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What are your recollections and experiences of the Holiday Season?

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From Shari
From young girlhood to early marriage, this season was one of the sweetest times of the year for me.  I had no doubt I would be pregnant or have a child to share the magic of these holidays.  The images were dear and treasured.  Every time I sang Away in A Manager, it was a promise that I would be singing to my own child someday.  Early in my infertility, I was so sure that it was just a matter of time before we would have our own child, that each year I hung a small baby-sized stocking on our mantel, waiting for my baby to come, I smiled as I put a candy cane inside and silently invited my baby to my home.  I kept that stocking up for several years, but finally it became too painful—even to see it.  I left it in the box and the mantel remained bare.

• What were your dreams and images of what this time of year would be?   
• What did you imagine, even from your young girlhood? 
• What do you dream and imagine now? 

Recent Responses

Lauren
All my life, I imagined telling my family at Christmas, that I was pregnant.  I played out, in my mind, fun ways that I could announce the good news to my family.  Maybe, after all of the packages were opened and the room was littered with discarded paper and ribbons, there would be one last present under the tree.  My mom would say, “What’s that little one?”  With the tiniest grin and a joyful heart, I would hand it to my mother and say, “Open it.”  She would remove the wrapping, maybe with a laugh or joke, but her words would become silence as she lifted out the small pacifier or onsie and she realized what it meant.  The silence would almost immediately be filled with the squeals of delight by all of the females in the room who would ask questions about how far along and how long had we known.  My Dad would grin with pleasure and his usual awkwardness at all things female. My belly, which in my imagination, barely showed, would nevertheless be examined and patted by every member of the family.  My husband, lovingly beside me, would grin with pride.

Em2470
Music is an important part of my life.  One of my favorite musicians wrote a Christmas song that came about when she felt her first child moving inside her.  Since hearing that story, that dream became part of my dream for a baby.  I have struggled so long for a child, that this is the miracle I want.  I want to feel my baby move inside my body at this time of year when we celebrate a miraculous birth. 

Karyn
Here’s what I think about when I think about a baby and Christmas.  I want to get to go to the store and buy one of those beautiful red velvet baby dresses complete with a Velcro bow for her non-existent hair, white tights, and totally unnecessary black patent leather shoes.  I know those dresses are completely impractical and the tights spend more time bagging around her knees.  Probably she would throw-up on the whole ensemble.  But, that’s what I dream about when I think about a baby at this time of year.