Getting Through the Holidays

I've always had a love-hate relationship with the Holiday season. Christmas is absolutely, by far my most favorite holiday of the year. I simply love the magic of Christmas, the lights, decorating the tree, baking cookies, shopping for gifts for my loved ones...all of it. LOVE. IT. I also hate the Holiday season. As a musician and music teacher it has always brought on tremendous stress. Getting ready for holiday concerts, packing in every last bit of instruction before winter break (and hoping they'll remember at least some of it in January), and the inevitable phone calls and emails from parents having wars on religions that they don't practice. Ugh! I don't have nearly the holiday stress anymore since I left teaching, and I can actually enjoy the holidays more than I have in many years. But, the Holidays also bring on memories. Some of them good memories, and some of them not so good.

I don't think it's any big secret that the Holidays can be depressing for some people. I also don't think it's any big secret that the suicide rate is higher around the Holidays. Why is that? We miss people more around the Holidays. This season is a daily reminder of those we lost, of ways our lives have changed since the year before (or perhaps many years before). My grandfather passed away 9 years ago, and there are still difficult moments around this time of year. This year, the Holiday season is bringing up a lot of difficult emotions for me. This is the second Christmas in a row that I had been planning to be pregnant. This year, I should be well into my 3rd trimester. I should be Christmas shopping for our baby arriving in early February! But, I'm not. Our first baby would have been 8 months old this Christmas. This would have been our first Christmas as parents. The first year we got to send OUR family photo card with OUR baby. The first Christmas we got to see our little son or daughter's eyes light up with delight on Christmas morning (even if he or she didn't understand it quite yet). The first year we got to take him or her to Hersheypark's Christmas Candylane, and sit on Santa's lap, and...well, you get the picture.

It is bittersweet really. I adore the magic of Christmas. I'm having the greatest time shopping for my niece and nephews this year...maybe a little too good of a time. I bought more for them then I usually do this year. Perhaps it's because, well, if I can't spoil my own child I might as well spoil someone else's. But even that has it's tough moments. I was in Old Navy the other day buying presents for my niece and nephews, and back in the baby section I almost lost it. I saw the most adorable clothes that I wanted to buy for my own children. I quickly composed myself to so I could finish my shopping and not look like a total idiot bawling in the middle of a store.

I happened to pass by a Hallmark keepsake ornament the other day that said "the ones we love never really leave us." I teared up when I saw it...because I believe it to be true. I know I'll get to meet my angel babies some day. I know my cousin Nikki is looking down on us. I know because she visits me in my dreams sometimes. I know all these people we have lost are in a better place, and out of pain and not having to deal with the crappy world we live in. But it still hurts. I still want them here. ALL of them. My angel babies, my cousin, my grandfather...everyone I've ever lost. It is difficult to let go and want at the same time.

So how do we cope with all this grief around the Holidays? Well, I don't know if I really have the answer to that. There are moments where it's ok to cry, and to remember. But I also think it's important to focus on the good things in our lives, and the people that we DO have with us. For example, I am not looking forward to Christmas night. Tradition in our family is to get together on Christmas night with my cousins who are local (and anyone else close to our family or who may be visiting) and play games. I'm not sure how many years we've been doing this, but it's been for a long time...like easily more than a decade. My cousin Nikki always organized a "Yankee Swap" game (a sort of white elephant gift exchange). She really got into it, too! She would send out an email every year with the rules (which were always different), and Nikki always came up with the funniest gifts. It was her thing. I asked her sister if we are still going to do Christmas game night this year. She said yes, it will be difficult but we are doing it because Nikki would want us to. It is traditions like family game night that bring me both joy and sorrow. Joy because I will be with family and people I love, sorrow because one of us will never join us for game night again. But we push through, and we try to make some normalcy of the situation. I am sure there will be tears shed on Christmas night. It is inevitable. But we will all be surrounded by people we love, and that is what will help us get through it.

Remember your friends who are grieving and/or struggling this Holiday season. Whether it be someone they lost, or someone struggling with infertility, or someone who can't get home to see their family, or some other reason. Maybe they lost a job, maybe times are really tough and/or money is tight. Whatever the reason, be compassionate. Do something special for them...or better yet, with them! It doesn't have to cost a lot of money. One of my closet friend's family lives 8 hours away and she can't always get home to see them on Holidays. I always extend an offer for her to have dinner with my family. A visit, a phone call, a card...keep in touch with your grieving and struggling friends. I discussed in my last post the power of a simple phone call. Just keeping in touch and letting them know you care says more than any material gift can ever say. If you don't have any grieving and/or struggling friends, consider adopting a family. Bless someone who has less than you. My cousin Nikki always kept several change jars throughout the year, and then right around Christmas would deliver the jar anonymously to someone's house that they knew were in need. Find simple ways to bless people, and find pleasure in the simple joys of Christmas.

Also remember Christmas is a celebration of the One who came to save us. God came down to Earth in the form of Jesus, to experience life as a human and to die for our sins. God knows human pain because He has experienced human pain. He knows the sorrow of losing a child because he lost his only son. Jesus gave his life so that we don't have to be perfect. How amazing is that?! At Christmas, we celebrate how it all started. Mary and Joseph paid many a sacrifice to bring Jesus into our world. Bask in the glory and the peace and the love of God and his Son. Know that our struggles will pass, and God has a plan that is bigger and better than ours. Know that those that are not longer with us are with Him, and they are doing just fine. We miss them, yes, we will always miss them. But as the ornament said, they will never really leave us.

Blessings,

Adrianne

When God Says, "Not Now."

I have not felt compelled to write in a while, which is weird for me. My head is usually spinning with ideas to write about, eager for my fingers to type it out and share. Such has not been the case lately. I finally felt the urge to write again about a week or so ago, but naturally with the craziness of the Holiday season this is the first time I've actually had time to sit down and write (late at night when I can't sleep. haha).

The past month or so has been difficult. Until recently, I was in a low place and keeping mostly to myself. I was beginning to lose all hope that I'd ever be a mother. I've regained some of that hope, with a heavy dose of skepticism attached. We went through another insemination (IUI) cycle that failed, and that sent me into a pretty deep depression for about a week. We had another consult with our fertility doctor to discuss where to go from here, and during that consult was given a new sense of hope that this fight is not over yet. God hasn't told us NO yet. So we press on and pray for His guidance.

What God HAS told us is that it's time to take a break from all this insanity. During our last treatment cycle, I kept getting this nagging feeling that if I didn't get pregnant this time we needed to take a break for a cycle. Not-so-coincidentally, we were forced to take a break as our doctor wanted to meet with us and regroup and discuss our options. It was the best thing that could've happened to me. I simply needed time to be "normal" again. To not have to live by the calendar, to not rearrange my schedule for doctor's visits, to not have my one good vein abused several times a week and not have someone looking up my skirt at my ovaries again. The physical exhaustion is just as bad as the emotional exhaustion. And I am exhausted. WE are exhausted. It's a monthly reminder that we're not parents yet, and this month with Christmas fast approaching there's enough other stuff to give us that reminder. I don't need needles and ultrasound wands and medications to remind me right now, too.

It's very freeing not having a care in the world about when your next doctor's visit will be, or when your husband will have to take the morning off work again because it's "go time." I don't know how long this break will last. It might be just one month, it might be more. But what I do know is God has been telling us to rest and to focus on our own health. Both my husband and I have seen our bodies change over the past year (mine more than his). It has not been a good year for us emotionally, and that shows in our appearance. We recently made a commitment to each other to start eating better and going back to the gym regularly (a place neither of us have seen in quite some time). And I don't have to worry about exercising too hard because it's around ovulation time, or taking meds that cause me to gain weigh, or not eating or drinking something because there may or may not be a baby inside me. AHHHH! It's just all too much sometimes! 

I think just about every couple who has gone through fertility treatments has taken a break at some point. And that's ok. We need it. We are no good to ourselves when we press on under tremendous emotional and physical stress. Sometimes it's ok, as bad as you may want something, to say "not now." I have no doubt that Sean and I will be parents eventually, whenever and however God chooses for that to happen for us. I didn't have that dream years ago for no reason. God didn't place it on my heart the desire to be a mother for nothing. He is in control, and He will decide when and how the time is right. It's not easy to remember that all the time. Heck, sometimes it's downright impossible. I admit I have plenty of screaming matches with God over my struggle to become a mother. That's OK too. God still loves all of us. We don't stop loving those we care about just because they get mad at us, do we? Neither does God. I have to remind myself of this frequently.

And I admit I have not been listening to God much lately. Rather, I've been yelling at him, asking him "WHY?" and trying to come up with my own solutions. A couple weeks ago I told Sean that's it, we're adopting and sent for info from several agencies. Now I'm not so sure about that...not yet, anyway. I started listening this week, and a sense of calm finally came over me. God is in control. "Relax, Ade," He says, "I've got this all taken care of." You see, God already knows the outcome of this struggle. He knows the outcome of all of your struggles, too. Isn't that wonderful? Sometimes I think, when you're about to go through a trial in your life, God is up there in heaven saying "this is going to hurt, I know. It will hurt me seeing you go through it more than it will hurt you. But I promise it is for a reason and it will all be worth it in the end, you'll see."

God loves you, and He has a plan for you. The more you soak yourself in His presence and submit to His plan for your life, the more at peace you will be. I know it isn't always easy, believe me, I know! But it is worth every small glimpse of peace you may get, even if only for a second.

Blessings,

Adrianne