By this time next year...

I'm very lucky in that I am married to an eternal optimist. J is the most positive person I have ever met in my life. It's probably one of the biggest reasons I married him, along with his innate kindness and sense of fun. (And he's quite easy on the eye too!) Every time I have got to the end of my tether in this whole baby quest, he just says "Just think, this time next year, we could have a baby". At first I used to agree with him, but now I'm beginning to lose that hope.


When we first started trying to conceive, it was just after his 40th birthday. We were both sure it would happen quickly. I think the terror of pregnancy which had been drummed into me all during my teenage years made me think that one incidence of unprotected sex would be all it would take. So, at the age of almost 37 years old, I had unprotected sex for the very first time. And guess what? I didn't get pregnant!! Life WTF was I obsessing about for the previous fifteen or so years? At the end of that month, the night before our first wedding anniversary, I went to Galway to meet a close friend of mine who was setting off on her travels around the world with her boyfriend for two years. As I waved them goodbye, I remember thinking that the next time I would see them would be 2008, and we would definately have a baby by then.

When I got pregnant and miscarried that November, Christmas turned from being the dream Christmas to the nightmare. We had moved into our own house in the Spring of 2006, and after spending almost 18 years renting and paying other peoples' mortgages, I was finally at long last paying my own. We were so looking forward to having our first Christmas in our own house. We had to dig our heels in to get J's parents to accept our invitation to Christmas dinner. I think the dynamic in a lot of Irish families when it comes to hosting Christmas is that you are the children until you have children of your own. As in unless you have children, you are expected to pack up and go "home" to Mammy and Daddy for the holidays. Well I wasn't having any of that, I had waited long enough, and we were having Christmas under our own roof and that was that. Then I became pregnant, and the way the dates were working, I would have been 13 weeks gone around Christmas Day, which made for the perfect time to share our news with J's parents.


Then it all went to shit. I found out on November 14th that I had had a missed miscarriage, and a week later I had a D&C. As far as I was concerned, Christmas was cancelled, only nobody told the rest of the world. So we went through the motions, bought the presents, cooked the turkey, and got through it. Everyone told me that it would all be different in a year's time, and I tried to believe them.


Then the following April, I found out I was pregnant, due on the 21st December. So Christmas 2007 was going to be The Best Christmas Ever Ever. Only it didn't turn out that way, I lost the baby in May. In October, I found out I was pregnant again, with pretty much the same timing as the previous year. I would have been 12 weeks gone on Christmas Day (do you see a pattern developing here?) And same as the previous year, it was not to be. When everyone said "Just think, this time next year it will all be different", I just couldn't put on my happy face and agree. All I could think was "Yeah right, that's what you said last year". If I thought Christmas 2006 was grim, it was nothing compared to Christmas 2007. All I could think was that I could not wait to see the back of 2007, which had turned into the year from hell.


Last March, J's youngest brother told us that his wife was expecting their first baby in September. We were of course happy for them, but sad for ourselves at the same time. J kept saying to me "don't worry, by the end of the summer, you'll be pregnant too". Well it's hurtling towards the end of August, their baby is due in a month's time, and we're still not even allowed to try again. And my friends who went on the two year around the world trip? Well they came back from their trip of a lifetime last April, and they are getting married in two weeks time, and here we still are. When they announced their impending nuptuals, my first thought was "I might be pregnant by then". Then I thought "Or I might not, don't get your hopes up". At least I get to wear this little number to their wedding, stretchy enough to accomodate my post op stitches after the lap on Friday.

The next "I might be pregnant by then" milestone is of course Christmas. I have decided that if it's not happening by then, I'm booking us on a flight to somewhere sunny. We have a family member moving to Dubai, with ample spare rooms and a swimming pool so that seems like the perfect antidote to the not pregnant blues. The next milestone after that is my 40th birthday next May. Since I didn't get pregnant this month, it's now official that I will not be having babies in my 30's. That was a tough one to accept, and I think that was the crunch point for starting this blog. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be looking down the barrel of 40 years old and still childless. So if it's not happening by then, I honestly don't know what I will do. I certainly won't feel like throwing a birthday party, that's for sure.