A tale of two Christmases

If I were watching myself on a TV show, I would be absolutely amazed at my mood changes. I can go from being completely devastated one day to (could it be?) being almost, somewhat happy the next.

Witness Christmas. We spent a few days at my parents’ house for the holiday, including Christmas Eve. The gathering was relatively small—just M, me, my parents, my brother and SIL and their 18-month-old. While my mother was having her traditional holiday meltdown in the kitchen (basically, she becomes very stressed out and bitchy in a short amount of time), I was slowly becoming unglued. By the time we were ready to open presents, I was an emotional wreck. I think it was watching my parent’s joy at being with their granddaughter and remembering how big I was supposed to be. See, Christmas was significant because it marked the beginning of my third trimester.

I made it through the gift opening mostly in one piece. At the end, however, I realized I wasn’t going to make it through the rest of the evening and excused myself early. So there I was, on Christmas Eve, sobbing in my parents’ guest room while everyone else conversed merrily downstairs. That’s a picture I won’t soon forget.

The following morning we made the two-hour drive back home to spend Christmas Day alone together. We could have gone to M’s extended family celebration, but I told him I couldn’t handle a large group just yet. Hell, I couldn’t even handle my own family! I was exhausted (I hadn’t slept well) and as soon as we got home I tucked in for a two-hour nap. And that’s when the bad times ended.

M and I proceeded with our day as planned: We made a lovely Christmas dinner for two (chicken cordon bleu—yummy!), opened a bottle of wine and watched two movies—“Casino Royale” and “The Sound of Music” (guess which one I chose?). We opened gifts, discovered that each of us had gotten the absolute perfect gifts for the other one and were overcome with how much we loved each other (it sounds corny, but it's true). And the most perfect Christmas gift of all? I walked out of the bathroom gleefully informing M that I wouldn’t be able to thank him properly with sex because…AF arrived! A long nine days after my last Provera pill, but it was still here. Which meant I could finally proceed with the pre-TTC process (Dr. Hot won’t start treatment until the next cycle, but this cycle had to start before I could even begin looking forward to the next one).

Suddenly, life was full of hope and possibility again. And although I went to sleep, as I usually do, still wishing that things had gone differently and Zach had had the right organs in his body, I wasn’t quite as sad as I was the night before.

And really, that’s all I can ask for right now.