Thankful

Warning: PG mentioned.  If, like I often was, you are hiding out from the family and reading blogs, you may want to skip this one this year.  No hard feelings, I promise!

Today I am the most thankful I have ever been!  We are 24 weeks today -- a major milestone that seemed so very impossible just a few months ago.  Although it's not by any means a guarantee of a living, healthy, baby -- it's extremely comforting to know that, were something to go wrong, doctors would at this point actually attempt to save the life of my precious son.  

We are spending the holiday with my parents and some very good friends -- the ones who put us up during all of our treatments last summer.  I am so grateful to all of them for their unending support.  Though neither couple has ever experienced infertility, both my mom and my friend have had losses.  Regardless of shared experiences, they have both been incredibly uplifting and loving towards us, even when they didn't know what to say or do.  I feel thankful for their love and friendship every single day -- though today it does seem even more poignant (pregnancy-hormones, anyone?)

Speaking of Baby Boy, he is growing stronger every single day!  His little twitches and flips have turned into solid kicks and rolls.  At over 1.5 pounds (according to our last ultrasound a week ago), he's starting to fill out a little bit.  We got the most precious 3-D picture of his face -- I stare at it daily, simply entranced by the idea that that is MY son, and that soon I will be able to kiss his sweet cheeks and tickle his tiny feet.

I am beyond thankful that modern medicine has made this experience possible.  I've written before that adoption is an answer for some, though not without its pitfalls and heartbreaks.  We walked that path ourselves, hoping that maybe our family would come to us that way.  It turns out that it didn't -- and while I know that the future is "still unwritten" and may include adoption at some point, I am so very thrilled that I got to feel my firstborn moving around inside of me.  I didn't realize how much it would mean to me until I actually experienced it.  That's not to say that adoptive moms are missing out -- I firmly believe that motherhood is a state of the heart, not of the uterus.  I'm just thrilled that I'm on my way to finally meeting my son; the kicks are just an added bonus.  :-)

I'm also not unaware that many of you don't feel too thankful today.  It's hard to, when nothing seems to be going the way you'd planned.  I hope that, whatever your current status, you do something nice for yourself .  Skip the holiday, indulge in an extra glass of wine, cry your heart out in the bathroom.  Eat a crapload of turkey or fifteen different desserts.  Do whatever it takes to make it through.  I know firsthand how impossible it can seem, how unending and unfair and unbearable to miss your children when everyone else seems oblivious to your pain.  It's my fervent hope that next year is different -- whether that means an adoption, a pregnancy, a living child, or just a peace that eludes you this year.

So Happy Thanksgiving -- or not.  Here's to a holiday that is easier than you anticipate.