A very pregnant Christmas

I’ve been reading a lot of blogs today, and it seems like a lot of people are having some  major depression issues around the holidays and TTC.  So if you’re one of those people I would advise you to not read this post – you’ll probably want to skip ahead and read me rant about my mother, smug married people, or whatever of my usual gripes may come up in the next few weeks.

Are they gone?  Ok.  So here’s the deal.  I freakin’ love being pregnant during the holidays!!!  Or rather, I should probably say I freakin’ love being in the 2^nd trimester during the holidays, because being in the first would (for me) mean lying on the bath mat holding a small piece of cardboard while all my friends worry that I’m not showing up to their parties, and being in the third trimester (I’m assuming) would mean lying on the couch like a vast beached manatee, unable to get up and clean between my folds of flesh, while my useless little manatee limbs flap helplessly.  So, hurrah for being pregnant while simultaneously not being sick (God be praised) AND not being a beached sea mammal (yet).

I’ve always loved Christmas.  It dawned on me the other day that, barring some horrendous incident (and we won’t go there…happy thoughts!!) this will be my LAST EVER childless Christmas.  Don’t get me wrong – with the exception of the year my mother and I “broke up” during December, I’ve always had good Christmases and been welcomed into the bosom of various friends and family members.  But some time ago I read a blog that really summed up how I had started to feel about Christmas as I got older – that it gets to be a real drag always being the single, spinster aunt, still coming home for the holidays alone like a college kid, while all your relatives bring significant others and then children.  And yet year after year you’re the same – alone, no boyfriend, no husband, no kids.  Holidays are such a family time, and Christmas especially is such a kid time (much like Halloween), that let’s just say underneath the fun of it there is a slow moving stream of melancholy.  I know that last year I had a hard time dealing with one Christmas event I went to where all the spouses exchanged gifts and stood around holding hands all night…it made me feel hideously lonely.  This is indeed the all time hardest time of the year to be single.  And I’m not saying that having a baby is going to take all of that away – I’ll still be single.  However – I’ll have a baby!  And then a kid, and then an adult son who hopefully will still like me enough to visit at this time of year and hopefully will give me some grandkids (and hopefully his wife/girlfriend/husband/boyfriend won’t be some psycho I can’t stand). 

I won’t be doing a tree this year because I don’t dare haul a six foot tree up three flights of stairs by myself, nor back down the stairs when I’m in the third tri.  So I’m a little sad I won’t get to play with the ornaments this year – but thinking about looking at them and telling the stories to my son in upcoming years makes my heart burst with joy.  All of this is going to mean something now – and as I’d so hoped when I was TTC, there will be someone to live on and tell our stories.  And there will be new stories to tell, which is even better.

Lately I’ve been returning to one of my favorite fantasies, which is owning a cabin in Big Bear.  They are so cheap right now, they’re killing me – several decent little ones for under $40,000.  If things were different I could spring for one; it would be like buying an expensive car.  Of course this is totally out of reach for me at the moment, but might not be in 5-10 years, you never know.  The idea of spending Christmas up there with one or more kids, sledding and skiing and doing all that wintertime stuff, just sounds too wonderful for words.  So I peruse the real estate listings and dream.

So I feel bad for everyone who’s struggling right now.  December is the suckiest time ever to feel alone, sad, depressed, or like you can’t get what you want, whether it be a man or a baby or both.  Having to deal with everyone else’s joy only makes it all the worse.  I’ve had MANY horrible New Year’s evaluating my life and wondering what the next year held for me, knowing that more than likely the following New Year’s would look exactly like the one before (as has been the case for me since…oh, since about 1993), ie, not in a relationship, no kids.  This is the first one ever that is in fact different than those that came before, and will be different from those that are yet to come. 

Last year I made it my New Year’s resolution to have a baby.  On Facebook I wrote my resolution was to start composting.  Didn’t start composting.  But hey, I still have a few weeks left – maybe I can hook that up, too.