This is our first Christmas post ‘the decision’, I think this is why I’ve tried to make this year as festive as possible. I’ve tried to squeeze as much enjoyment as I can out of the run up so I will have no time to dwell on our childless Christmas, or the fact that it’s the first of many.

It helps that I love Christmas, I always have, but I have always pictured when they will change, when they will have happy little faces and super early mornings. I used to think of the traditions we would start as a family, like decorating the tree together, walking around the neighbourhood to look at Christmas lights, Christmas Eve movie night with hot chocolate and Christmassy pj’s, family gathered around watching excited children open their presents, I wont even get started on day dreams that include snow and day trips. Every Christmas for the last few years I have always happily enjoyed the day with the thought in my head that, next year we could have a special little one with us or I could be pregnant. This used to make me happy, the hopefulness of it, the bliss that the pictures in my head use to give me.

There is a bittersweet sorrowful element to Christmas, it’s a very joyful time and being surrounded by family only adds to that, but to people like me and my husband who are Childless or those going through treatment it also brings such sadness. It’s very conflicting to be both happy and sad, content but lacking, thankful for what you have but devastated for what you don’t. It’s also emotionally exhausting to feel this, I’ve often thought how to put into words how I feel and what goes through my head, though I’m not always 100% sure that I understand myself, so to voice it to some else is a daunting task. I think that the majority of people do not understand the journey we have faced, and the saying about walking in someone else’s shoes comes to mind, how can they understand if having a family came so easily to them, they never even had to think of it, but I’ll go into that more another time as I’m getting off subject.

Christmas, I feel must be one of the hardest times of year for a couple facing fertility issues, this year will be the first one that I wont have blissful day dreams about ‘next Christmas’, or if I do, I will need to remind myself that it is not for us. I’m still looking forward to Christmas, I hope I always will, but this year it does have a different feel to it, a sadness, but also a new beginning, for all my past Christmases I spent looking forward, wishing for the future to come instead of just being there in the moment. For all my talk of enjoying Christmas and family I spent a large amount of it in my head, wishing for a different day.

This year I will try to fully embrace the day, not looking ahead but enjoying the wonderful day and the loved ones around me.

Merry Christmas