How do I nicely stop this before it becomes a 'thing'?

[ShellsAndSunrises]

I'll try to give all the essential info! I'm 30, husband is a bit older, we've been together for about five years and got married recently. Very small wedding. Husband is an only child.

My close friends started having kids a long time ago - I was 17 when the first few arrived, and there are now a lot. I'm the only childfree one in the group. It's fairly common that if I'm with my friends, I end up holding a baby, or playing with a 4-year-old, or whatever.

The other day I was holding a friend's 6 month old for a while, as she was happy sitting on my hip to be honest! Husband's dad came to find me about five times and asked if it was practice... it got pretty old and awkward, but I laughed it off... It felt a bit weird and was basically the only thing that he said to me, on repeat.

We saw husbands' parents again a few days later to take them some shopping. Long story short, they made the same joke about three times in 60 minutes, and eventually I was dying of awkwardness and said that we have career things that we'd like to achieve first, plus where would we put it as we live in a flat, etc... I thought they'd got the message, but they bought it up on the phone the other day too. It seems relentless.

We have talked about kids, a lot. We want them. But we need to move house, I'm self-employed and a little nervous, I've had some health conditions which might mean that it can't happen and we're in the middle of a pandemic. I don't want to be constantly questioned by his parents on it... Husband has offered to talk to them but tends to have the tact of a bull in a china shop with things like this, so I didn't want to go there if I didn't have to.

Is there a nice way to say, stop asking that? It's really odd. I've never heard them repeat themselves so much before. I know he's an only child and they are probably excited, but it feels so invasive and weird to be suddenly being quizzed every time we see them.

(Maybe I should add that my parents died when I was young and I wasn't adopted, so I do find some "normal" parenting things a bit full-on, but I thought I was doing pretty well...)

Tell them your sex life is none of their business.

My dad started doing this, but I wasn't even in a relationship back then. I let him do it on 4 or 5 occasions and then suggested that I just wander down the road now, pick up the first man I see and drag him to bed right now and keep him there until I was pg; would my dad like that?

Well it turned out he didn't like that. He never asked again, but he died not long after anyway (unrelated!); it was about 10 years later thatI met dh, and another 2 before we had dd. Poor old dad xxx (much missed).

Ugh. DH and I were together 10 years before we got married; the second we did, this started.

I ended up snapping at his cousin, "How do you know we haven't been trying for a while and are having a problem conceiving?", which wasn't the case, but I wanted them to leave me alone, and I also wanted them to see that they weren't just being 'fun', but potentially v hurtful.

Next time tell them about a 'friend' of yours who is having trouble conceiving, having fertility treatment etc, who is sick of people asking her if she wants kids.

Say that people really need to be more considerate of her feelings and that you have stopped quizzing her about it....

They'll get the message.

I used to get this but asking when I was going to have a second child. We did unsuccessfully try and then our marriage deteriorated such that it wasn't a good idea! Gently deflecting didn't work so in the end I used to say "we can't have any more" and pause to people who asked. It felt rude the first time, that I was making them uncomfortable, but they didn't care about making me uncomfortable with their questions. It's stopped now that DS is 10, I'm divorced, and I'm in my 40s!

"OK, you are desperate to know if we are planning any kids. if and when it happens, you'll be the first to know. Until then - nothing to say"

I told my dm that it was none of her business and way too personal to ask me. She gave up asking. Why wouldn’t you let your bull in a china shop dh rip? I’d be delighted to let him go nuts on them. It’s bloody rude of them.