Smile and Nod

"So no niece for me yet? Tell my brother my girls need a playmate! They would love to have a cousin to share all their stuff with! Ps not a joke . . . "

Those words ended what had been a perfectly silly and fun text back-and-forth with my SIL.

It took me 5 minutes to respond.

I responded with a smiley face.

The text version of the "smile and nod."

She certainly didn't mean anything by it at all. She's 21. She's never had to try to have kids.

Comments in that vein are so common when you are a married woman of a certain age. All around you, women are pregnant and having babies. It's naturally assumed that you would want the same.

And, so, people comment.

Don't you want kids? No kids yet? When are you going to have kids? You need to get busy having kids.

Again, these people certainly mean no harm. They aren't trying to hurt my feelings or make me feel bad. And they certainly aren't trying to pry. And they definitely don't want the real answer to these questions.

Trust me, they really don't want me to answer these questions and comments with I would really like to say.

So, I smile and nod.

Or laugh it off.

Or give some flip answer.

Because I don't know how else to respond.

But that gets hard after awhile. You want to shake people and say "don't you get that, yes, I want kids, and no I definitely don't have them yet but thanks for that reminder, I'll have them when my body and God decide it's time, and I've 'getting busy' for a long damn time now."

That's what I want to say.

But people don't want to hear that. Even the people I am close to. Especially the people who don't understand my position. I wouldn't wish this part of the TTC process on anyone, so I'm happy that most of the people in my life are blissfully unaware and can kid about getting pregnant.

So, I smile and nod.