Merry Xmas in Ljubljana

Our Christmas isn't as I hoped it would be some years ago. But it doesn't mean it is any less beautiful.
 
Me and my DH just returned from a lovely walk. Ljubljana is just breathtaking beautiful in December.

Here are some photos.

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas! 

(How I miss my beloved Wolf. He really taught me that life is short and one has to enjoy each day. He sure knew how to do it).

You? You are married?

We had a New Year business lunch with coworkers. It was quite nice, lunch was delicious.  There were 40 of us. 

At one point somebody started to count women around our table (mostly aged 27 - 40, most of them have children) and counted that out of 12 women only one is married. I wasn't listening to that conversation, I heard only when my best coworker commented: "No, 2 of us are married, also Klara is married."

My first neighbor at the table was utterly surprised and asked me:  "You? You are married? I thought you were just living with a man." 

I calmly replied that yes, I have been married for 11 years. 

But inside I was deeply hurt. I am married with the love of my life. But to the outside world it seems that if we don't have children,  our relationship is like nothing.  

I am better today. It is a sunny weekend, I was outside a lot. And I even went for one hour of swimming yesterday.  Being active & fresh air do help to lift my spirit.

Wishing you all a beautiful Sunday!

Lovely Christmas Package

It is lovely to get home from a long working week and find just a perfect Christmas gift. 
Me & my DH are looking forward to our first moring coffee tomorrow. 
And beautiful mouse pad is being used already.
Dear P&A: thank you!!!!

Happy 3rd Birthday to my Blog

My blog is celebrating third birthday today. This was my first post:
http://thenext15000days.blogspot.com/2011/12/living-new-happy-life-after.html

Writing blog and giving all the hard & ugly infertility feelings out there really helped me.
I already got a beautiful blog-birthday gift from a new bloggie friend. I got an email from her:
"...I also wanted to take this opportunity to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your blog.  I appreciate your courage, candor, and willingness to share your journey.  I'm sure it's therapeutic for you to write, but it's also so meaningful to me because reading the stories of others who have gone through/are going through the same things as me.  It helps me to not feel quite so lonely if that makes sense."

Yes,  it makes sense. And thank you for your email, it meant world to me.

Now I am off, for whole day Christmas event at work, I will be back in the evening to read all the best wishes either here or at: klara.soncek (at) gmail.com

:)

Invisible

A pen friend of mine (childless, not by choice)  told me that she feels invisible a lot of the time. This word has been sticking in my mind for the whole weekend, since it so perfectly describes how I feel, very often.

I went for a walk&talk date with my best friend. Nowadays we do this only once every two weeks for one hour, since she is so busy with her two kids.

I really love her. But it was kind of  hard to hear about all of her plans for the summer holidays.  She would prefer to go for a week to the seaside to destination X with family A and her husband prefers destination Y and family B. And the kids prefer the kids of the family A, but prefer destination Y.

I felt so invisible.

Nobody makes any summer plans with me and my DH. We are just always alone.

And that's why our American holidays were so special for us, we did have the best travelling buddies possible. Here is one lovely photo, as a memory of the perfect holidays.

***
The work New Years Party was actually great. I didn't drive so this year I could drink few cocktails. They helped :)
And the music was loud, so even the most annoying mommy-coworkers could not share their kids story.

So, it was pefect. We were dancing and drinking and laughing over some silly jokes.
This party gave me the hope that I still can function well. And that everything will be OK one day.

Each family gets one card

I briefly visited my brother's family. 

My oldest niece (7) told me that in the afternoon she was planning to do New Year cards.   Here is our conversation:

Me: "So will I get any card?"
Niece: "Of course."
Me: "Will my husband also get any card?"
Niece: "Of course. You will get one card together. Each family gets one card." 

How lovely she is! And how smart! For her, we are a family.  

(I know I shouldn't have favourites, but she is my favourite child. I really think she got a kind heart from me).

Only when we are so old, only, are we aware of the beauty of life

 

I just finished reading the book about the life of Alice Herz-Sommer. I liked it.

My favourite quote: 

“Only when we are so old, only, are we aware of the beauty of life.”
― Alice Herz Sommer
 

Viele liebe Grüsse aus Graz

My DH had to go for work for one day to Graz, Austria. I took one day off work so I could go with him. He was working and I spent whole day walking around the city. Exploring it. Drinking hot chocolate. Eating waffles with apple sauce and cinnamon. It was lovely.

Pictures say more than hundreds words, so here they are:

I am not OK in December

What happened with old good fairy tales? This is an example of a a fairy tale that modern parents now buy to their kids.

A friend of mine already told me about this particular book, all excited, some months ago. I was polite, I listened and did not comment anything.

Few days ago a friend of mine had the need to tell me something more about this book, but I stopped her. I kindly asked that I really do not want to hear anything about the book.

She was surprised. She said - but it is only a story for kids about a little sperm.

So I explained. For me, this is traumatic. Because it reminds me of fertility drugs, hurtful procedures, hopes and dreams that were crushed down again and again.

I am sad. Because I know my friend needs a friend who can listen to everything that she has to say. And I am just not that kind of friend. I am damaged, for life.

***
It is December and parties are everywhere. I was invited to quite some of them, mainly they are work related. I am just skipping them all except one (I would love to skip it as well, but my big boss phoned me today just to make sure that I am coming there this Friday).

I don't like parties in December. Because December is the month when it is so obvious that my life just isn't as I hoped it to be.

I am OK with my childlessness and being alone most of the time 11 months per year.
I am not OK in December.

PS: but I did have just a perfect day yesterday, admiring a beautiful city abroad in Christmas decoration. I will tell you more about it tomorrow.

Amsterdam & Anne

“But I want to achieve more than that. I can't imagine having to live like Mother, Mrs. Van Daan and all the women who go about their work and are then forgotten. I need to have something besides a husband and children to devote myself to! I don't want to have lived in vain like most people.”
Anne Frank 


"The nicest part is being able to write down all my thoughts and feelings, otherwise I‘d absolutely suffocate."
Anne Frank


I have just finished reading The Diary of a Young girl, the complete version. I did read the short version when I was 13, but I was too young then to really understand what a heritage Anne left by writing her diary.

On the way back from USA we chose our flights so that we had couple of hours in Amsterdam between the flights, so we visited the city centre.  We didn't have time to visit Anne's Frank museum, so I promised myself to read her diary. I am glad that I did.

Here are some photos:

A wondeful movie (Philomena)

I watched the movie Philomena yesterday with DH. We both loved it, it is the best movie we watched this year. 

http://philomenamovie.com/

We started to watch it very late, we said we will watch only a bit and the rest the following day. But it was so good we just could not stop watching it.

A friend of mine invited me to the movie to watch Philomena a year ago. I checked the plot and saw that it was about an old woman searching for a son whom she gave for an adoption 50 years ago. I declined the invitation, I was probably having a bad infertility week and did not want to see a story about any mother. 

But I got the plot wrong. 

She did not gave her son for an adoption. He was stolen from her.  Yes, she did sign up a paper that she is giving him up. But she was a teenager when signing and she did not really know what she was signing. 

It is a beautiful and sad story that touches your soul really deeply. 

I couldn't fall to sleep for a while yesterday. I was laying in the bed thinking about adoptions.

Since there literally are not any children available in our country (=foster care system is preferred, in many cases children stay in foster care families up to 18 years), couples who want to adopt, have to adopt internationally.

If you adopt a child in a less developed country or in one of the most corrupted countries, how can you be REALLY sure that a child that you are taking from an orphanage is really an orphan? Or, that his/her mother gave her child away free willingly?

It would break my heart if I found out later, that the only reason I have a child is because to a poor woman was done the most horrible injustice.