'Tis the Season for Hope and Healing

It's been awhile since I've had a chance to blog, and honestly I feel kind of guilty of that because I promised myself when I started this thing that I wanted it to be a place that I regularly wrote down my thoughts about this whole journey. My hope is that if we succeed that this entire blog can be something for said child to look back on, to learn their birth story, and their journey into being.

That all said, it's that magical time of year when there seems to be 50 hours of things to get done in a 24 hour period and frankly, this ball just got dropped. I absolutely adore the holidays and everything that goes with it. One of the things that bonded me to the hubby was that we were both holiday geeks. We love the imagery, the sentimentality, and all the traditions. Yet, we always tend to be way more busy this time of year than we ever intend, most of our own doing because of all the things we like to do to celebrate.

My parents moved to live closer to us at the end of October so it was a wonderful thing to get to host Thanksgiving this year and spend time creating new holiday members in our home with baby girl. It was also really nice to have a day of calm - cooking duties were split among those coming for dinner, and we had a good, stress-free morning watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and playing with baby girl's new Fisher-Price Little People Nativity set. It was relaxing, it was rejuvenating, and it was spirit-fulfilling. I wish all of our holidays could be exactly like that.

The farther we get into this journey, the more grateful I am to have come out of everything last year in one piece and with baby girl healthy and happy. In the early days, I had a harder time coming up with a gratitude list but did it anyway so as to remain focused on what was really important. We have so much to be grateful for, and I feel like in this season, wounds and grief can be magnified, as the sentimentality of this time of year weighs bittersweet on us all. One of the people I always think of this time of year is my Grandma. Christmas just wasn't Christmas without Grandma making her bourbon balls and she would make them alongside my sister and I when we were working on other Christmas cookies. Grandma was a Kentucky girl through and through, and we were never allowed to eat the bourbon balls as children and now that I have the recipe I know why - they are soaked in bourbon, a good cupful, and never cooked!

Grandma would have been 100 on November 6, 2015. She died shortly after Thanksgiving in 2009, three weeks after her 90th birthday. The last time I spoke to her, on her birthday that year, I was so pleased that she knew who I was as she had been suffering from Alzheimer's and had not been super clear on everybody anymore. But she remembered me that day when I wished her a Happy 90th. She asked me how college was and told me she loved me. I'm so glad I called and that we had that moment together. (Another example of those many "carpe diem" opportunities I seem to have these days.)

November 6, 2015 would have been Grandma's 100th and also it was the day of my hysterectomy. As silly and superstitious as it may seem, when they took me back for surgery, I had hoped that Grandma might somehow intervene from Heaven and make sure that everything would be ok. When I awoke the next morning and learned what happened, I was devastated and honestly, a little disappointed - I felt like Grandma had let me down. A year later though, I feel like Grandma may have intervened after all. I made it out of the surgery with the left ovary completely healthy and untouched. That fact alone has kept me out of menopause and also gave us the opportunity for the successful egg retrieval. The hope for surrogacy is there because of that. But more than that, I made it out alive- period. That infection was so bad, I think if we had let it go much longer, it would have probably taken me with it and that fact is hauntingly humbling.

I can't imagine baby girl growing up without really ever getting to know her mom. I physically hurt over the thought of not being here to see her grow up. I am so grateful every day that I get to make memories with my husband and our sweet daughter, memories that are now making new holiday traditions, and ones I hope that baby girl will remember and cherish. It's cliche to say, but after a near-death experience, everything seems to be more precious. I cried seeing Santa Claus arrive in Harold Square this year, I cried setting up the Christmas Tree, I've cried each Sunday seeing the Advent candles lit, and I've cried thinking about the excitement and anticipation the season brings and seeing it in baby girl's awestruck eyes. I don't think in my life that I've ever cried as many tears of joy as I have in the past year, over so many milestones and so many memories that I am so grateful to have. So many tears that have expressed a gratitude that I couldn't have comprehended.

Jesus came to the world as a baby. In my opinion, there is no other way to have come as something more innocent, more humbling, and more vulnerable. There is nothing that more represents divine and unconditional love. The preparation that happens during Advent for me this year has taken on a new meaning, because I am opening myself to what "the baby Jesus" now represents for me: the barriers that knocks down, the challenges that presents, and the risks that His birth invites me to take. I feel called to be vulnerable now in a way I never felt before. I feel called to love now in a way that I don't know I ever knew I could love. 'Tis the Season for Hope and Healing. And love. Glorious, unconditional, soul-fulfilling love. I am finding that I am experiencing all of them simultaneously this year and I pray that each and everyone of you finds them in whatever your own journey may be.