Happy Christmas, Even If War Isn't Over Yet

You have no power over me, Yoko Ono!

You may be thinking to yourself, well, duh, of course Yoko Ono has no power over you. Do you even know Yoko Ono? Are you secretly a Beatle and just forgot to mention it all this time?

See, here's the thing. I'm Jewish, but I've always loved Christmas music. Besides, living in North America in December, it's not like I could avoid it if I wanted to. And I have always had a particularly strong reaction to one song in particular: Happy Xmas (War Is Over), which combines John Lennon's probing, vaguely passive-aggressive questioning of the listener ("So this is Christmas / And what have you done") with Yoko's seemingly wordless wailing. I cry every time I hear it, I swear. It's practically Pavlovian at this point. I hear the opening chords and a lump forms in my throat as I think about how the song is about war and war is so terrible and John Lennon's death was so tragic and you know, when you get right down to it, what exactly have I done over the past year?

Except this year. This year, I was prepared. When Yoko started to wail, I was going to look at my delightful little baby and think, this year I had a baby! Ha! Put that in your "life accomplishments" pipe and smoke it! Except it didn't really go that way.

Pregnancy-after-infertility blogging tends to follow a few conventions: there's the post about how getting pregnant doesn't mean you won't always feel infertile and remember your struggle. There's the quick post immediately after the baby's arrival that is followed by several days or weeks of silence and finally followed up with some variation of "wow, I've been really busy!" And then there's the post written a few months later, as the calendar begins to display dates that match up with important events of the last year: one year ago today, I was just starting to stimulate my ovaries/chugging water before my embryo transfer/looking in disbelief at a positive pregnancy test. And you think to yourself, I could never have predicted at this time last year how different my life would be now.

For instance, there was my one year blogiversary, just passed. There's the anniversary of my first Lupron injection. There's the holiday party I recently attended - same venue, same guest list, same menu, but this time the slight headache was sleep deprivation from caring for a newborn, not a side effect of the artificial menopause I was putting my body into. Coming up, we get to celebrate the one year mark from my total and utter freakout about my egg retrieval. There are good memories on the horizon, too, like the Superbowl party I attended where I knew I was pregnant and nobody else did. It was, simply, a huge year.

And that's why I thought that for once, "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" would have no power over me. Except that I found myself welling up right on cue, this time because I just couldn't believe how massively fortunate I have been over the past year. Look at what I've done, Yoko! A new year just begun, indeed!

I know this is a hard time of year for many people, so before I close I want to say this: you are not alone, and you are not forgotten. Infertility is desperately hard and dealing with illness and disappointment can be devastating. But life can, and does, change. Be strong and be well.