TTC 1 year, 3 months, 20 days

Quiet Families.

My family is loud.  The complete opposite of quiet.  Each and every single family member firmly believes that if they speak the loudest, everyone will believe whatever it is they are saying. 

Our dinners are a fiasco.  My brother will make some sort of political jab in an effort to engage my dad.  Dad will ignore the comment and try to start a conversation on a new science article he read.  Mom will be talking loudly about her work.  Sisters will be gossiping.  Step mother will be talking about the latest book she read.  The nieces will be running around and yelling. No topic is off limits.  We talk about EVERYTHING.  If there is an elephant in the room, every single member of my family will comment upon it and ask questions. Religion? We'll go there.  Politics? The bigger the argument the better.  Sex? Yup, open for discussion.  Everything.

Until now.

My husband and I had dated for a long time before we got engaged.  We had a long engagement, and were peppered with the occasional question about when we were going to try for kids.  The occasional peppering became constant the second after we were married.  Brothers, sisters, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins twice removed- EVERYONE wanted to know when we were going to have kids. It wasn't just our families- co-workers, friends, and honestly perfect strangers wanted to know.  We couldn't take two steps without fielding a question.

But then the questions stopped.

One day I woke up and realized that nobody had asked me that question in a long time.  We had started TTC six months after we were married (although we were off birth control almost immediately).  And at about 1 year after we were married the questions stopped.  I think people at some point assume you're trying (not a big assumption- I'm 32, LOVE kids, both have a stable job, been together for 7 years), but just haven't been able to conceive.  So, the questions stop.

The questions don't turn into questions about what's happening, but they just stop completely. All of a sudden my family ignores the fact that I'm the absolute best Auntie in the world, and never seems to mention kids around me.

They also tread lightly when telling me others are pregnant.  My cousin-in-law got married two weeks before we did- yup, she's preggars and due in July.  I was a bridesmaid in my dear friend's wedding in November of last year- she got pregnant 1 month later and didn't tell me- I had to hear it from my husband (that will be another post). My sister got pregnant in January and people still don't talk about it to me.

I know that as I move forward in this journey, it will get harder and eventually easier to handle these situations.  But for now, I simply sit back and observe the silence.