Christmas

Couples who suffer from infertility tend to not like a few days. Mother's/ Father's Day, Easter, Halloween and Christmas. Mother's/ Father's Day is quite obvious, it reminds us that we don’t have children and everyone else that does gets to celebrate it. The rest are days that pretty much revolve around kids (even though Halloween is my FAVOURITE day of the year I still end up shedding a few tears at some point).

For us we usually try to avoid Christmas until we can't anymore. Which I really don't understand why we continuously do this to ourselves. It ends up in finally one of us kicking the other one in the ass to smarten up and get in the spirit. This would fall around maybe December 18th…..giving us less than a week to get our shit figured out. Last minute decorations going up, scrambling to figure out what in the hell we are going to get everyone….realizing that whatever ideas we had won't work because of course everything is sold out...... and then finally on Christmas Eve around 5pm getting it all together.

Even though Pat and I are veterans at the barren Christmas, it still can go many different ways. As a couple we are very good at keeping our lows on an alternating pace, but it usually starts with us just giving each other a misty eyed, pouty face followed by a big hug. The rest of the day its either him throwing shit around in a fit of anger with me saying "Don't worry babe....we will get there" OR I just start crying and yelling about how much I hate everything and him just hugging me telling me we will get through this.

Anything I come across on Christmas Day is a possible crying fit waiting to happen. The most interesting was while I was walking the dog (always nice on Christmas,,,,so quiet), I passed an older lady walking her dog as well. Our dogs both decided they had to meet, so we stopped and chatted for a minute. As we are about to go our separate ways she wished me a "Merry Christmas", I looked at her with tear filled eyes and chocked out a "Merry Christmas to you". The look of terror on her face made the tears come out even harder. Without skipping a beat the lady wrapped me in her arms and said "I'm so sorry. I don't know why you are upset, but I hope things get better". I couldn't help but smile. I was a complete stranger to this woman, and she did what she could to comfort me. As we pulled away I looked her in the eye and gave her my most sincere thank you. And we both carried on with our dogs. I will probably never see her again, and I will never be able to thank her again for making my day a little easier to deal with.

I didn't tell my husband the whole story about my walk....I couldn't. Telling the story would cause the tears again. That was it for me that day, I got it all out at once and we both carried on and enjoyed the rest of our day. :)

I hope every one had a safe and Merry Christmas, from my family to yours.