Signs of change

I noticed this week that it was getting harder to get home in time to take my dogs on a walk while it was still light out. I thought maybe it was because I was getting home later. But I've since determined that that wasn't it. The days are actually getting shorter. That can only mean one thing....fall. Which immediately precedes winter. And winter contains January. And January cannot get here soon enough.

Winter has always been my favorite season. I LOVE holidays, I love rain and big family dinners and decorations and change of wardrobe. I love fireplaces and getting cozy inside with a book or movie or loved ones while storms rage around us. I even love that it gets dark when I'm still at work, 'cause then I feel better about leaving. When it's light out the Type A in me thinks I have more time to put in before quittin'. The pessimist in me loves how winter allows me to indulge my feelings of melancholy. I know plenty of people battle with seasonal affected disorder but winter somehow makes me feel less depressed. Maybe because I finally feel normal.

Given how much I love winter, it's a sad thing that last year I was wishing away all the days and hours between October and December. I yearned for January 2nd. My first u/s. I wanted to skip over time, i didn't mind giving up days on the planet, it was worth it - I wanted to see my baby, to tell people finally, to know that everything would be fine, to make sure the alterations to my wedding gown were done such that the pregnancy would not be obvious. I was hiding a pregnancy last winter in the face of all those holidays (plus two family birthdays) and I just wanted to disappear for most of it and resurface on January 2nd in the safety of my doctor's office. It was agony, waiting. Agony in a time that I should have been happy. I gave up happiness.

Now it's happening again. Who cares about the joys of the season when I am incomplete. Given the choice, I'd rather skip the fall and winter, if it means I can TTC again. If it means I can have the possibility of becoming pregnant again. But I don't have the choice. So here I go through another couple seasons of yearning for what I don't have (and it's only August - how do I expect to get through the next 5 months??). There are days I feel close to being able to turn it off. Like a switch. Flip - no more yearning, no more angst, just living life. And life without kids is not so bad. But I can only say that because deep down I believe there's a high probability we will end up with a healthy child in the not so distant future. In all my pessimism, I believe that. If I didn't, I think The Wait would be unbearable.


So last week I noticed it getting dark earlier. And today, it's raining. It's the beginning of August and it's pouring. I live in the US, the west coast specifically, and not in Seattle. So there is no earthly reason for rain on August 6th. But I am loving it. It's another sign that the seasons will change and that my life will move on.

But at the same time I feel like I'm abandoning myself with hope for (a) that which cannot be (time travel) and (b) that which one should not hope for (time to move more quickly). It's like a slap in the face to the gift of my own life, my own time on Earth. I feel ugly for wanting time to pass more quickly. So I'd like to break away from the hindrance but as we all know, "waiting is the worst," and it will be difficult.

I'm trying to pinpoint my precise problem with The Wait, in order to better be able to cope. And here's what I've come up with. The more legitimate reason I have for not wanting to wait is that my life is perfect right now for a child. DH and I and my family are all at perfect ages for our respective roles, we are financially stable with enough energy and training to do justice to our careers and support a family comfortably, and I now have so many friends in the beginning stages of parenthood with whom I could bond and glean invaluable advice and socialization for a child.

The less legitimate (but just as nagging) reason is that I'm afraid of what can happen in six months. As in - who knows if DH and I will still be alive or still be together, for whatever reasons. And more realistic to me is the possibility that DH could have a change of heart. I feel like this newly found devotion to becoming a parent is fragile. And I need to strike while the iron is hot, so to speak. But maybe this is silly. I hope so. Because it looks like I don't have much of a choice. Fortunately, one of the many fabulous things about DH is that he doesn't say anything he doesn't mean. He is brutally honest. Case in point, he had no qualms telling me about his uncertainty about the prospect of parenthood once upon a time. So if he says he's excited about parenthood, he is. And while I know guys don't have the same biological clock as we do, it's probably not easy for them to slip out of that desire either.

So I am still moving slowly through each day, through each conversation with new moms, through each FB post and each trip out in public. Each beta draw, each new pregnancy announcement. I am moving through them with a lot of frustration but so much hope. And an understanding that there is so much that's good about having a five month prep time. I keep reminding myself of what I said long before we even started trying: "I don't ever want to be pregnant during the holidays." How silly an naive, but maybe I can recapture that conviction. At the very least, I think it will get easier. I am lucky. My beta is zero, I think I'm cycling normally, I have the best doctors, I am relatively young, I have a supportive husband, I can get pregnant. I have to keep repeating these affirmations to myself. I think it will get easier.