MILs and the weekend...

My mother in law is difficult. I know there are those of you who are lucky enough to have awesome mother in law's... but mine is a little off the wall. Used to be, she was fine on a one-on-one basis, but since Aaron and I have started TTCing (and I made the mistake of telling her we were) she has been yet another level of stress on an already stressful situation. When we first started, anytime she called, the first question she would ask is 'are you pregnant yet?'. And then when I told her we were going to an RE, she was this pool of totally wrong and annoying information. "Could it be that you are overweight", 'did you know that x did y and that got them pregnant?', 'you should wait 6 months anyway - to get in a better financial situation'. This all from a woman who had her children one right after another in her early 20's. Wendy (Aaron's sister in law) later told me that when she was pregnant, Adam got 'in trouble' for not allowing her to be a part of their pregnancy. Is she serious!?!?!

Sigh.

But, it was after my ectopic that it just became too much. She was all over Aaron (not me, thank god), telling him how sad it was that we lost our baby. Honestly, I didn't feel like I lost my baby. I felt like a lost my chance at a baby, but I only knew I was pregnant for 10 days... and it wouldn't have made it no matter what. She sent flowers. She wanted to know our next steps.

My next steps were making it through the next 24 hours. Being with my husband. Crying. Holing up in my house. That lasted for about 2 months (not the crying - but certainly the need to not leave). And then, when I finally ventured out? My 2 forays out into the real world? One involved a group of 20 woman in which 4 were visibly pregnant people and the other? I was accosted by a well-meaning IVF veteran telling me to 'just adopt'. So, back into my little cocoon! I spent time with my close buddies and my mother... not much else. In the meantime, Aaron's mother visited a few times - but without asking in advance - and both times I was on pre-planned trips. Not like I was intentionally avoiding her, but it did happen to work out.

The other thing with Aaron's mother is that she is brutal with her sons. Even though they are all happily married with lives of their own, she expects them to call her and pretty much tell her every little thing that is going on in their lives. Normally not a big deal, but if they don't tell? And she hears through the grapevine about something? She does this annoying thing where she calls and tries to pull it out. Doesn't directly ask about it, but gets on the phone and tries to pull it out. And since my family is nothing like this - I really can't handle talking to her on the phone, it's too much!

Now, Aaron and I are spending pretty much each weekend working on the house. And my MIL lives on Nantucket. Which, besides being insanely busy in the summer, costs at a minimum, about $250 to go to (parking, boat tickets, etc). We just don't have that kind of money to be throwing around especially when we are doing major work on our house. And - I'm usually the one to push for trips... if Aaron had his way, we would stay in our house and never leave! So - I decided that this summer, Aaron was in charge of scheduling our trip to Nantucket, and I'm not involved.

We haven't been there in almost a year now... and also... Aaron has had to tell Betsy to stop asking about what we are doing for TTC. Her solution? She never calls me (of course, I don't call her either). This weekend was my future SIL's bridal shower. I went up and spent the weekend with her, and my MIL was there too. I was nervous at first, but my MIL barely said 2 words to me directly. I want to tell her, it isn't that I don't want to share things with her. But when I do share? She makes it bad. And uncomfortable. I talk to loads of people about our IVF plans. But when I want to talk about it. Pretty much all my friend let me broach the topic first. Because there are days when I've just had one too many pregnancy encounters, and it's just to hard. Or AF has just started. All of my friends respect this - and for whatever reason, my MIL doesn't get that.

What I really wanted to do was to sit her down, and tell her about my last 10 months. About how hard it hit me. About how badly I want a baby, and what we have had to go through over the past 10 months. The crappy doctors visit. My meltdown in the Home Depot parking lot. My planning to start IVF in May. And then June. Then July (which was one of the main reasons we didn't plan any trips this summer). And then the stupid insurance cancellation. And then doing it in August, after the doc's protest letter. And then the denial. And now the New Doc, and the plans for IVF in Oct.

If the opportunity presented itself, I probably would have done it. But she barely talked to me all weekend. I go back and forth on it. I feel like I need to protect my sanity, but I'm nervous that this is going to make a rift between Aaron and his mother that will take too much to repair. I assume a baby will fix it - but who knows when that will happen!?