«يَا رِيتِ الطَّلْقْ كَانْ ملَانْ»

The saying pictures a woman who has endured the full pain of childbirth only to find the delivery fruitless, because the child is stillborn or malformed. 'Full' renders a colloquial form of the word for 'filled': the wish is that the labor had been productive, that the suffering had yielded something worth it.

Applied more broadly, it laments any exhausting effort that ends in disappointment. Like a labor that yields no living, sound child, the undertaking demanded great hardship and returned nothing of value in exchange.

Use it as a rueful sigh after a demanding undertaking that left nothing to show for it, whether a long project, a lawsuit, or a costly negotiation. It suits informal speech; because its imagery evokes stillbirth and malformed birth, use it with care around actual pregnancy or loss.