Tête-à-Tête

Yesterday after the whole Friday night drama, I skipped my Mom's weekly family dinner since I did not want to talk to my sis. I was quite upset and it played on my mind all night Friday and yesterday.

This morning my Dad told me that both my niece and nephew missed me and my niece said that dinner is not the same without me. That was sweet.

Anyways, I told my Dad that I was not going to bother with my sis.  He was very disturbed since its only the two of us siblings, and we have always strived to be close.

Today it was freezing cold outside so I stayed home and partially filled out my DE paperwork. I emailed my Nurse and asked some questions. I need to notarize after I fill it out and hopefully I can do that this week.

I also started working on my medical expense deductions. Luckily my insurance co. website is quite awesome and I was able to get all my Rx and Medical Visits spreadhseets. The IVF was self pay so I had those receipts.  I had asked them for a breakdown, but instead they sent me this stupid printout which shows how much I paid and what was left but no details on how that was used. I have the printouts of each visit but would be nice to get a printout from them. I will call them tomorrow.

I must have spent about 4 hrs today on this activity, since reconciling the insurance printout with actual receipts took forever, adding mileage, etc. I had done quite a bit back in Oct, but still took forever.

Its in a good place now....probably will be able to finalize next weekend.

Anyway in the middle of it around 3:30pm I get a call from my sis. She was on the way back home and wanted to come in the evening to talk.

I let it go to VM, and in an hour called her back. She had just got home and said she would came right over. I decided to make some tea.

She came over and sat at the kitchen counter and came right to the point "Mom told me that you are upset with me". So, I told her what Mom told me.

She accepted that she had said that and then explained that she never wanted to have kids so soon after getting married. She would have preferred to wait 4-5 years, but her hubby is older so he sort of pressured her. She has never had independence and feels that she has just finished a marathon raising her kids and is panicked at any possibility that she may need to start again. I know my sis always missed being single and working and independent.

So I told her I understand all that, but that if the roles were reversed I would not be rejecting the idea outright. I would do whatever it takes to be there for my niece and nephew. So, she said she would too, but she does not want to be the primary guardian.

It seems that the past week she met a customer who had a sister die at childbirth after IVF and the little baby is now being shunted around by the 3 siblings and grandparents and they are having to change their lives to accommodate this kid.  So, that sort of got her worried. Also her older friend (the lady who keeps breaking her hip) told someone that she was moving close to my sis so my sis could take care of her. Then when she spoke to my Mom and who knows how the topic came up -- so all this combined sort of completely freaked her out.

So, the long and short of it is that she and her husband would be willing to raise my child if there was nobody else, but would prefer that I have some other backups as well. I told her that I had a couple of friends among whom I was planning to choose a guardian and I will approach if I even get to that point of getting pregnant.

She is however totally on board with my having a baby, using DE and was encouraging. On my part I told her that I had thought through the finances, work situation, daycare, and some basic logistics, just so she understands that I have given all this consideration.

We talked about other stuff for an hour and she left.

I called my Mom and told her the gist of the conversation and that we were all on the same page. My mom was relieved, apparantly she was worried about this friction and did not sleep well last night.

So, that is where we are.

I do appreciate my sis coming to talk to me about it and not letting it fester like I was planning on doing. I also see that there is a lot in life that she has missed out on, and I think that is where a lot of all this was coming from.

So, for now all is well.