The Strangest Year

I am never going to be pregnant. I'm never going to grow a baby inside of my body, some magical combination of centuries of DNA from Joe's family and mine. Melded into a mysterious and lovely little person. It's not going to happen. And that's a hard thing to admit to myself. It's a hard thing to absorb.
Not because we know who that person would have been or what that person's laugh would have sounded like, but because they never existed. We aren't grieving that person, we are grieving the simple idea, the whisper, the hope of that little person in our lives. And that's one of the hardest, most elusive, and most painful things I've ever had to feel.

It's a sharp pain some days. Others days it's nothing more than a slight lump in my throat while watching a child throw a tantrum in Target. Some days there's even a bit of relief that my body will always belong just to me. But December has been hard. Waves of grief and loss creep up at the oddest times. And especially around the holidays, which I've always loved. They were a little bittersweet this year.  I've felt like I've been walking around in a bit of a daze this last month. Not grieving a death. Not grieving a tangible, concrete loss. But grieving an idea, a dream, a hope and a joy that we won't get to experience. And that feels strange, and yet still deeply painful sometimes.

But I'm getting ok with it. I'm getting to the next place, the place that says, ok, we want to be parents, above DNA and placentas and Lamaze classes, we want to be parents. So we'll find a way to do that. But this wispy sadness will always be with me, I think. This little "what if?". We did everything we could to try and have a biological baby. No regrets. But that "what if?" will always linger. Who would that little person have looked more like? Would they have had Joe's curly hair and my height? Would they like to ski or dream of being president or hated algebra with a fiery passion? Who would that person have been? And I'm allowed to wonder that. I'm ok with wondering that. Because we'll never know. But I get to wonder that because I know that we will be parents to a real live child, not a dream, not a whisper. Not a biological child, but our child nonetheless.

Joe and I will have a home filled with laughter and fun and bedtimes and books and joy and tears and chaos. We will have that. It's just going to come to us in some form that we can't understand yet. It will happen. I know it. And I think the challenges of the last year have actually prepared us for the next challenges ahead. I feel tested and stronger and better able to sit with my own feelings and let them happen. And I think these are skills Joe and I both will need in the coming year. So as much as I am sad, I'm excited and scared and nervous about what happens next. Who will we be meeting? Whose laundry will I be doing someday? Who will we be helping with homework, and cuddling while watching movies, and grounding for a week, because that's inevitable, right? I have no idea. But I can't wait to meet them.