To tell friends and family about IVF to shut them up

[Nuxemiel]

DP and I get married next week, and we’ve had so many presumptuous comments from family about the fact it’ll be children for us next, how excited they are for us to start a family and so on. They all mean well and in my DP’s culture, having children is hugely important and very much a given. However, little does anyone know that we’ve been unsuccessfully TTC for the 4 years and the repeated comments like this are crushing. Due to covid delays, we’ve only just had our funding for IVF approved.

The next few months is going to be a very tough and sensitive time, and I worry that the comments from family re TTC is only going to intensify after the wedding and could push me over the edge.

We initially wanted to keep our IVF private in case we are not successful, but beginning to think it would be better to be open and honest to prevent the insensitive questions and comments. WWYD?

Depends if you think a lot of people will be asking you on your wedding day - you don't want it ruined by that

If you can, go with the jokey 'my goodness, can we get the wedding and honeymoon phase over first please!' type of comments

Or if you can trust a family member to sort it for you, ask them to say something to just make sure it is not mentioned on the day. 'Please can no-one mention anything to do with pregnancy/babies at Nux's wedding. It's a sensitive subject - you don't need to know why, you just need to comply - thank you'

Sorry you are going through this and wishing you a fabulous wedding day

I told my immediate family that I saw daily that we were going through ivf, swore them to secrecy and kept it a secret from everyone else. I’m not sure everyone knows that’s how they were conceived now 6 years on, but it’s not a secret anymore.

Personally, I wanted to keep it private because I felt like such a failure that I couldn’t conceive naturally that I think it would’ve tipped me over the edge if my ivf had failed too. It’s a very personal decision whether to share or not, but I erred on the side of caution as once I’d told people I couldn’t untell them!

To answer the nosey questions, I just said I’m not sure I actually want kids anymore to those who knew we’d been trying for 5 years.

You can't expect sensitivity from people who are being left in the dark. If anything it's unfair on them, they may be upset that they were allowed hurt your feelings. Tell them, unless TTC before marriage is an issue for them. In that case tell them the Dr said you would have trouble conceiving and it might take a long time. When i was going through IVF I was glad I didn't tell people the process and I didn't want it documented or constant updates, but I simply told them we were having problems and we'll have to wait and see. People stopped asking and hopefully gossiping and I was able to talk about other things when with friends. Good luck to you OP, hope all goes well.

If you don’t want to tell them, then make up a delay: “We’re going to have a couple of years or so for ourselves before we think of children”, “We’re saving up…”, “We went to get to X point in our careers before thinking of children”.

I wouldn’t tell them about the IVF. They’ll just be asking about that all the time instead and harassing you when you should be relaxing.

It's pretty off that they're all pressuring you before you're even married. Tell them that you want some time just being happy together before you have a family. If anyone tries to pressure you just tell them your sex life is private and when you have any news they'll hear about it.