifted their heads and tapped their feet. We laughed as the receptionist filed folders to a syncopated beat. We held hands as the nurses interchanged with one another as if in a dance routine. And we knew we would be okay, no matter what.

Jacqueline Shuchat-Marx is cantor of Temple Rodeph Torah, Marlboro, and a contributing writer to The Jewish State.