Christmas, Alzzy’s, and Science Babies

It’s eleven twenty in the morning on the Monday after Christmas and I don’t have to work, nor does my wife Jennie.

We spent this morning in bed.  Cuddling, laughing, some of that other stuff married people sometimes do.  No parent duty today — her parents are very old and sickly but Jennie promised me she would not go over today.  Her brother will head down there at some point and make sure they’ve taken their medication.  We should be off the hook.

I struggled through yesterday.  Five hours of cooking and cleaning.  Jennie’s parents were coming over for the holiday.  At the last moment her father decided not to come — he was just being way too grumpy.  He’s 95 and is often in a lot of pain but he just as often is not taking his medication which contributes to both physical and psychic pain — he becomes aggressive, anxious, unable to chill.  So I cooked enough food for an army and then it was just the three of us.

Jennie left at noon and came back at one with her mom.  I was just finishing up the green bean and bacon dish.  The rest of the food was done — a ham, loads of fluffy mashed potatoes, salad, an enormous tray of baked ziti with homemade sauce.  Her mom has alzheimer’s, but is not yet late stage and she knows who she is and who we are and she can carry on simple conversations.  She’s a big gossip, she likes talking shit about people even in her old and demented state.  I said things like don’t you think these mashed potatoes are better than the stuff you had at Thanksgiving at your daughter-in-law’s place?  Don’t you think I’m a better cook than your daughter in law?  She is the kind of person that likes it when people throw a little shade around.  Jennie says when she was younger she was your basic pot-stirrer.

So we entertained her for an hour with food and conversation.  I made lattes later, creamy, with caramel sauce on top.  We ate little bundt cupcakes.  At one point Jennie gets up to use the restroom and while Jennie is in the other room her mom suddenly comes alive and starts talking about our Science Baby — we have a high quality embryo frozen in a lab somewhere and we’ll be doing a transfer in 2023, probably March.  I had no idea Jennie was telling her mom about this and I thought we’d agreed that we’d be keeping the whole thing private but now her mom is saying things like I hope you are successful with the baby, I hope so much I hope.  And I am just stunned — on the outside I’m trying to be pleasant to this woman and I’m saying things like Thank you, yes Jennie and I are also very hopeful, it will be a great thing if we can have a kid together but on the inside I’m hurt that Jennie told her mom about this which probably means that other people know too because Jennie’s mom, for all her dementia, is still a big fat gossip.

Later, I also think:  How is it that this woman with Alzheimer’s is aware enough to only talk about the potential baby when her daughter is out of the room?  She knows enough to wait until Jennie is gone to bring it up!  And then immediately changes the subject when Jennie gets back?  

Which leads to even more suspicious thoughts.  Is she faking some of her Alzheimer’s for attention?  Does she pretend she’s worse than she is?  Jennie has often told me how attention starved her mom is.

By the end of the day I’m nearly certain this is true.

I still haven’t told Jennie that her mom brought up the baby with me.  I’m still kind of in shock about it.  Part of me thinks I should just try to put it out of my head and move on with life.  Bringing it up isn’t going to change anything — Jennie wanted to discuss it with her mom, so she did.  The cat’s out of the bag.  Done.  I probably just need to accept it.

But it does make me wonder, you know:  What other shit does she tell her mom — or her friends, for that matter — that she has insisted that is just between her and us?

I haven’t told my own family about our Adventures in In Vitro Fertilization.  I consider it to be a private thing — it’s so often painful, you know.  The failed attempts.  Nobody will understand but me and Jennie.  I don’t want to give anyone the opportunity to say shitty things like “Huh you can’t have kids naturally well is it your fault or is it Jennie’s?  Or are you just too old?  Maybe this is nature’s way of telling you you shouldn’t.  Have you considered adopting?”  They won’t even think they’re being shitty, they’ll think they’re being helpful.  These are just discussions I don’t want to have with people.  It’s our business.

And then there’s Jennie’s mom asking me about it on Christmas day.

Tis the season to be a great big busybody.

I had more to write about — my guilt being behind on emails to certain friends — the lousy phone call I had with my Dad last night — the odd sense of failure I had from cooking so much food and having it go uneaten — the fact I didn’t exercise yesterday — the poor sleep last night — Hell, I even want to write about how crappy my writing in this particular OD entry seems to be.  I guess I just feel bad about myself today, bad inside somehow.  I have a lot of days like this — days when I just feel worthless inside.  (That’s why I’m on the lexapro, it’s supposed to hopefully help with this after a few weeks.  But the jury is still out on the results, apparently.)

I’ll leave it with this.  Having Jennie squished up against me in bed this morning for a few hours of warmth somehow makes everything temporarily OK.

Time to go do errands and exercise.  I really have to work out today after a day of nothing yesterday…