In Conclusion: The Word of 2024 ONWARD

A year ago I wrote: “I don’t want to hide away. I don’t want to go backward. I want to go on. Onward.”

I tear up rereading that post, all those daring hopes I was shaking to write. I have never wanted something so big and so openly as I wanted to parent. After two disrupted adoptions in 2023, I had decisions to make going into 2024. Keep going, stop, or try something new. It felt a little like insanity to keep going. In another world, it could have been insane. But of course, now there’s Reese. She’s mine and I’m hers and I don’t know if I believe in fate but I thank my stars for her every day.

When I wrote that blog I had already been talking to Reese’s birth mom for a couple weeks, but June was so far away. And I had been through this before. Reading those simple bullets in my Onward post, nested among many — “I hope my journey to become a parent is kinder this year” / “I hope I become a parent” — brings back all the fear and the anxiety and the brutal hope of that moment.

But as I wrote, “I don’t want another year like the last one but the reality is that the waves are going to keep coming and I need to find a better way to navigate them as long as I’m choosing to be out on the water. And I am choosing to be out on the water.”

I am so glad I was out on the water.

This year is a bit of a haze for me. When I try to reflect, all I see is her. Maybe that’s not quite true — I can conjure the moments of panic, of waiting, of past heartbreak with a little too much ease. But those moments are scarring over now. I’ve been given a miracle, I see it every day in her smile.

I don’t trust my intuition
Not like I used to
But when she tells me today
I already knew
I hope, I hope, I hope
I hope it’s you

–From 1.24.24, finding out Reese was a girl.

It was hard, the first half of this year. I managed the awful six months of waiting by redirecting my attention. My work had its own fires that sent me spinning early in the year, and to manage that (and feel in control of something) I decided to get my senior HR certifications. The studying regime was painful and needed — it was good to focus and learn and it passed a few months more quickly.

I scan the list of my hopes for the year . . .

I became an aunt last February to my beautiful nephew Kai. He was The Sun, the good omen that opened the year for our family. My parents’ first grandchild, a happy, tiny little boy who is ten months now and on the move.

I kept running my D&D campaign and played in one too. My obsession only grows. You know that’s true when I drop a million things when Reese was born but somehow not D&D.

I didn’t do much reading this year, big surprise. I think I hit around 30 books, far short of the 100 I try to aim for. People think the baby is to blame but then how do you explain all the D&D podcasts I find time to consume?

I didn’t do much writing either, fiction or otherwise. Even this blog devolved into “haiku season” after Reese was born. I wasn’t ready to give this up but I didn’t have the time or energy to share more than snapshots. I’m thinking about what that can look like in the future.

I walked all summer long with Reese in her bassinet. Now I have a walking pad for my office. We’re moving, albeit slowly.

Her first few months of life were challenging — as small and adorable as she was, the sleep deprivation, the colic, the learning curve was overwhelming. I would never trade it, but we are in a more peaceful season right now. Smiles, a little better sleep, more routines to keep us sane. She stopped crying at bedtime around 4 months and life changed. It’s all cycles, but we’re learning and growing together.

I’ve been reflecting on 2025 and the year to come and I’ll share more tomorrow. But for so long I haven’t seen past this one goal — adoption, parenthood — but life keeps moving. I did my Word of the Year workshop this morning at my workplace. Early this afternoon I did a birth chart reading I was gifted by my friend Jenna with the wonderful KP Kaszubowski  — we looked at Reese and my birth charts together. KP said she got chills seeing how many similarities there were. Maybe we were written in the stars after all, baby girl.

With the finalization just two weeks ago, the holidays have been a perfect time to soak up time together as a family. Now we can just be and go into the new year on a new journey. So Onward. Onward forever.

With love,

Natalie