This week kicks off what has repeatedly been a bittersweet time of year for me, a season that should be full of hope and joy, but a season where my more pessimistic side whispers, “You’ve reached this milestone… without becoming a mama yet.”

November brings about our eighth wedding anniversary. As a starry-eyed bride, I could not have fathomed being childless eight years after my wedding day. I’m glad I didn’t know that this was the road I was about to embark on. (Also, I’m really glad that my husband Mike is the one I’m taking this journey with!)

Then comes Thanksgiving, when for the past several years I have simply wished I could say, “I’m thankful for my baby.” But no baby has come.

December rolls in, the month in which both my husband and I were born. Our birthdays, as happy as they are, have left me feeling a bit saddened at the fact that we’re turning another year older without becoming parents. And Christmas… all I want for Christmas is a baby, and all I want to give for Christmas is a baby announcement. It’s a tough time of year when Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas seem to be popular days for pregnancy announcements, and too often those days seems to fall on the week my body is reminding me that I’m not pregnant.

Before I know it, the New Year begins, and I remember that my past seven New Year’s Resolutions have been to get pregnant. Even after all these years of unanswered prayers, my greatest dream is still to simply be a wife and a mom. 

I remember Elizabeth in the New Testament, whose prayers for a baby were answered after she quit asking. I remember Hannah, who wept her prayers, and God answered. I remember that Scripture says that Isaac prayed for his wife, and she became pregnant with twins. I remember that it was twenty years from the time Isaac and Rebekah were married until the day she gave birth. And I remember countless other stories of God saying yes, of God bringing new life into barren wombs.

So in this bittersweet season of celebrating anniversaries and remembering what I don’t yet have, I’m determined to pick my head up and rejoice. To paraphrase Habakkuk 3:17-19, even when I’m lacking this good thing that I still desire, I will rejoice in God my Savior. 

Do you want to read more on this topic? Here’s a post I wrote about how God finally answered specific prayers after they were no longer being prayed about: www.lovethatbetsy.com/2015/04/they-had-stopped-praying.html.

And take a moment to read my post from my seventh wedding anniversary – a day nobody could have imagined  that we would still be without children.

Edit October 2021: I wrote this piece one year before my first Thanksgiving as a mama. Then a few years later we experienced an unimaginable loss during the holidays, so here we are again, constantly reminded of our babies during this holiday season.