23w 5d (Holidays)

I don't do well with holidays. I came home from Mongolia via Washington D.C. right after Thanksgiving and right before Christmas in 2003. It was the worst year ever. My depression was crushing and my disappointment and sense of failure was even more devastating. Every year since then, I try to create new memories, determined that this year will be the year that I embrace holidays. Then the holidays come and it's just so hard. Every year I fail at being merry and every year I'm not sure what is worse, the actual day or my expectations at how I think the day SHOULD go.

One of the problems is that my family is all in Pittsburgh or east of Seattle. In Houston, I have my parents and Zac. No cousins, no aunts, no extended family. And although KGII and I have known each other for almost three years, we've never spent a holiday together. We're both just so stubborn people. He invited me to his family's gathering in Austin this year (approximately four hours away) and I refused outright, on principle and practicality. I get sick a lot and I get up at 3am regularly. I also go to the hospital a lot and I didn't want to be four hours away from the maternal fetal hospital. I also didn't want to abandon my parents because without me and Zac, they would be alone. I invited KGII to my parents' house, but he said he got called away with his family's obligations.

When he got back from Austin last night , I asked him about our family, the family we are creating. In my parents' guest bedroom on Thursday night I had an incredible sadness come over me. Here I was, again, pregnant with another child and all my family was talking about was becoming a family of 5 next year (Mom, Dad, Zac, Me, and Baby Boy II), not a family of 6. There was no partner in the conversation. My family has an easier time imagining me single than imagining me bringing someone home to Thanksgiving dinner. I was pregnant with another man's child - another man that didn't want to build a family with me.

Most of the time, you know like 90% of the time, I'm fine with being single. I'm fine with saying that I tried very hard for a long time to find love and I just didn't find it. But sometimes, usually while alone in my parents' guest bedroom, I think about finding someone that will love me and my children. But I don't even believe it anymore. I don't believe in love. Which is why the holidays kill me. Everything on television and the radio is about connecting with your love during the holidays and sharing the joy. I try to be joyous for Zac, but sometimes it's just so hard. I want to curl up in a ball of self pity and holiday loathing and emerge again sometime in mid-January.

Did I mention that I'm blowing everything out of proportion and I'm so hormonal that I feel like I want to cry on a daily basis? Me, pregnant, and holidays just don't mix. I feel like I need to come with a disclaimer: contents under pressure and likely to explode with no provocation.

Damn, this is just a hard time of year. Being pregnant and alone just makes it harder.