All year I’ve been undergoing infertility treatment, and when it comes to the winter holidays, something in me just breaks. I mean, I’ve put up the silver tree and ornamented it reflectively– but even this effort at a certain point breaks down. So what if I love this dangling aqua peacock? Who cares?
Because Christmastime is family time, observational differences aside–witness the blizzards of greeting cards crafted exclusively to exhibit new babies and growing families, the giddy, delightful glee of a grandmother friend whose generations convene around her from across the globe–
When what I want so exhaustively is family of my own– as my mother said it before me, pining for her own reasons. Of course I have family of my own, family of all kinds: biological, married-into, chosen by affinity and shared experience. But the progression stops for me at me. There is no child or children in the picture. I’ve spent a lot of years papering an empty room.
There are, of course, myriad alternatives to conception (which we are actively researching and pursuing) as well as a thousand things to do as free and childless people. But, by gum, my arms ache for a very specific weight. And, sweet baby Jesus, this Christmastime, family time vexes me.