Almost time to say goodbye to the year gone by. Usually, round this time of year I’m gearing up to make my (mostly unsuccessful) resolutions for the year ahead. Most of em I never stick to and the ones I do seem to come with their own load of shit that constantly make me wish I never made them in the first place. Like the time I gave up alcohol for nine months (and no, I wasn’t even pregnant). Or the time I pledged to lose my shitful IVF weight gain. Or the time I gave up KFC for four whole months. I read somewhere nobody likes a skinny sober bitch anyways. 

But thiiiiisss year, this year there’s none to be made – unless you count The Vet’s hope I give up my Insta nighttime shopping obsession (whatever bro, like that’s ever gonna happen). Nope this year the only resolution ahead for me is happiness. 

So much of the past five years of my life has been suspended in fear, grief, hopelessness, self hate, self blame, diet, wanting, anger and a fucking great deal of self doubt that I’ve forgotten to actually live. As each year has turned over, I’d gone into it thinking the tide would change and we’d finally get the hope of our efforts realised. But then as another end drew near I’d look back and feel as though another bit of me has been chipped away. 

I’d put on my brave and happy lil’ face and get ready for the next load of fucking obstacles standing in my way of the only thing really that consumed my brain power. Don’t think. Don’t think. Don’t care. Don’t dare. Move on. Live life. Forget it, time will heal and it’ll work. Positive affirmations sometimes shit me to tears for their very existence and while I’m not a cynical person, in fact probably a little too much of an optimist at times, the things I’d tell myself, even I began to stop believing after a while. 

But something in me deep down buried in the bottom of my soul said keep going. Keep fighting and bouncing back from the boulders rolling down the hill at you. Eventually you will run out of courage but if there’s still a tiny bit left in the tank, use it the fuck up while you can. 

Problem is you never really know when it’ll be your last time and that it will actually work do you, so while you hope each one of those fourteen times you’ve tried will end in the eventual dream of a tiny person, most of them don’t and you’re faced with either giving up forever and having that niggling hope eating away at you that if you’d tried once more it could have been that time, or you keep going back again and again until you run out of hope, money or courage – or all three. Lucky for me I’ve had two of the world’s most incredible humans to prop me up every time. 

And now every afternoon as I lay back with my back propped up by a pillow and let my rounding belly rise and fall, feeling those teeny kicks and bum wiggles and somersaults of a wee incy girl growing her beautiful self inside me and the elation of what I’ve finally been able to do, the times she’s come to me in my dreams, the times she’s said hold on mummy, I’m on my way I know it’s been worth every single minute. Every needle. And every little piece of me it took away. 

So twenny-one-eight I welcome you in with the most open of arms and heart. I welcome you as the year that bitch slaps all other resolutions in the face. The year that rewards me for my tenacity and courage, hope and strength, fight and will, the year that will bring the joy into our lives we’ve spent the past 1825 days hoping for. The year I let myself be happy again. The year of our lil jellybean. The year I see my baby, my first born, my prideful achievement finally become a big brother. The year I see the love of my life who has spent the past seven years raising my boy, hold a tiny piece of his own self in his arms. The year we all become whole. Yes, twenty-eighteen, welcome…we have waited for you so long…lov’n hugs, Lady MamaG xox