Family

Holidays have a way of packing a wallop don't they? This time last year I was recovering from the single most traumatic experience of my life.  And a year later I am two steps forward, three steps back all over again.

I just got back from my parent's house in NYC.  The trip was great and Niblet, as always, enjoyed the energy of the city.  That's my girl.

My parents, who I have occasionally written about, continue to rock.  Don't get me wrong:  they are exhaustingly cynical and misanthropic.  They view the world through gray colored glasses really.  I am used to them, but they are tough for my husband to take in incrimements of more than three consecutive days.

But they are doting grandparents to Niblet.  And in my personal dictionary, if I look up the word SUPPORT, I promise their picture would be there for illustration.  One of the things I love about my parents is that they don't try to sugarcoat the hell and back I have been through.  They don't talk a lot about my losses, mostly because it's not a topic we bring up around Niblet.  But I've had one on one chats over the past years with both my mom and my dad about my experiences.  About therapy and about acupuncture and about vitamins and supplements.  About trying to move on with my sanity.  And it's in these talks that my parents' cynicism and anger is actually helpful.  Because with them, there is no expectation for me to move on.  Quite the contrary, I should be pissed off at this hand of mourning that I have been dealt.  "You should be angry and sad and grieve Justonemore," my mother frequently reminds me.

On the other end of the holiday spectrum, I have to steel myself for Christmas, with in-laws who persist in rambling at the dinner table about all the blessings.  As if I am not keenly and painfully aware of them.  In-laws who have never once asked how I felt after any of the losses that they knew about.  Look, this isn't uncommon, and I am not trying to grab any sympathy.  At the end of the day my in-laws are fundamentally decent people, but they are incredibly tone deaf when it comes to sensitivity and emotions.  My in-laws actually require a trip to my therapist to pregame a plan of action on Christmas Day.  The best part of the plan usually involves hiding in the bathroom.

Here's what's most notable though after spending the past four days with my mom and dad:  I walk away with hope.  I don't know if it's Trying-to-conceive sustaining hope.  I don't think it is.  We're still approaching life with the expectation that Niblet will be our one and only child.

But sitting as a passenger on the turnpike this afternoon, I had the strangest sensation.  It was like there was a voice whispering to me.  And if I were to transcribe the whispered words, they would sound something like this:

I don't expect to ever get pregnant with, carry to term, and take home a healthy baby.... But if I found myself pregnant again..... maybe there could be a teensie, tiny, slight chance that it was a genetically normal pregnancy?  Obviously not a big chance, I mean, come on, face reality, based on my past odds, I would say any pregnancy of mine is doomed before it starts.  But.... maybe the chaos overlords of the universe would determine that it was my time.  Maybe I would get one lucky roll of the dice. Bad things happen to generally decent people every day.  I can be angry, and cynical, and generally believe the bottom will drop from my life, but I can still hope a little, right?