Telling family

All of our Christmas traveling is done! We're home now and excited to start working on our own traditions!  With as excited as I am, it's somewhat bittersweet. This will be the first year that I haven't seen my parents or sisters on Christmas.  Now I just need to start Christmas shopping for hubs which should be fun (in the same way that root canals are fun).

We had Christmas with hubs' parents, brother, and his family over the weekend.  It was fun but I'm glad it's over.  I'm quite lucky in the in-law category (they like me, I like them), but my mother-in-law is a lot of work.  Hubs and I are used to a simple, quiet life, and MIL talks....all.....the......time.  We nailed the gifts for our niece and nephew too, so we were happy about that.  With as many kids as we have to buy for we have to set a strict budget, so we really put a lot of thought into gifts to make them meaningful, so it's rewarding to see them love their gifts.

We're relatively quiet about our infertility and the decision not to pursue the treatment options available to us.  Not a lot of our friends know and most of our family don't know either.  They might be able to put the puzzle pieces together, but we haven't said anything.  We're not trying to hide anything, it's just not easy to talk about.  I mean, how do you bring it up in conversation?  Where is the balance between our privacy and letting the people who genuinely care about us know.  Yesterday afternoon, we went to my husband's extended family Christmas with his aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.  They are a huge group of Catholics with Italian heritage so they have limited boundaries when it comes to asking personal questions, particularly about family planning.  It was brought up.  I responded with "we tried really hard for a long time, it didn't work, and we're moving on."  I feel like I gave them just enough information for them to know a little bit about what's going on but in a manner that made it clear that further questions were unwelcome, and it seemed to work.  I didn't cry either (well, at least not until we got home).  This is progress, I guess.  I just feel so bad because hubs is the only cousin that doesn't have kids, and he's not even close to being the youngest.

Unfortunately we're both fighting colds after being around kids (which I affectionally refer to as "germ cesspools") for two weekends in a row.  Hopefully they won't develop into full blown colds and we won't be sick for Christmas!

I hope that everyone had a great weekend and that you're ready for Christmas (if you celebrate it)!