We have a family event tomorrow - nephew's second birthday. I honestly just can't face it. I'm thinking of lying and saying I'm sick.
I get on well with DH's family, but I'm not hugely keen on SIL. She means well, but I find her very hard work. She is a loud, bolshy woman and we are just chalk and cheese. She constantly shouts - when ever a child comes near her, she'll get right into their face and shout WELL HOW IS MY FAVOURITE BOY WHERE'S MY HUG etc. Unsurprisingly a lot of children find this too much, and will back away, but this makes her shout all the more. She does the same with adults too- just shouts, doesn't wait for an answer but continues shouting over you. I'm quite quiet and introverted, so I find this hard enough to deal with at times, but it's one of those things.
The problem is this. DH and I are going through fertility difficulties. His family don't know, mainly because I cannot bear the thought of SIL yelling about my uterus at family events, and I can guarantee she will.
The last event was my other nephew's christening, so DH family and BIL family, who I know vaguely. SIL had been pestering and pestering for a few months about me being pregnant, every time I'd have a glass of wine she'd been asking if I was sure I should be having that, claiming I was picking at my food due to pregnancy, made jokes about putting a bet on that DH and I would have a baby soon. It was relentless. Anyway, this all came to a head at the christening, when she informed other SIL that she was going to "drag the information out of me".
Her way of doing this was to greet BIL's family and to tell them I was pregnant. So there I was eating sausage rolls with random people coming up and offering me congratulations. You can imagine how I felt. Sil treated it all as a big joke, and shouted about how she was TELLING US TO GET A MOVE ON
DH ended up telling her that we weren't planning on having children any time soon and she needed to stop. He thought we should tell her about the infertility, but can you IMAGINE? It would give her a whole new thing to go on about
I think I know the reason why she is so obsessed with our potential pregnancy. She has two boys, but was openly desperate for a girl. DH is the youngest of his family by a good bit, and they have all completed their families - there are no granddaughters. When sil was pregnant with her second boy, she told fil that she'd be the one to give him a granddaughter at last, and when she found out she was having another boy she totally disconnected from the pregnancy. She was vile to other SIL during her pregnancies, until she knew they were boys too. She is the only girl in the family, and there are no close female relatives. My family on the other hand, is fairly girl -heavy. I'm pretty sure that she is obsessing about me getting pregnant because she thinks it will be with the longed for granddaughter. Quite frankly right now I wouldn't care if I gave birth to a four eyed swamp frog.
Anyway, I really don't want to go tomorrow. I've had a shit week and our failure at TTC is feeling very raw. I can't bear the thought of having to sit and listen to her nonsense. I don't really want to give up my precious Sunday to coo at other people's children while being constantly "joked" with about my own lack. I feel bad because the rest of them family are lovely, and I don't want to start detaching myself due to sil /TTC. But tomorrow I just can't