Apparently I'm Now a Scrooge

Today I spent the day with my mom doing some Christmas shopping and now I feel terrible. I used to love the holidays and now I seem to hate them. I told my mom that I didn't feel like decorating the house this year and she proceeded to tell me that she understood that I was sad, but that I shouldn't let it keep me from enjoying the holidays. Of course this made me feel worse because I felt like she was ignoring my feelings and brushing them off as insignificant. I proceeded to tell her that I'll do whatever I want and if I don't feel like decorating my house then I won't. Obviously she can't force me to do it. It sounds childish to repeat that, but I can't even believe that someone, especially my mom, is giving me crap about missing my son this holiday season.

I did buy a silver star ornament that I had engraved with "Remembering Myles" in addition to an ornament that says "Baby's First Christmas" with a place to put a picture of Myles. I already bought a silver "M" ornament. The more I think about it we'll probably put up our tree just so I can put these ornaments on it for Myles.

I guess I'm just finding it hard to be merry and joyful this holiday season. Last year at this time we were excited to be pregnant and were looking forward to finding out Myles's gender. This year all I can do is think about what should have been. Everyone seems to think that I should be enjoying the festive season like nothing's happened, which actually makes me feel worse. Also, after the holidays we're that much closer to Myles's birthday and the worst day of our lives, the day he died.

Despite being a scrooge I do plan to decorate Myles's grave for Christmas. I bought items to make an arrangment that I will put on his grave when I take down the Thanksgiving/fall items this weekend. I bought a neat basket that looks like the black top hat that Frosty the Snowman wears. I plan to stuff it with real pine sprigs, sparkly berries, and other pretty glittery embelishments. I plan to make the arrangement and put it on Myles's grave on Saturday along with the super cute snowman LED light that my mom bought for his grave. The solar-powered LED snowman light changes colors and will look great hanging on the shepherd's hook next to Myles's grave. I'll take photos and post them after I get it all decorated.

Tomorrow will probably be horrible too. I'll have to endure my cousin's baby boy and the dreaded "What are you thankful for?" thing they love to do. I think I'll go outside or lock myself in the bathroom for an hour while they do that. Or maybe I'll say something to make everyone feel uncomfortable?!

I'm sure it doesn't help that I had to buy my friend a baby shower gift and gifts for other friends who are having babies soon. I figure I'll buy gifts, but have no intentions to attend the shower or visit the newborns. Visiting the baby section of any store is bad enough, but being immersed in non-stop baby talk at a shower is like torture. Now that I bought those gifts I'm done with baby stuff for this year and hopefully for a long time. I'm hoping that the next baby stuff I buy is for my baby(ies) that K is carrying!

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On a positive note the clinic's IVF coordinator called me to tell me that our paperwork was approved! This was a huge relief to me given that I answered a question about marijuana use honestly and said that I tried it in college. I was freaking out thinking that this was going to ruin everything. The IVF coordinator said she's passing our files on to data entry to have them create a chart for K and she'll be calling us on Friday or Monday to schedule our pysch eval and infectious disease testing. I requested that we schedule the consent signing on the same day to avoid multiple trips to the clinic. I'm hoping that we'll get our IVF calendar that day or shortly thereafter. The ball is still rolling ever so slowly ...