Quittermas

Doug has deemed this Christmas season "Quittermas", as neither one of us can be excited about it. Saturday we decided we would at least put up a tree. It was a miserable, rainy day and we went to the tree lot in the grocery store parking lot. They had the kind of tree I wanted (Noble Fir) but they were all eight feet tall and around $90, which at this point is more than we wanted to spend. We ended up getting a small Scotch Pine and it made me cry. The tree was not so horrible, it just snowballed from disappointment because I  didn't get the tree I wanted, into disappointment that I'm not pregnant during another holiday season. God bless my husband, he is a saint. Most men in his situation would want to run away from a wife that bursts into tears randomly.

Once we got the tree home we realized we needed another strand of lights, which involved us going to Target - on a Saturday afternoon - during the holiday season. It was a brutal shopping trip and they didn't have the same lights we had at home so we had to get a string of retina-searing blue LED lights. The tree is slightly crooked but we just don't care. 

I managed to get out Christmas cards to our immediate family but that's about it. I'm waiting for the onslaught on holiday cards from friends with uber-cute children. I don't really mind getting these cards but it can make me a teensy bit sad. 

Our trip to Seattle last week was nice, the city was decorated for Christmas and very pretty. We got to spend some quality time together and with friends, plus see one of the most beautiful areas of the country. I did come to the conclusion that the Seattle area must make everyone insanely fertile because I swear every five feet there was a pregnant woman or someone with a baby. We went to a urban craft fair and you couldn't move without seeing a baby strapped to someone. Even Doug was like "where are all these babies coming from?" 

On our own procreation front, I'm waiting until Friday to call the clinic and see if they received the HSG results and if they're closed for New Years. If they are closed then we won't be cycling until the end of January, if they aren't closed then we'll be cycling at the end of this month/first weeks of January. That will also mean we have to order meds and make our final new donor selection, all of which will run us around $1,800.00 total. Merry Christmas to us.

Blah Humbug

I have almost no interest in Christmas this year. I never thought I'd say that because as long as I've been alive I've loved Christmas. I have many happy memories revolving around celebrating the holiday. Most years I can't wait to get the decorations out but this year - well I just can't muster any enthusiasm. I thought about getting some of our Christmas things out over the weekend but I never did. We're leaving Thursday for a mini-vacation and we weren't planning on getting a tree until we got back anyway, but now I'm not really sure we'll bother. Part of the problem is I'm still in a bit of a funk. For all intensive purposes I'm a thousand times better off emotionally than I was a few weeks ago. But there's still an underlying layer of sadness I just can't shake off. The holidays are so 'child-centric' that dealing with IF is made that much harder during Christmas. I mean the holiday itself is about the birth of a baby right? Add that to the commercials, magazines, internet ads, articles, etc. that revolve around children and Christmas and its enough to make me go off the grid until January. It kind of seems like the message is 'unless you have children Christmas is no fun.' Sometimes it feels that way too. 

Another reason I'd like to skip right past the holidays is that I know we'll be starting a new cycle (hopefully) in January, provided AF ever returns. Anyone who knows me knows I am notoriously impatient and I feel like I'm just treading water waiting, waiting, waiting to return to the RE's office. It doesn't help that AF is still MIA, I'd really like a status report from my body about what's happening in there. Most information I've found says your normal cycle should return after 3-6 weeks, well it's been 5 weeks for me and still no sign of AF. We can't really move forward with anything until my cycles resumes and its making me crazy. Here's to hoping *something* will happen soon.