Care & Feeding: I Can't Spend the Holidays Looking at all the New Babies

[minoanmiss]

But I don't want to be alone either.

I’ve found myself in a difficult spot this holiday season. My husband and I have been married for almost six years. He was diagnosed with male infertility, and the only way we could have a child together is if we went right down the IVF path. I went through IVF hell for 3.5 years and will spare you the details, but our eighth frozen embryo transfer failed this August (all the failures are unexplained). The emotional, physical, and financial pain is too much for me to continue with IVF.

I feel that during this journey we’ve been doing as well as we can to navigate this together, but the holidays have become a problem this year. Our families live on different sides of the country, and we usually spend Thanksgiving with my family and Christmas with his family. But both his sister and sister-in-law had babies this year. The grief, depression, and anxiety that I am experiencing is so triggered by being around babies; as a result, I told him that I just can’t join him this year. He still wants to go. My problem, albeit selfish, is that I also don’t want to be alone for the holidays this year—I feel like I’m experiencing these triggers because of the sacrifices I made for our relationship, and it would be nice if he could compromise (such as going to see his nieces and nephews another weekend). He thinks this compromise would be too inconvenient since his “whole family will be in one place for Christmas,” and he has not expressed willingness to try anything else. Should I just accept that we will be going our “merry ways,” or is there any other solution that you can think of?

-I(VF) Hate This

First off, I’m sorry for your ordeal. I know a few parents who have dealt with something similar, and I wouldn’t wish it upon my worst enemies.

Let me try to offer another (and probably unpopular) perspective here. I don’t want to play “misery poker” by comparing who has it worse between you and your husband, but I’m going to assume that dealing with male infertility is not the greatest feeling in the world for any man. Even if your husband hasn’t articulated that to you directly, I’m sure he’s suffering mightily in his own way.

You both spent Thanksgiving with your family without any incident and now he wants to visit his family for the holiday season leading up to the new year. I totally understand your reason for not wanting to go, and I’m not going to try to convince you, but I think it’s pretty selfish (you used that word, too) to expect him to stay home with you and not meet the new babies in his family—especially since they will all be under one roof. It would be one thing if they lived close by, but we’re talking about opposite ends of the country, and separate visits later on could be expensive and cumbersome from a planning perspective.

If you play hardball with him on this, I feel that he’ll harbor some serious resentment towards you, and then nobody wins. Granted, you may harbor some resentment towards him as well, but from my standpoint, it doesn’t seem fair to deny him spending Christmas with the new children in his family. Maybe this is his way of trying to deal with the grief he’s experiencing.

You have your entire lives to spend together—but these kiddos will only have one first holiday season. I would advise you to bend a little and let him go without making him feel guilty for it.

—Doyin

Comments

[minoanmiss]

I think Doyin is right, but I think he is right about as obnoxiously as he could manage to be and I'm beginning to think he shouldn't be allowed to advise women.

I think LW should 'let' her husband see his family, meet the newest members, and maybe talk to someone he trusts there about his very wrenching news. BUT.

Why are LW's only choices "with husband" or "alone"? Has LW no friends at all? If I were LW's friend, I would think this would be the time for me to invite her over for a festive holiday weekend involving as few babies as possible. Maybe this isn't possible -- maybe all her friends have small kids, or are departing to other destinations, or something. But then, can she go back to her family? She doesn't sound estranged from them.

And if I can think this, why didn't Doyin? Why is his advice to just let her sit alone which is precisely what she doesn't want to do? There must be more options, and if he could think of this from her perspective for 5 minutes and not only identify with her husband, maybe he could advise her fully.

[beable]

I have been finding this tendency a lot with Doyin’s advice lately.

Im not sure if smug is quite the right adjective , but many recent Doyin answers have left me shaking my head at the bad reply.

[xenacryst]

There are a lot of things between "with husband" and "alone", and a good many more that are not exactly between but clustered in the same general vicinity. There's couples counseling for infertility (seriously, folks, this can be a real emotional blow for both people, and you should look into this). There's going to visit, both of you, and explicitly making it ok for both of you to take time alone, together, whatever, away from the others and their babies and the painful and complicated emotions they raise. There's both of you staying home and doing something special together that both acknowledges your pain and tries to imagine a future beyond it. There's letting the husband go and staying home ... and spending time with friends, building your local support system. There's, I dunno, acknowledging that all of this is harder and more fraught with some kind of global pandemic going on where the new babies can't be effectively protected yet.

I don't closely follow any of the advice responders, but yeah, I'm sure not impressed with the quality of this answer, even if it gets things vaguely right. There's absolutely no depth to the answer, nothing exploring the myriad ways that they could navigate this. This feels like it was written as a "I have to write one more response to meet my quota before the deadline" and were I the LW, I would be pretty put off by it.

[lemonsharks]

I don't have better advice but I still think the advice given is terrible. It feels like Doyin is telling the LW to just magically get over her own grief and trauma since her husband snark redacted is also suffering.

LW really needs to have a sit down with a third party solidly on her side and figure out if this is a dealbreaker for her marriage. I get the impression that it might be.

[minoanmiss]

"It feels like Doyin is telling the LW to just magically get over her own grief and trauma since her husband snark redacted is also suffering. "

That's only because that's what Doyin is telling LW. By herself, no less, or at least he's not encouraging her to talk to ANYONE about this. Every single person in the comments here has given better advice and I wish so hard I could email LW a link to this discussion.

(I may be mad at Doyin.)

[cimorene]

I was thinking the advice would say she should spend this holiday with her family too and was pretty surprised when it didn't...

[movingfinger]

Given COVID, a lot of parents of new babies don't want visiting relatives, vaccinated or not, around their infants!

I think that LW's husband's family will be all under one roof next Christmas, too, and that if he goes off to see them this year for Christmas alone, considering what a hell year it has been for them as a couple and especially for his wife (his infertility is ongoing pain, but his wife is suffering from both his infertility and what it means for her), it could well look like a nail in the relationship later.

They are stressed and they would benefit from sitting together, talking, and being kind to each other in the most loving and compassionate ways they can. If she has not said to him in explicit, frank words, "I need your love and support more than anything else right now," rather than dancing around the issue with holidays, she should. His response will tell her what she needs to know.

On the other hand, they are stressed, and they might benefit from time apart with other people! Maybe she doesn't have friends in the area to spend Christmas with; maybe Christmas means blood family very especially to her. Maybe she could go visit her own family for Christmas.

[julian]

It does sound as if she wants *him*, not her own family or other friends. And that may be a line in the sand that's worth drawing, but it should be with the full cognizance that's what she's doing.

So: If that's what she thinks she needs, then talk to him about it and make it clear. But problem solve first. Would going to hang out with her biofamily be OK? Would doing something outside the box like a spa session with friends work? Explore options. But also explore your relationship.

[cereta]

How to tell me you've never had infertility issues without telling me you've never had infertility issues. Fuck. The hell. Off.

He wants to see his family. Yeah, I get it. He wants to meet the new niblings. I get that, too. But his wife should be his first priority, and it's one fucking year. There are plenty of people (hello!) who don't get to see their family on a given holiday for one reason or another. Stage some video calls.

Note: I am not unsympathic to the male infertility issue. I would, however, point out that for IVF, the woman generally has to take massive amounts of hormones, which affect both physical and emotional health, get eggs harvested, which is no fun of any kind, take different hormones, get the embryo transferred, and if she's very, very lucky, be pregnant for nine months.

The man has to wear boxers, avoid hot tubs, and whack off into a cup.

And before anyone jumps on me, please see my icon.

[minoanmiss]

If anyone has the right and the knowledge to say this, that person is you, my Professora.

[gingicat]

Yes, this.

[lemonsharks]

That was pretty much the content of the redacted snark from my own comment.

[grammarwoman]

*waves* Co-signed. So many fucking needles, early mornings, vaginal ultrasounds, asshole doctors... It's been 8 years since our last try, and I still have a hard time going through the baby section in stores.

[cereta]

{{hugs}} Yeah, I was thinking of you when I read this.

[lemonsharks]

He was diagnosed with male infertility, and the only way we could have a child together is if we went right down the IVF path.

Missing missing reasons; I want very much to know whether they went direct to IVF because it's truly the best option for them or because husband refused the option of donor sperm.

[cereta]

In fairness, it's entirely possible that they made that decision together. I've certainly encountered couples who have fertility issues who aren't comfortable having a child who is the biological child of only one of them. Which, you know, not my jam, but people are all different.

[lemonsharks]

That boggles my mind, since I date women and afab people pretty almost exclusively. Children being biologically related to only one or neither parent is the default in my neck of the woods.

[cereta]

Oh, hey: adoptee, so choir, preaching. And spouse was clear from the get-go that he would have been fine with it (alas, the problem was on my end). But I know people who have felt that way, so I accept that it exists.