Hope, for me

We had our annual office Christmas breakfast yesterday morning. One of my co-workers gave me a stocking with some candy in it and a star-shaped ornament that has the word “hope” on it.

I’m not sure if she got it just because she was grabbing whatever she could grab in a moment of last-minute gift-buying panic, or if the message was intentional.

R and I are gearing up to start our first IVF cycle, and I’ve been struggling with the idea of hope. More specifically, I’m afraid to allow myself to feel it. On a cerebral level, that seems silly, because why should we even bother doing the cycle if we don’t have at least some little shred of hope that it will work? But on an emotional level, it feels like hope has been mercilessly beaten out of us so many times, that I’m afraid to let myself go there again for fear of the emotional battering that seems to always follow.

I’ve chosen to believe that she gave me the ornament intentionally. I’m going to hang it on the wall somewhere (we don’t have any Christmas decorations up - I’m not in the mood this year), and look at it whenever I need a little reminder that it’s ok to allow myself to hope.

I have a feeling the wall and I are going to be spending a lot of time together.