Fertilty-Free Holidays

Here it is, the dreaded holiday season, and I am...ok! This has been an incredibly difficult year, and usually the holidays are the capper on the crap cake. But not this year. Why? Let me tell you.

- I am not in any kind of cycle right now. I absolutely refuse to do holiday cycles anymore. I tried not to last year but ended up having at test right smack in the middle of Christmas for our first ever frozen, the first attempt after the tragic ectopic business. And it did not result in good news. And the holidays were spent drinking champagne out of a can and weeping over songs that feature a VIRGIN MOTHER and a MIRACLE BABY and I could relate to neither. Although, I will be closer to being a virgin mother through this process, since there is absolutely no sex involved in our particular brand of procreation... But getting back to the point, no more holiday cycles for me. They are too difficult.

- Instead of crying over the fact that YET AGAIN there is nary a baby or bump to be seen on our holiday greetings, we made a fun, irreverent photo card featuring us dressed up and being goofy, our hearth with two stockings and a little kitty stocking full of catnip mice (and a tiny Christmas tree with a bird on it), and our cats. In bowties. It is the gateway to cats in onesies, people. If there is no baby in any way shape or form on our card next time I can't guarantee that I won't cross over into cats dressed up like babies territory...

- I am determined, DETERMINED to enjoy December. After losing our last babyling in early August, pretty much every month after that has been difficult. I have been an emotional wreck. I have not dealt well with the cumulative loss that is slowly hacking away at my capacity to hope. I have been pretty functional at work, but at home...not so much. A lot of crying. A lot of just epic sadness. A lot of mourning. But, as a wise woman once told me, "you can throw youself a pity party but don't stay long because no one else will join you." Time to brush off and stop sitting in the sadness so completely. Time to enjoy this month with no evil needles and no possible reproductive heartbreak, and try to be a normal person before once again I am shooting up with drugs that turn me into a faux-menopausal freakshow. So far, it's working pretty well. I got a nasty virus in December, but because I am not in any treatment I didn't feel bad taking some sick time to try to get over it. I am pretty much a normal human this December.

- We are escaping for Christmas! We are leaving town and going on a fabulous, romantic getaway in Vermont. The same place we went in February for a few nights, only this time we're in one room the whole time and we are staying five nights. Including Christmas. Which is FABULOUS. There is nothing in Vermont that reminds me of being pregnant or trying to get pregnant. I have never brought a sharps container to Vermont. I have never been waiting for news in Vermont. When I go to get a towel, I won't be staring at medication and bags of needles, like I do at home when I open the linen/aka Injection Closet. There will just be books, and games, and wine, and delicious food RIGHT DOWNSTAIRS in the Tavern restaurant. I am SO EXCITED. We decided that we needed this. We didn't get to go to Maine over the summer, and that was a huge mistake. We need to get away. We need to unplug and have no chores to do, no schedule, no work hanging over our heads. We need to recharge and renew ourselves so that we can undo some of the harm this past year of incredible loss and frustration has done to us. We need to get ready for our next go-round in 2013, which is coming up lightning fast. But not so fast that we have to think about it while drinking our Welcome-to-Grafton champagne or soaking in a hot tub after a long day of snowshoeing. This is the best Christmas present we could have given each other. (Except for a baby. A baby would have been better, but a Vermont getaway is a close second.)

So there it is--a truly happy holiday even though there's no tiny people to share it with in our home, just cozy cats ever so slightly pissed off at having been collared with jingle-belled bowties. A romantic, decadent week of holiday bliss to slowly melt away some of the stresses of 2012 and start 2013 fresh, strong, and ready to put a baby (or two) in this fertility-fat belly already. Come on, 2013, be our year of miracles! (Not to get all crazy or anything, but this year coming up is the Year of the Snake, and snakes are my favorite animal EVER, so maybe that means something? Nope, nope, just me being crazy. If the Year of the Rabbit (super fertile critter!) and the Year of the Dragon (my birth year and supposedly super strong juju) didn't do it, then I can't really count on that Snake. But I can dream, right?)

A very happy holidays to everyone, and may all your dreams come true this coming year.