Visiting the in-laws

Here I am crawling out from under my rock to post an update. :)

We had a pretty nice vacation visiting DH's family. They live far away so I've only seen them a few times since we’ve been married. One particular day we spent the entire day with DH’s parents in a nearby town—visiting a garden, strolling through cute shops, etc. The following day my MIL handed us her camera so we could see the pictures she had taken of her grandson (our nephew) whom I had yet to meet. We flipped through lots of pictures of the baby. Then we came to a picture from our outing together the day before. There was one picture of the garden and that was it. They had spent the entire day with us in some rather picturesque areas and had not taken a single picture of us. Did I mention it had been two years since they last saw me? DH just shrugged it off. Maybe it only strikes a girl as odd if she's PMSing and is more prone to feel sorry for herself. Of course babies are much cuter to photograph—I know that—especially if that baby is the one and only grandchild who visits once a week (meaning lots of opportunities for photo shoots). It still hurt though because I felt like DH and I were second class because we don't have kids. It didn't help that I heard my MIL rave about her wonderful grandson fairly often during our visit. I doubt she meant to rub it in our faces. I mean, she never asked us when we were going to have kids, but it got old after a while.

DH's parents know we're infertile. Or at least they know that we've been TTC for a long time, and it obviously hasn't worked yet. DH doesn't give them updates, and they don't ask. I guess I don't mind that that's how it is. I greatly prefer it to constant questions and other random comments.

I met my nephew a couple days later. I admit he was pretty cute. There's something about a baby smiling at me that just melts my IF heart. I couldn't bring myself to hold him though. Just to keep myself from completely breaking down in tears (I was still PMSing), I had to put my IF sadness in a little “box” and shove it to the back of my mind. That was the only way I could put on a happy face. I didn't think I could pull it off while holding him. I did play with him a little so as not to appear that I completely dislike babies. ;)

I also met my SIL for the first time. The more I got to know her, the more I liked her. She is still kind of overwhelmed by the events of the last year—pregnancy, moving several hours away from her friends to live with my BIL, birth, wedding, and now raising their son.

During our trip we were also able to do a mini pilgrimage, visiting two beautiful cathedrals and a basilica. At each church we lit a candle and prayed for all those still waiting, especially my prayer buddy and all those in the IF blogging community. I prayed for as many of you by name as I could remember.