38

You guys have no idea how much I wanted to be able to write a positive post today, about this being my new New Year and starting over with a clean slate and looking forward and blah blah blah happy birthday cake.

But instead today I'm full of grief and sadness. One of the first things I did after I got up was to burst into tears in the kitchen, standing there bawling over my coffee while my husband is at the other end of the house, oblivious to my little breakdown. I finally had to log in to blog about it because that was the only way I could get myself to stop crying.

Part of the problem is that, for some reason, Matt decided to get me up at nine. I stayed up till two this morning and was counting on being able to sleep in till at least 10, because it's my birthday. He said he thought I'd want him to get me up because we need to start turning our sleep schedules around so we can start going to church again, but BIRTHDAYS ARE NOT DAYS FOR DOING THAT! I'd have dealt with it better if this wasn't the third or fourth night in a row that I didn't get more than six or seven hours of sleep, but it is, and it's all catching up to me and making me feel really fragile.

And part of it is that it hit me that I didn't get my yearly birthday card signed "Mom, Rob & Bobo," and that I'll never get that card again, and my mom-in-law won't be calling me to wish me happy birthday and make plans to get together to give me my gift. That's actually a big part of it. I miss my in-laws, and their cat, and I hate hate hate that they're all gone, that half of our family just doesn't exist anymore.

Of course, the bulk of it is simply that birthdays are hard when you're over 35 and you're having reproductive problems and you want kids more than anything else in the world. Every day that you're not pregnant you're aware of that clock ticking away, that little whisper that you're running out of time, and birthdays are the stroke of twelve on the clock, the big bong clanging in your ear and screaming that your risk factors just multiplied and your chances of having a healthy baby before time runs out completely just went down a percentage.

I keep reminding myself that my mom had my little sister at 38, and everything was fine. But mom didn't have my history, and she'd already had three healthy children by that point, which keeps that from being as comforting as it could be.

I see birthday messages piling up on Facebook. It's helping me feel cared for and loved, but it's also making me feel bad that I can't say, "Yes, I AM having a happy birthday, thanks!" But maybe it's not too late for that. Writing all of this has already helped me feel a little better. I was going to do some work on my blogging course today, but I think I'm just going to take the day off and read a book or something. I haven't had time to read a book in ages. We've been debating whether to do my birthday sushi night tonight or wait for the weekend, but I think I'll push for tonight. And maybe later I'll take a nap and then work out, and then my outlook will be better, and I can get to that Happy Birthday New Year Clean Slate place. Maybe.