Thoughts During This Christmas Season

I sat and stared at a blank page for hours trying to think of how to put my thoughts to into words. These thoughts are dark and not usually something I want to talk about outside of my support group, and sometimes I don't even talk about them then.

My moods have been so up and down this holiday season. Christmas is my favorite time of year, but now it's sort of been tainted. This time last year I was blissfully happy and pregnant with our son, Colby. We announced the pregnancy on Christmas day even. We had no idea what was in store for us, how could we know?

This year we should have had our son with us. This year we should be buying baby toys and clothes and wrapping them in sweet kid friendly wrapping paper. This year we should be getting ourselves ready for the first long road trip with our son to see my family in Georgia. This year we should be introducing our son to some of my family for the very first time. This year we will not be doing any of those things.

Instead we will be buying gifts for other people's children and traveling to Georgia on our own to show everyone our Colby Bear. This year I am also not pregnant again.

There are many sides to my grief and depression. It's mourning the loss of the life that could have been. It's the loss of possibilities and experiencing Christmas through his little eyes. It's battling infertility and PCOS. It's the loss of two grandparents. It's crying at the drop of a hat to certain songs or to random commercials. It's cringing in pain when I hear a baby cry in public. It's answering the question of "how many kids do you have?" with "one son in heaven." It's anxiety about being asked that question or other related questions.

This whole year is different than what I imagined it would be last year. So much has happened in the past 11 months... and then there is the one thing that has not happened. And while my good days are outnumbering the bad days, the bad days are still really bad and feel like they will go on forever. I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but these feelings are a very real part of my life, and I strive to be honest and open about my life in this space.

I do want to take the time to thank everyone for your amazing support and prayers. It means so much to us to know that there are people out there that we've never even met in person that care so much about us and our journey. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you.