On this, the last day of 2005, I am exactly 6 weeks pregnant. If on January 1st of this year, you had told me I would be typing these words, I would never have believed you.

I spent 2005, for the most part, in a well of deep sadness. In January of 2005, we had been trying to conceive for exactly one year. The first six months of this year were spent undergoing fertility treatments and tests, all of which were meant to help me conceive and all of which failed. I sunk into a form of depression not easily detected by my family and friends, but which was painfully witnessed by my husband every day. I lost my faith. I cried at the drop of a hat. Relationships with some friends who had children changed, friends who couldn't understand what I was going through and didn't see why it would be hard for me to be around their babies. And I lost touch with others with children, those whom I didn't bother to clue in to my struggles. Being in their presence was just too difficult for me.

My relationship with my husband deepened though. While I knew he was mourning our failed baby pursuit just as I was, he didn't show his sorrow to me. Instead, he encouraged me, comforted me when I cried, turned the tv channel when a baby appeared on-screen, and distracted me whenever I would let him. He was my support system. He was the only one I would let see me at my worst.

While infertility encircled and influenced all that I did this past year, life went on. I quit my job where I had worked for seven years for a new one. In July I started this blog and went camping for the first time. We went to Seattle to visit my sister, and we went on our annual trip to New York City.

And in November 2005, we began IVF. Although I left my former job in February of this year for a new position, I continued to write on a contract basis for them, stockpiling the money for what, even then, I knew we would have to do in order for a chance at a baby. Every cent of the money I earned from my second job was banked for IVF, not a penny of which was covered by insurance. We never would have been able to afford it otherwise. The shots. The bloodwork. The ultrasounds. The egg retrieval under general anesthesia. The transfer of two "perfect" 8-cell embryos. One very expensive try at one very worth-it baby.

And on December 18th, 2005, at around 1 in the afternoon, after two years of emptiness and failure, we learned I was pregnant. Finally.

I spent the waning minutes of December 31st, 2004 in tears. At that point, we had spent a full year trying to conceive a baby, and we were no closer then than we were at the beginning of that year. I was mourning a year of failures. We had begun treatment at my fertility clinic in October of 2004. I had undergone two failed inseminations at that point. The path I had so diligently constructed for my life had taken a very wrong turn somewhere along the way. I didn't care much for the deviation.

The waning minutes of December 31st, 2005 will be spent much differently. I am pregnant. There is a baby growing inside me, finally, after two long years of heartbreak and emotional upheavel few can truly understand. And while we are cautious because it is still so early, and we are hardly going to pop the sparkling grape juice and toast our good fortune, we will ring in the New Year differently this year. As 2005 comes to a close, I will know in my heart that my papa in heaven is protecting this baby. I will know that my husband is strong in a way I never thought he was before we began our infertility struggles and this journey has made us, as a couple, stronger as well. And I will know that my body CAN get pregnant. And I will try to believe with all my heart that 2006 will bring us our miracle.

Happy New Year, everyone.