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Recently one of those memories came up on my facebook. "On this day 7 years ago, I was excited about Christmas and what the coming year would bring." Wow!
For anyone that knows me now, they would question "have I ever been excited about Christmas?" I am something of a Christmas grinch. I despise Christmas! A lot of people ask me why and I have always found it difficult to answer.
This memory on facebook made me realise this is not what I have always been. I have not always hated the Christmas season, I have grown to hate it. What happened to that excited young women from 7 years ago? The one who was filled with joy at the thought of Christmas and most importantly excited at the prospect that the following year might bring the new baby our hearts desired.
7 years ago was our first Christmas as a married couple, we had started trying for a baby and were about to move into our new 'family home' we were blissfully consumed of dreams of future Christmas's filled with laughter, love and excited children tearing open presents. Of the rooms of our new home filled with our family. It was a very real possibility for us. That within the following year we would have a baby in our arms.
Fast forward 7 years. Christmas after Christmas where our hopes were dashed. Christmas wishes, that time, and time again did not come true. Slowly and surely Christmas became less exciting, that aura like state that surrounds the month of December diminished. How could it be possible that we were disappointed year after year.
How do you answer the question of "What do you want for Christmas?" when what you truly want can't be purchased in a shop. How do you find a way to put a smile on your face when you want to cry inside? How do you go to the shops filled with happy excited children when you have so much trouble even imagining that this may be your child sitting in santa's knee having their photo taken. How do you buy gifts for the ever increasing amount of friends babies, nieces and nephews when you should be buying something for your own child.
The first few years I would buy things I liked for our future baby, small toys and outfits I fancied and imagined our child wearing, now these things bring nothing but pain and I've started to give them away to friends and family.
Christmas is filled with parties filled with prying people. People who don't care to see you throughout the year but insist on it at Christmas time. Those who ask questions about why you aren't drinking and imply that perhaps your pregnant, but instead your doing another round of fertility treatment and living in a constant state of "what if?" Loosing hope that the drugs will ever work.
When we reluctantly put up our Christmas tree we should have 'baby's first Christmas' ornaments or lovingly homemade items, instead we have this one in this picture remembering our lost baby, remembered only by us.
At Christmas when we are surround by family, especially our aging grandparents, I can't help but wonder if they will be there the following year or however many years it may take to meet our child. I have said good bye to 3 grandparents in the time we have been trying. I hope the precious ones that are left will get to meet their great grandchild.
Now Christmas for me is a reminder of another year passed, another year where we are again childless. Another year that our hopes have been dashed and life has disappointed. Christmas stings. I wish it didn't but it does.
Hopefully one day it won't, hopefully one day I will again be excited about the coming year ahead and no longer longing for that emptiness to be filled in my heart.
For those out there that find this time of year difficult know you are not alone.
