Dear 2014

I'll be honest... I'm not at all excited about you. It's not your fault. In 2013, I lost Poppy. In 2012, I lost Gabriel. And so it's not surprising that I've been conditioned to associate a new year with a new loss.

I'm sorry to say that I don't feel hopeful that you'll be a better year. I don't have much faith in the future. I don't believe you will be my year. I don't know how to wish for the best anymore, because clearly all the hoping and praying in the world hasn't been working.

Mostly, I'm worried that you will be yet another year plagued with loss and defined by grief. Though I know that inevitably there will be many moments of joy and love and growth and goodness scattered throughout you, I fear that ultimately you will be another year of disappointment and that loss will once again overshadow all the good times.

Your predecessor, 2013, let me down in so many ways. (Again, not your fault.) That entire year was a struggle that drained me of my last remaining drops of faith and hope. I honestly don't know if I have what it takes to make it through another year of failure, spirit-crushing disappointment, and babyloss.

I'm not expecting (or even asking) for anything extraordinarily amazing out of you. I don't need you to be the year I win the Powerball jackpot, or the year I meet Oprah, or the year I run a marathon.

I just need you to be the year that restores some of the hope I have lost. I want to be able to dream again, to imagine a future that isn't scary or empty or completely uncertain. I want to be able to enjoy our time together, not live in fear of what you may bring.

So, please don't be like last year and the year before that.

And, please don't be another year of sub-fertility/pregnancy loss/death/childlessness/bad news, etc...

Because more than anything, I really need for you to be the year that I don't lose any of my children.