Happy Chanukah

The holidays are an understandably difficult time for people who want children and don't have any. This is true in any culture. In the Jewish community, life revolves around children. They are the light and life of everything.

We were lucky to spend the first night of Chanukah with extended family. Since the first night landed on Saturday, we lit at home before going out. For the first time in many years we were misty-eyed about our lack of progeny. From there we went to the party where everyone mixed together. Kids, adults, chaos and noise - just family together. It helped cheer us up, and it brought up an important awareness that we know we want children in our future regardless of what path we end up using to get there. We don't want to be the odd childless couple who just kind of happens to be in family photos. We're going to try what we know until either it works or we decide to try something different.

For the first few years of our marriage while we were we young  and struggling financially, we just weren't ready for kids. We postponed starting IVF until we felt we were in a responsible place to bring tiny people into the world. We also had in the back of our minds that IVF was a beast and it took a few years to get mentally prepared for it. So during that time it never bothered us that other people had kids and we didn't. We figured that when we were ready, we would do IVF and just start popping them out. It never occurred to us that we'd still be trying two years in. It never occurred to me that I'd get pregnant twice and lose both pregnancies.

I used to regret not having started treatment sooner. That if only we had started sooner I'd have more of an edge somehow. But I've since come to the acceptance that things happen when they need to happen. And if that's the case, then if we would have started sooner, perhaps we'd just be in this ttc phase longer. For some reason I may never understand, maybe we weren't supposed to have children until now. I can only hope the future holds a different story.

For all those who celebrate, Happy Chanukah and/or Merry Christmas. May you have a beautiful holiday with family, friends, love, and light.