Thanksgiving

Well, I've graduated into the next tier of the infertility journey...holidays and family events. OYE!

This year, for Thanksgiving we were with my mom's side...large family, warm and loud environment. It's definitely a postcard picture of what holidays with family looks like.  Well, shortly after D and I get there...we were sitting visiting with my cousins and my grandma. My cousin and I are one year apart, and were pretty close growing up, we graduated (same grade) from the same high school, and he celebrated his one year anniversary with his wife this year. My grandma (knowing a little of my situation and a little of my cousin and his wife's position about not being ready to have babies just yet), turned to him and started asking him questions about when and so on. This spurs a self-defense mechanism and he turns and says "Me? What about her?" and points to me........you know, no matter how many quick comebacks I come up with and how many times I convince myself "the next time someone does ___ I will have something to say about it", I always end up sitting there stunned..........well, I just sat there and stared at him, then I looked at my grandma (rather pitifully) and she hugged me, turned to him and said "She's working on it, she can't help it."

OF COURSE, my cousin is the sweetest guy alive and would never dream of being rude or insensitive about anything...and his face when grandma said that told it all, he knew he went somewhere he shouldn't have...but really? Why do people ASSUME? Why not ask first? I have always put this barrier up at family parties preparing myself for things like that...and the most I've ever gotten is a couple questions about when we were planning to start, but here we are...it has begun.  We are no longer the only ones of our generation married. Including our extended family two couples were married last summer and one more is getting married this coming spring. The race is on...to make our mothers grandmothers, our grandmothers great-grandmothers. And the fact that one of the couples (which obviously is NOT my cousin and his wife) is half way through their pregnancy has woken everyone up and caused the pressure and third degree to be on the rest of us.

So, oh well, he didn't mean it...he didn't know what he was saying...AND, surprisingly, grandma came to my defense when I was speechless.

Well, my cousin and his wife live a few hours away and they were staying through the weekend, so we planned to have dinner with them two days later before they headed out of town (first couples thing we'd ever done with them). Well, we were all ready and at first couldn't figure out what the plans were, then they changed slightly (to dessert instead of dinner), then when we met up with them it because an us, my brother, and all my cousins outting...when we got back to play games, his wife was preoccupied with something and wouldn't come near us. Fine, whatever, I can sympathize with moodiness or melancholy. Well, D went out to the kitchen to get something to drink and my aunt and cousins wife were having a tift about "babies" and whatever they were saying they dragged me into it and hushed up as soon as D walked in the room.  Really? How old are we again?

Let me make this quite clear: IF YOU DON'T KNOW OUR SITUATION OR DON'T UNDERSTAND IT..........ASK!!!!  I'm just at my wits end over this...I don't know what to do...I'm so tired of the situation itself, and I try to be very understanding of everyone else when I start having a emotional attack over it (whether that mean changing the subject or leaving the room or simply being non-chalant over peoples comments...the last thing I want to do is make other people uncomfortable or feel like they're walking on egg shells)...but, is it too selfish to ask people to talk to me about it? or to have a little shred of sensitivity about the issue, that they just may not know the whole situation? We have not waited four years to have a baby because we don't want to or it's too soon...we had a miscarriage 3 1/2 years ago and have had no luck since...