Holidays are hard. For most of us, regardless of what it looks like in our instagram posts.

The last Christmas that I was hopeful – one where I genuinely thought I might have been pregnant by the holiday – was quite a while ago. (before iPhones and Instagram). While I have struggled with my childlessness most Christmases since then, they weren’t quite as tough.

Until this year.

While I don’t think I ever really let myself go all the way in, I did have that hope again. It varied over the course of several months as we discovered my change in fertility status and then jumped into treatment. Negative betas were a theme this year, as well as a chemical pregnancy, but amongst all this disappointment, there was a little wonder.

Would this be the year?

Except it isn’t.

We stopped treatment; finances versus odds weren’t good. Adoption isn’t our plan, and we acknowledge that childlessness is something we can live with.

Still…