Three Things From 2024

I’m usually someone who loves spending time reflecting on the past year when the end of December rolls around, but this year I feel much more ready to step into 2025 and away from 2024. I don’t really want to reflect, and that feels a little strange since 2024 was, decidedly, a life-changing year.

One thing I’m working on right now is allowing myself to feel the things I feel, and not to put too much pressure on myself to do things as I’ve always done, so I’m going to try to just roll with this “out with the old, in with the new” energy. But of course, this blog has always been a time capsule of sorts for me, so I want to give a few moments of recognition to a year that both really challenged and really changed me. Here’s what I think I’ll remember:

1. Going through the embryo adoption process and preparing for our embryo transfer. This process took pretty much the first seven months of the year, with the legal process lasting WAY longer than we (or anyone involved) had expected. The multiple delays in the winter and spring were taxing in a way I hadn’t anticipated, and I didn’t really like myself during that time. When all the legal stuff was done, we jumped into the physical preparation. I can say that I’m proud of myself for going through this process (I have always been afraid of needles), because for many years I believed it was something I just wasn’t brave enough to do. Turns out, I’m braver than I thought I was (we all are). Another belief I’d long held was that I was just not built to be pregnant. I thought that God knew something I didn’t want to accept—that I just wasn’t strong enough to carry a baby in my body. So even as I was lining up empty syringes and pill bottles, doing exactly what the doctors told me to do, I think somewhere in the back of my mind, I still didn’t think our efforts would really work. Turns out that God did know something I didn’t, I guess, because as I write these words, I am 24 weeks pregnant, feeling an actual human being moving inside of me. I know how lucky I am to write those words, and also, I probably won’t ever know exactly how lucky.

2. The struggle of pregnancy. I suppose this one dovetails with the last—but as lucky as I feel, I know that one thing that I’ll remember about 2024 is how hard it is to be pregnant. I felt like a pretty terrible mom to my toddler son for the entire fall because I just felt so icky all. of. the. time. Icky is really the best word for it. I still can’t listen to certain songs or watch certain shows with Peter because they remind me, viscerally, of the sickness of the first trimester. I have carried some guilt over not loving being pregnant, since it took us such an effort to get here, but I’m beginning to accept that life is sometimes just both really hard and really wonderful—in fact, this might be the whole big lesson 2024 was trying to teach me.

3. Leaving work and staying home full time. Here’s what I’ll remember about this: I am not built to be a stay-at-home mom. Plain and simple. I’m grateful that I got the chance to learn that. I know that when I do go back to work, the transition will be challenging. But I am a person who likes to work. And that’s okay. It doesn’t mean I’m a bad mom. It doesn’t have to be complicated, and it doesn’t feel complicated (at least, not internally). It just feels like what’s true for Beth.

   So, there it is. 2024, for me, in a nutshell:

   1. I’m braver than I think I am.

   2. Life can be both difficult and miraculous at the very same time.

   3. I like to work.

I suppose this reflection business can be good, even if we don’t always feel like doing it.

What will you remember about 2024? What have you learned?

Here’s to reflecting and to moving on. Happy 2025!

Thanks for reading.

Beth