I have always loved the holiday season. We always cook so much food for Thanksgiving and start making things days before. We have some traditions that I enjoy so much! We pick up our fresh turkey from a local farm, brine it at my parent's house. My husband and I cook homemade cranberry sauce, apple pie, pumpkin pie, creamed onions, mashed winter squash (grown in our garden!), and homemade bread or rolls. My mom cooks the rest of the meal, and we bring everything we've made over to their house. The next day, we all drive together as a family to a local Christmas tree farm. We all walk around through what seems like millions of trees to pick "the perfect tree". My husband and I put up two full sized live trees and it always makes the house feel so festive and warm! We decorate a gingerbread house which we keep on display... just so many fun things we do each year. For Christmas, we celebrate on Christmas Eve and eat some traditional Swedish foods. So many wonderful memories!
Thinking back to where we were last year, when contrasting with this year... things are so different now. We really are expecting a baby! So much has happened in the past year, almost all things I didn't expect. I never thought we'd need IVF. I never thought we'd suffer a second early miscarriage. I certainly never thought I'd be diagnosed with HG. I also never thought pregnancy would be so hard. But as I've come to realize, very little ever goes the way you expect it to. And that's okay.
To those of you out there who are still trying, who's hearts might be aching this holiday season... please do not give up. While we were trying, I would have given anything to be pregnant. But now that I finally, really truly am pregnant, I would not change anything that brought me here to this moment. Even though it was a difficult and painful journey. Everything we went through led to this baby, who I feel wiggling and hiccuping at this very moment as I type. You will get there too.
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