No Real Love For November

Posted on November 20, 2014 by imfluffyowl

Honestly folks, I’m not a big fan of November. November always seems to be too much for me. I live in Canada, and honestly, we already had our Thanksgiving. And I can’t speak for others, but around here, its just not that big of a deal. For me, Thanksgiving is a hot turkey dinner at my parents, that my dad may or may not be home for. I don’t get the whole work up to Thanksgiving. The month of daily things I’m grateful for. It just seems overkill, especially so close to the the Christmas holidays (well, December in general). And don’t even get my started with Black Friday. People will eat supper and then get in massive lines and trample all over people to get the best deal. It’s sort of a slap in the face to all that thankfulness. Look at all the things I’m so grateful for. But gotta leave supper to go trample all over others and be all greedy cause I can get a TV 50% off and I gotta fight 20 people for the last one.

Doesn’t that seem wrong to anyone else?

Plus this November has been killer. And not in the fun way. While I was still dealing with a left over cough from my last head cold before my trip to Toronto, I came down with a nastier version of it, which I didn’t think was possible. My friend, who works in a nursing home, took home the head cold and gave it to me. Needless to say, almost 2 weeks of self quarantine later and two trips to the hospital and I’m finally on the mend. But I lost two weeks to sleep, coughing and general chest cold nastiness.

And I had plans.

I always start my Christmas decorating early. I like to start the Christmas season early. Always have. Christmas music playing, Christmas movies on as I work around the house. I think its the crafter in me. I start my homemade gifts early, so it just makes sense to start the rest early too. But I do have a limit. I never decorate before Remembrance Day out of respect to our lost and fallen military men and women. But once we get through November 11th, I like to start my prep. I start cleaning before Remembrance Day. I wash down my walls and rearrange my living room in prep for decorating and the tree. It’s November 19th and I just started cleaning my house today. I’ve been too sick to do anything and when I do actually do something, it takes forever because I start coughing or sneezing or I’m just too tired to.

So I feel a little lost this year. I want to get in the spirit. I down right crave it. But its not there. I have no energy. I have no will power to get up and actually do it. I want it here already with no effort on my part. I forced myself to give the living room a full clean, but the rest of the house really needs the same treatment. Then hopefully I’ll have the energy to drag the tree and decorations upstairs.

But once this starts, once I start, it won’t stop until the end of December. The crafts, the decorating, the care packages and the days of baking lie ahead of me. Things I love, but things that are also completely time consuming. Add to that, my birthday is December 4th and I don’t know if I’m ready to hit 32. It seems that each Christmas and birthday has changed. What were things I once looked forward to. Now I’ve been jaded and I see these dates as another year and another milestone without kids, another year closer to the time that my clock stops ticking and my time to have kids has run out with nothing to show for it.

Oh November, you leave me so torn and jaded. I hate it, but I simply don’t know how to fix it or what to do to make it better.

Happy Holidays!

Posted on December 25, 2013 by imfluffyowl

First, a Merry Christmas to those celebrating. To those not celebrating on the 25th, I wish you a wonderfully quiet and peaceful Wednesday with your family.

As for us, we started our celebrations tonight. We went over to the inlaws for supper and had our gift exchange. I got some of my favorite gifts: socks, underwear and my yearly Christmas PJ’s. Pjs that I’m all curled up in while I watch Christmas movies and finish a cross stitch for a friend. After supper and gifts, we headed to my parents house where we opened our gifts early. I got some old school games (toss across and rebound) that my parents tracked down in a store on their travels. We got clothes and puzzles, a blu ray player and candy. A beautiful necklace that my parents got for me while in Mexico. But the best part of the evening was skyping with my brother, his girlfriend and her son. We spent the evening relaxing as the snow fell outside. Then we bundled up and headed home to our kitties where they were treated to a lot of boxes of kitty treats from the grandparents. I made a cup of tea for myself, the last of my Santa’s Secret tea from David’s Tea, and watched Christmas movies with my husband.

We didn’t get gifts for each other. We haven’t since we moved in together (joint bank account and all…). But in the new year we plan to treat each other to something we had our eye on, him a chair for gaming and me a shopping spree at David’s Tea.

In the morning, it’s back up to my parents for our Christmas Day big brunch that myself and dad put on. And while we spend the afternoon vegging out and napping, mom makes her big turkey dinner. After dinner, me and Chris will cuddle up to watch the Doctor Who Christmas Special.

Boxing Day will be spent with my inlaws and my hubby’s great big family for yet another turkey dinner. I’m finally going to let loose and drink, bottle of wine in tow. Before I leave for the inlaws, I’m making caramel apple jello shooters for our get together with friends on the 27th, where we will swap gifts and drink and just celebrate the fact that we made it through the holidays relatively unscathed.

So once we survive the next couple of days, we plan on spending the rest of 2013 quiet and peaceful. We even plan for a quiet New Years at home.

So if my absence is noticed around here. It’s with good reasons. I hope all of you enjoy the rest of 2013 and that 2014 brings all of our hopes and dreams to life. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all my fellow bloggers!

Getting Back On Track

Posted on December 31, 2012 by imfluffyowl

It’s hard to believe, but this is the first real time I’ve had to sit down, relax and really process my thoughts so that I could write. And honestly? I’m exhausted. 100% physically and emotionally drained. December has been a complete write off. Beginning of the month I helped my parents pack/move/unpack just to pack/move/unpack ourselves a week after that. My mother had a hard time with the move. She was incredibly overwhelmed by all of it and moving is one area that that I’ve become more comfortable than I ever wish I had to.

Our official move date was December 9th. Nothing like waiting as long as possible to move. While the guys were unpacking the U-Haul, I stepped out to make an appearance at a friends baby shower. She is the sister of my fellow IF’er friend so I wanted to be there for emotional support for my IF close friend plus the pregnant friend is very understanding of both me and IF friend and our struggles with trying to get pregnant. She left it in my hands as to whether I was comfortable enough to come. So the shower was easier than I expected. Plus she asked me for help and put me to work which was great cause then no awkward questions from strangers cause I’m too busy being put to work.

Upon returning home, our friends doing the heavy lifting were already gone home because everything was in the house, Chris was snoozing on the barely cleared off couch because he was exhausted and the only thing that was done was the groceries were put away and the bed and dressers put in the bedroom. So I started unpacking and didn’t stop. My cousin came down after work and helped me organize my kitchen which was wonderful because if not I’d still be trying to organize it, I worked on the living room and got all but a few boxes unpacked because the cable and Internet guy was coming the next morning and he needed the access to that part of the living room.

The next day was my appointment with my local gyno that I’ve been trying to get since our appointment with the fertility clinic in March. In one word, Dr. D is awesome. She is very hands on and prefers to be the one to run the tests versus letting some random tech do it. She’s used to working in connection with our fertility clinic, wants to be cc’d on every test result and told me that she’s worked with multiple couples who used donor sperm and had successes with all of them. She’s also going to be the one to do the dye test and talked me through it. Right now, the hold up is my own body. I wanted to wait til the move was over before I did my CD2, CD21 and CD23 blood work because I didn’t want the blood work to land on any holidays because I’m known to have luck like that. Right now I’m 15 days late and already took a test and it told me negative so now I just want it to hurry up and get here so my testing can happen and I can call and set up my dye test.

After that, it took me about a week to get the downstairs completely unpacked, organized and get rid of the boxes. I got our bedroom and the two bathrooms as functioning as possible but left the two spare rooms to hold what I didn’t have time to unpack. Then I decorated. The tree, the lights in the windows, the decorations on the inside. It’s not as elaborate as I usually go, but can you really blame me? The next day I started my baking. 3 double batches of eggnog cupcakes plus a double batch of that icing, a full recipe of gingerbread cookies, 2 double batches of eggnog cookies, a double batch of gingerbread truffles, 2 different batches of tree bark, and a double batch of my icing, all from scratch with 90% of it going towards gifts and care packages.

By the time I was done with that, it was the week before Christmas and the few gifts that I had to buy, I had to face the craziness of the malls to get them. I did that over the course of two days. Then proceeded to get ready for the holidays. A girls night Christmas party with some of my girlfriends where we had a Secret Santa on the 22nd and the 23rd I spent wrapping gifts. Christmas Eve was spent with our families. We spent the day with my in-laws and the evening with my parents. Mom was down in the dumps because my brother didn’t make it home from Edmonton for Christmas. Christmas Day I went to my parents for me and dad to do the yearly tradition of us making our big breakfast. After breakfast, Grammy, Chris and I started a puzzle while mom started making her turkey supper. We got home late that night just to sleep get up and have our big turkey dinner at the in-laws.

But the big surprise this Christmas was that even though my brother told us that he wasn’t getting home, he secretly flew across country all Christmas Day, spent the night at Halifax airport and then flew into our local airport Boxing Day morning, had his friend pick him up and show up at my parents first thing in the morning on Boxing Day to surprise my mom. My mom went from crying for two days because her baby boy wasn’t home to crying for joy because he was suddenly there. I was woken that morning by a phone call from my mom crying that Mike was home and Mike in the background just pleading with mom to stop crying. I spent the 27th with family and hanging out with my parents and brother. The 28th was the get together with my fellow Brownie leaders (who just happen to be my cousin and two of my close friends) to do our gift exchange. We decided to have a house party at my place, we invited all our men to tag along and we spent most of the night playing board and card games. So yesterday and today happened to be the first day in weeks that I let myself relax.

Sure I still haven’t put away our clothes, I haven’t tackled the two spare rooms filled with boxes, I haven’t done a dump run yet for the mountain of garbage bags building up in the garage from the move and I haven’t taken down my Christmas decorations yet, but these are things that I will slowly get to in the new year. I’ve earned this break, I’ve earned the right to stay in my pjs all day and watch tv and play on my iPad, maybe do some reading and update my blog and read the large list of posts that I’ve barely touched since the move. Tomorrow I get back to life. I’m hosting a small New Years get together here at the house tomorrow. Board games, beer, and then go outside and bang pots and pans at midnight. All from our new home. Then of course, the first day of 2013 will be spent taking down the Christmas decorations and baking goodies for my brother to take back with him to Edmonton on the 5th. Apparently, I’m quite popular amongst my brothers friends, or rather, my baking is loved by a bunch of boys living away from home. So they stroke my ego a bit and they get baked goods from the east coast. It’s win/win in my book. Then finally, I might finish unpacking. Maybe. Cause I really want to set up the spare room and my craft room to my liking.

I have to say, I walked into this Christmas expecting the worst. I really expected the move to throw a wrench in the holidays and my holiday spirit. I waited for everything to go wrong but it didn’t. As exhausting as this year was, it was also one of my best holidays in years. Everything went so smoothly, even the move. We got to visit with friends and family, no one asked about our infertility or our lack of children, and this is the first Christmas in years that I did not receive any pregnancy announcements. Some Facebook friends were incredibly annoying with stupid creative announcements telling everyone whether they were having a boy or girl but I just ignored them. Though if I admit, I really miss the unsubscribe feature on Facebook. I was also lucky enough to avoid any and all family drama, stupid fights and general nonsense. I was really grateful for that. Then it was topped off by my brother coming home. What more could a girl ask for? Well other than a pregnancy? You know cause I’m working on that…

I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday season that wasn’t near as hectic as my own. I hope you all have a wonderful start to 2013 and I’ll start getting my New Years post in the works.

Love and hugs to you all!

Kimberly
xoxo

The picture descriptions in order of appearance:

~Welcome to our brand new home (in a winter wonderland)!
~My new wonderful, big, cupboard crazy and baker friendly kitchen!
~Our new living room is livable!!
~Baking gingerbread cookies in my new kitchen!
~The care packages for the family we stayed with during our fertility clinic appointments.
~The blanket going up for Baby C along with the care packages.
~Our Christmas tree.
~Mom’s dog Duke scared of the new remote control car that dad got as a gift. He took refuge on moms lap for protection. Mind you if Duke walked on that thing, he would break it.
~Christmas morning breakfast with my parents, aunt and grandparents.
~The pup is pooped.
~And finally a picture of me with my cousin and two close friends during our gift giving/board game Christmas get together.

Memories Of Christmas Past

Posted on December 24, 2012 by imfluffyowl

So I’m sitting here watching the tail end of The Family Stone for possibly the millionth time this holiday season sobbing my eyes out, which is the norm with this particular movie, and I just can’t get over how much I truly love this movie. But it wasn’t always this way.

When the movie first came out in 2005, I really had no push to see it despite the long cast of great actors. The first time I broke down and watched it, I didn’t make it all the way through. Sometimes I feel embarrassed watching certain movies. It’s hard to explain but it’s a thing with me and certain movies and shows. Finally one day I was in the mood for it and watched it.

The movie is about a couple going to the boyfriends parents for the first time, at Christmas. The girl then meets the whole eclectic family who tends to be incredibly judging and particular about things and don’t really go out of their way to make her comfortable. The whole movie centers around the dysfunctional family and their banter and antics. The deaf gay brother and his spouse, the pregnant sister, the snotty college aged daughter, the stoner brother and the parents. Early in the film you learn that the mother is dealing with an illness and its made clear that its not good and its her last Christmas and she doesn’t want the family to know yet they gradually find out.

This movie seems to always strike a chord with me. It takes me back to years ago when my nana was still alive and we had the tradition of spending Christmas Eve at my Nan’s. Nan would have all of us over for a massive Christmas turkey dinner with all the fixings. All the family would be there, in various stages of drunkenness, family drama in full swing, too many people in too small of a space, eating in shifts, swapping gifts with cousins, then hiding out at my cousins next door until it was time to go home. They were hard on the head, I usually got easily frustrated, but they were still some of the best Christmases I’ve ever had. I still wish i could go back to those Christmases. Its an emptiness that I’ve felt in every Christmas since. That last Christmas with my grandmother, where we clearly knew it was our last Christmas with her mirrors much of the family stuff in this movie. The craziness, the tears, the processing of the fact that this is the last time we will celebrate Christmas with her.

Watching this movie, despite the tears that inevitably come with it, I still take comfort in it because it brings back the happy memories I have. It makes me fond of Christmas past. It makes me miss my nan. It reminds me of her in her final days, watching her pass. But mostly it brings back happy moments with my nan, being amazed at her ability to cook and bake without a recipe, the drool worthy meat pies, the out of this world gravy, the tea biscuits, the perfect butterscotch pie that myself and a handful of aunts are still trying to recreate. The jokes, the way she always sang in French when she had just a bit too much to drink. She was hard ass, sometimes mean, as stubborn as they come but she was the glue that held this family together all year long, especially at the holidays.

This year, as I settle into our new home, I realize that more than ever. I’m lucky enough to still have two grandparents still with us who I’m very close to and maybe that makes me more acutely aware of the loss. I’m making the best of the holidays. I’m enjoying them as best I can but I still feel at a standstill. I feel like I’m stuck between two points, the Christmases of my past surrounded by family vs. the Christmases of my future filled with my own family, my children. I miss the magic that comes from the holidays spent with young children. I miss the holidays where all of my own family had valid and important reasons to be home for the holidays.

One of my Facebook friends asked me why I can’t just be grateful for what I have this holiday season (a family, a husband, a roof over our heads, food in our fridge) and not dwell on what I don’t have. My response to her was simple and honest. I AM grateful for what I have, but with the lack of a child of our own or even nieces or nephews to dote on, my holidays feel like an incomplete puzzle. It’s still a pretty picture but its not finished. I feel like one of my cats knocked down a couple of pieces on the floor and I’m desperately searching for those pieces so I can see it finished and and have that completed puzzle. I’m on that middle area, limbo if you will, and I want to be on one side or the other and since I can’t get my grandmother or those Christmases back, I want to create my own special Christmases with our parents as the doting and loving grandparents. With my brother fighting to get home each year to see his niece and/or nephew instead of wondering if its worth another trip home this year.

So yeah, that’s where I’m at right now. Enjoying the season as best I can, but lamenting the past and wishing the future would get here already while i sob my way through cheesy Christmas movies over and over again. I truly hope all of you have a wonderful holiday season regardless of what holidays you celebrate. My love to you all!

Happy Holidays!

A Quick Update Before The Move

Posted on December 7, 2012 by imfluffyowl

Hey everyone,

Just stopping by for a few minutes to give updates. I’ve been completely MIA lately. There’s been a lot going on and I haven’t had the time, patience or ability to sit down and write. I miss it.

I’m in a fresh wave of self pity lately because of our IF and while its no ones fault and just one of my down periods on this infertility roller coaster, coming on here and reading my blog roll has been a bit more difficult now. While I’m incredibly happy for all of my IF girls, about 80% of the blogs I read and comment on lately either just gave birth, about to give birth or are pregnant. It’s hard sometimes to come to my “safe place” away from the fertile world just to read about pregnancies and see baby bumps, newborn pics, pregnancy tests and a handful of people making the decision to move to a new blogging spot for a “fresh start” while others just disappeared from the blogging world after they got pregnant or had their babies and I find myself feeling a little left behind because at my lowest points it feels like everyone but me is pregnant. I know its not true, but irrational thoughts are irrational for a reason, right? So I’m backing away a bit so that I don’t hurt anyone or myself accidentally. Have my pity party for one, then dig myself out after the holidays and move forward. You understand, right?

Otherwise, things are CRAZY. I just spent the past 2 weeks moving my parents into their new home with a mother who hasn’t had to move since I was 4 (and she was in the hospital giving birth to my brother while dad took care of that move) and is now feeling completely overwhelmed by the thought of packing up 26 years of stuff. Needless to say, she’s collected quite a collection of stuff and doesn’t have room for all of it at the new place. For once this is something I have more experience in than my parents. Now that they are settled I’m in a mad rush to finish packing, tracking down boxes, organizing for the move which is a mere 2 SLEEPS AWAY. Can we take a moment and say holy shit! I’ve been anxiously waiting for this for months.

We move on Saturday, I have to rush to unpack just so that I can at least get the tree and some decorations up in time for Christmas. Plus I have to take my grandmother shopping on Friday, come home to finish packing, move on Saturday, pray that my friends keep their word and help us move and unpack. Then on Sunday I have a friends baby shower to go to. Which I’ve decided to go to because when she first planned it she asked if I could handle it and left it completely up to me. I asked if I could be put to work and she said yes and I’ll be attending it with a fellow IF’er, who happens to be the pregnant friends older sister and my childhood best friend. Support in numbers, right? Cause if anyone can keep the other sane during this and be able to cover for each other, it’s the two of us, together.

Then on Monday morning, I finally have my appointment with Dr. D, who is the local Gyno I was suppose to be referred to in March. When AART took over my file from Dr. G, shit started moving fast. And I’m also waiting for CD1 to hit so I can do my CD2, CD21 and CD23 blood work. I decided to wait until this month and cycle because as soon as I landed home, I started and honestly couldn’t find the time to do my CD2 blood work amongst my other obligations. Monday will also be the day that our cable and Internet will be hooked up. So between Saturday and Monday, I’ll be MIA and then probably sporadic at best until it slows down after the holidays because once we are unpacked and decorated, I have to make my Christmas gifts, most of which are just baked goods. So yeah this girl is gonna be swamped. This might be the first Christmas I’ll be happy to see come to an end. Two years in a row of moving mid-December and rushing to set up for the holiday is really hard on me, especially when I normally take my time and start organizing and decorating for Christmas by early to mid November. Next year I vow to enjoy the holiday season whether we’ve started treatments or not. So fear not if you don’t hear from me or I don’t/haven’t commented as much as I normally do. I’ll try my best but sometime all I have time for is some quick skimming of posts just to see where everyone is at and catch the big updates. I’ll be back at full capacity soon, I promise.

My last bit of updates actually ends up being pretty awesome. On Saturday, I received a pretty sweet gift. My friends and hubby threw me a surprise 30th birthday party. My friend told me that she was coming over to give me a mani/pedi as a birthday gift from her so I had no reason to suspect anything was up. I took a power nap knowing that she would let herself in. I woke up to 10 or so people hollering surprise, holding a cake and all the doings for a party. It was a great night of well needed laughter and fun. I found out later that literally everyone in my life knew about the party and hid it from me successfully (my parents and in-laws included) The party went til about 3am and it was a great night. Hubby’s gift was a pair of hot stone massage gift certificates for me and a friend. I’m giving the second one to the friend who planned my birthday cause she rocks. I look forward to using them in January, the perfect way to relax and come down from this hectic holiday that’s made me its bitch. Then of course I officially turned 30 (ugh) on Tuesday. My in laws gave me a gift certificate for my favorite craft store. My parents bought me the Tassimo T Discs I wanted that will go with the Tassimo machine they bought me and are giving me for Christmas. And despite them planning my surprise party and making my birthday cake, they gave me a cute snowman cake pan. So now I have a cake pan for each of my obsessions, cupcakes and snowmen.

I hope everyone is doing well. I’m thinking of you all and sending my best. I’ll hopefully be back into the full swing of things soon, but until then have a great holiday season!! ❤

Venting My Frustrations & Irrational Thoughts

Posted on November 27, 2012 by imfluffyowl

I have a confession to make. I’m become that hermit lady that hates leaving the house. In becoming this hermit lady, I’ve also find myself becoming completely detached from my friends, family and loved ones. All of them. The last time I spent any time with my friends was Brownies on Thursday. Before that, it was long before Chris’s grandfather passed away. And in some ways, if I’m being honest, I’m a little disappointed in some of my friends (though I’m sure I’ve disappointed them at some point as well). Many were quick to message me and passed on their condolences to Chris and his family, either through facebook/my family/or text messages, but some that I expected to hear from because they are the first to be at every wake and funeral, or at least rush to pass on condolences to people they know or know through friends or family, didn’t even bother to message Chris or ask me to pass on condolences to him. And Chris’s friends? Let’s not even go there. They knew, some messaged, but not one of his friends stopped by the funeral home or came to the funeral. It was a little disheartening. I’m sure that there are reasons, and I’ll move past it and everything will be fine, but for right now, I’m a little hurt and hoped for a bit more support for him and us, you know?

Also, while I don’t think the above reason is the cause, but if I’m honest it probably plays a part in it, I’m left feeling completely out of the loop and with no initiative to actually get back into the loop. I know that most, if not all, of this is in my head. But I feel like I’m the odd woman out. I know I’ve been antisocial as of late, but still, no one calls or checks in anymore except for a couple of people I’m seeing due to the few things that I’m forcing myself to do (Brownies and Darts being the exceptions).

I know I have a lot of stress going on in my life lately. I got hit with a terrible head cold. I fought with my parents for the past month over things dad said that I truly can’t bring myself to write about, but has left me utterly brokenhearted wishing for something to change. My husband and father will not stay in the same room together and I love them both but I’m somehow just left feeling uncomfortable. I feel like I have to choose and how does one choose between your spouse and the father that suddenly hates him. How do I not take that personal? The tension from this fallout is EVERYWHERE in my life. I’m dealing with Chris being sick and getting back on track mentally. Let’s not even talk about how long its been since we last had sex. Chris’s grandfather passed away. We are waiting on both our employment insurance claims to come in and still worrying about money on a daily basis. We are moving on the 8th and while everyone was willing to help and offered help months ago, only my cousin and Chris’s best friend and his girlfriend have actually offered to help us move in and asked what we need help wise. My 30th birthday is creeping up and it’s finally starting to scare me. I’m scared because I’m then in that category of pregnant after 30. I wanted to be a mom by 30, maybe pregnant with #2 by 30. I went from being excited of turning 30 to being absolutely scared shitless of turning 30 wondering if I’ll ever get to have kids, if I’ll be the only old mom at the schools if we are ever lucky enough to have kids. And I wonder if my parents will even do anything with me this year for my birthday or just go to a hockey game without me like they did last year (I’m still waiting for them to take me out for that birthday supper they promised). Then on Saturday, I got a toothache that just kept getting worse to the point that I got one hour of sleep last night and had an emergency appointment at the dentist this morning where he had no choice but to take the tooth out.To top that all off, I’m getting hit with a severe case of the holiday blahs.

I feel like we are at a standstill even though we are not. This is the first time I’m waiting on my body to do its thing so I can start my testing. But still, every time I venture out into the outside world, I feel like the odd one out at almost every gathering. I’m not happy and its hard to play happy. I want to be there with them, to enjoy it, but depression has me just trying to survive the time with people I care about and love, knowing that if I make it through I can go home and reward myself with curling up in bed with a good cry.

Most of my friends have children and families. Those that don’t have children, either aren’t ready for them and/or they have a family that’s not fighting/hating each other and nieces and nephews that they can spoil. I normally love Christmas and Halloween. Instead, I wished Halloween to be over as soon as it started. And I’m dreading Christmas. I didn’t go to the two Christmas parades. I was feeling low. It didn’t interest me. Everyone had someone to go with and I won’t ever ask to be invited into events, I don’t want to be that extra wheel that makes people feel like they have to ask me to come along. No one really invited me to join them short of a comment on facebook from a friend saying I should go to the parade. Everyone has their own traditions with their kids and no matter who I go with, I feel like I don’t fit, like I’m an extra intruding on their traditions and family time. They don’t do anything to make me feel this way, yet I feel it nonetheless. My husband hates parades, so he won’t join me and then of course if I could drag him, we are surrounded by kids who just remind us that we are spending yet another Christmas childless.

I spent the evening of Chris’s grandfathers wake listening to his newly pregnant cousin talk about the inconvenience and poor timing of this pregnancy with her friends and female cousins and then the war stories started about how long they were in labor and the things they hated about pregnancy. I went from being part of the discussion to just putting my head down and doing everything in my power not to cry while my husband just held my hand and no one even noticed how quiet I got, or if they did, they didn’t have the decency to change the topic. Then a few days ago, my grandmother wanted to show me the blanket she just finished for our future child, even though she already made me one but gave it to another cousin who is lapping me for the second time. I don’t know what hurt more, the fact that she gave away the baby blanket made and designated for my child or that she had the time to make me another baby quilt from scratch and I still haven’t gotten knocked up yet. I know she wanted to show me because she’s proud of it and she wants me to know how important I am to her and that she has faith that I will have a kid someday, but at the end of the day its just one more reminder of what I want yet can’t have despite trying my best.

Then my mind starts to wander. It’s already in that dark place so its really no big surprise that it goes dark and it starts thinking all the things it shouldn’t. It starts wondering if my lack of children is what has my friends not talking to me. Lack of common ground? Am I just the infertile friend that they lost interest in? Does my infertility and me being outspoken about my infertility make them that uncomfortable? Nonsense, I know. I get needy when I’m like this but still can’t get myself to open up facebook and send a message, text message or call my friends to ask why we haven’t talked in awhile. I know I’m partially to blame because I know I’m antisocial. But still, I can’t control what my mind thinks.

I don’t want to decorate. I don’t want to put up a tree. I don’t want to go on facebook or twitter because I truly don’t think I can handle another pregnancy announcement or the unending pictures of kids with Santa, newborn baby pictures of the son of the girl I used to babysit. You know, who is 5 years younger than me and had an oops pregnancy with the guy shes been with for around a year. I just can’t emotionally deal with that. I can’t seem to escape kids, babies, pregnancies, newborns, pregnancy announcements. It’s not the season of St. Nick, its the season of lets splatter every single piece of social media with our wonderful news and belly shots and pictures of positive pregnancy tests and pregnancy photo shoots and complaints about nausea and prenatal pills. And lets just go ahead and post stupid pictures that tell everyone how proud you are to be a mom or dad or grandparent and that kids are the greatest gift and if you believe this or have great kids, share this! Its perfectly OK to post that and make me uncomfortable but its not OK for me to post something about infertility because it makes you uncomfortable. What do I want for Christmas? How about my own pregnancy. But if you can’t do that St. Nick, can you at least keep me away from all of this so I don’t cry myself to sleep each night?

I know this is a dark post, but right now, I’m in a dark painful place and I feel alone. And the more alone I feel, the more that these feelings snowball. I just…need a break, a hug, to know that I’m important to someone and be told it’s because my assumptions aren’t working right now. I need a break. I need something to go positive for us, for once. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

Merry Christmas!

Posted on December 25, 2011 by imfluffyowl

To all of my blogger friends, I wish you the best for the holiday season. To those who celebrate Christmas, I hope you had a great day surrounded by those that you love. To those not celebrating Christmas today, I hope you have a wonderfully relaxing day and enjoy the holiday season. To my fellow IFers out there, I hope that the holidays were easy on you. I hope that the pain was minimal and you were surrounded by those who love and understand you. And if you had to put up with a difficult holiday, I hope you find some peace and recover between now and the new year.

This past week and a half has been a mess. I spent a lot of it upset and crying. But I also fixed a lot too. I posted last week about a Christmas party I went to. I removed the post. I was still very emotional from the day and I found out I was rather misinformed about the evening and the happenings by local friends when they asked to talk to me about the post.

Honestly, after all of this, it was my infertile mind seeing things in ways that it wasn’t happening. I spent the entire day with my pregnant friend. I was driving her to the event so she came over in the afternoon while I was getting ready to go. This girl was wonderful enough to take me aside a few weeks prior to tell me about the pregnancy so that it would be a bit easier on me. But since then, her excitement for her pregnancy (which is completely understandable in my book) has overtaken her common sense at times, and coupled with the emotional holidays, she spent the entire afternoon talking about her shower that I was asked to co-host. If she wasn’t talking about the guest list, she was talking about the games and prizes and food. I smiled at all the right times and I was excited, at first, but then it started getting harder and harder to sit through the talking. I tried to change the subject with no luck because she would just direct it back. I understand her excitement, but this is the woman who considered telling me first so she could give me the time to process is before she went out and told everyone. I was grateful for that. Incredibly grateful. But I think she was hit with pregnancy brain to not know that all this talk this close to Christmas, my 3rd Christmas without a pregnancy, that I would be able to handle this level of pregnancy talk without it bugging me.

So by the time that we got to the party, I had hit my breaking point. I was just telling her to tell them (to hopefully get it over with and out of the way and just enjoy the rest of my evening). And I did take part in the talk. I talked to some of the girls about prizes and whatnot. But for the rest of the night, the pregnant girl pretty much attached herself to me. So it really felt like it was all the party was about. She wouldn’t leave my side so no one could ask me how I was handling it. And she was talking about it to anyone that would listen.

After my post went public, some friends very dear to me brought these issues to my attention. I found out after the fact that some girls took other girls aside (out of sight of pregnant girl…and me by extension) to make sure that I was ok. And after I dropped off pregnant friend, I sat in my car with one of the other girls (one of the hosts) and she let me rant and cry and they helped me feel better. She is one of 2 people that I open up to about everything related to my infertility. I am at a comfort level with them that talking to them about it helps me find peace the same way this blog and posting sometimes does. I was very grateful that my friends were willing to talk to me about it, especially when they really have no idea what I’m going through. We have sorted everything out and since my post was wrong in many ways, I wanted to take down the original post and correct my errors.

Having this happen has led to an interesting couple of days leading up to Christmas. I fought with my husband. I was fighting with my parents and all about our infertility. I am very impatient about my infertility and this was the time that my family decided to remind me of how much they understand that we are going through. And that they support us even if we don’t have kids yet. They have faith that it will finally happen but they don’t understand how my mind works. So once we settled down and got through everything, I started to relax and enjoy my Christmas. And the day before Christmas Eve, I finally started to feel my Christmas Cheer.

So a Christmas that seemed to start out down and depressing is feeling just a little bit better. I’ve sent out my Christmas wishes. I’ve sat through Christmas dinner, our massive Christmas Breakfast and opened all of our gifts (including a wonderful gift from my parents: a 32 inch LCD tv and a sewing machine!) There is definately an empty feeling that comes with the holidays though. The magic of a child’s excitement is definately lacking. It does make the events easier because there are no young kids to shower with attention (but sometimes the showering of attention helps me as an IF). With no children to share the holiday with, we open gifts on Christmas eve and have a glass of wine and hang out but there’s no excitement that comes with the smile of a child seeing all the gifts under the tree. The magic is gone. I want that magic back. All I can hope is that 2012 holds that magic for us again.

I hope you all find what you are looking for in 2012.