I think I was the only one at work today who did not write the wrong date down. Not once. Everyone else was still writing December, or remembering it’s the first month but putting the wrong year down. But me, every time I had to fill out a date I gleefully put down January 2009. I felt a bit smug as I did so, flipping a mental middle finger to the year past. Oh no, I will not be forgetting anytime soon. I have grabbed onto this new year with all my heart and I am not letting go. Customers sigh it all went so fast, and I just smile and nod. Yes, time does go faster every year, I would say. I didn’t tell them I was glad it’s over, glad that most of this year was a haze to me. I don’t tell them that it was the worst year of my life.

In contrast to the relief I feel at the new year I am struggling with so much sadness. My cycle’s failure is hitting me hard in a lot of ways. I would have been due on my birthday, and that was something special to me. It was something good to hold onto amid all this grief and fucked-up-ness. An IVF failure feels like a loss, too. A loss of hope. A loss of plans and what-could-have-beens.

It is not necessarily compounded by the loss of Devin, but is a separate entity to deal with. Instead of turning from grief to hope I now turn from grief to loss. Where are the good things? What is there to hold on to?

My faith in IVF has been badly shaken. I knew it wasn’t a sure thing, but I guess I figured that since it worked once already we would have better odds, that we would be able to improve on what we did before. But instead I saw that IVF is a wild stallion, and sometimes it does what it wants, when it wants, with no rationale. It is something we ride when the winds are right, with grace and good timing. We can fall at any time.

I thought the hard part would be fertilization. I was supremely confident, saving my reservation for that one moment. But instead I was thrown off early. So now what do I feel for next time, but fear? Fear that the same thing will happen. Fear that it will be worse.

And, overall, a fear that it will not work again. Nothing in life is guaranteed. And with my problems… there is much fear. It is very plausible that my doctor will, at some point in the future, review my file and tell me it’s simply not worth wasting more time waiting on my own eggs. The mere thought that Devin, my dear, sweet, lost Devin, could be my only biological child upsets me far more than the previous fear that I would never have any. He was here, he was right here. With my little fingers, and half my genes. Maybe he had my blue eyes – I will never know.

I see my friends have their second child, I see how much their babies look alike. Not the same, no… but similar. They have the same cheeks, or the same big eyes. Maybe my children will have the same delicate fingers. And I am desperate to see my next little one live and grow. To see my shadow child in their eyes. To see my Devin’s full sibling.

Devin will not be the end. He cannot be.

But there is just so much fear.