Disclosure

I've noticed lately that I seem to be in the minority among IFers on something - namely, disclosure to one's family about the details of IF treatments and (for the fortunate) pregnancy. Other people seem to involve their parents much earlier.

Now, we don't live in the same city as any of our parents. And our parents are WASPy - oh, very, very, WASPy. To give you an idea of how WASPy, my mother was visiting us in the spring and revealed in passing that she had just found a huge lump in her breast. She prefaced this revelation by saying, "I wouldn't even trouble you with this, but since I'm here...." (Her treatment, in case you're wondering, has gone well so far.)

My parents would never in a million years have asked us about our plans to have children or pressured us to do so, even though I'm sure they were dying to know (and my mother treats her cousins' grandchildren like her own). They learned about the basic infertility stuff when I was forced to disclose my laparoscopy to them because they were visiting for Thanksgiving a few days later and I wasn't sure how I'd be feeling. I probably would have told them about it anyway since it involved general anesthesia and that seems to kick the whole thing up a level in terms of gravity.

I didn't tell them anything about my first IVF because I didn't want to be beholden to reveal every occurrence. Also, my mother tends to tell everyone everything. For example, after I had my laparoscopy, I was visiting my parents for Christmas. My mother was throwing a birthday party for one of her friends, and this friend (whom I adore, but still) said, in front of the entire party, "So, they fixed you all up in there?" or something to that effect. Now, this friend's daughter did a bunch of IVFs and has two kids now, so I should have deduced that if I were hearing all the details about this woman's IVFs, then my mother was probably sharing all kinds of details in return.

My brother spilled the beans to our parents about IVF#2 because it affected some family travel plans. I confirmed that we had done one IVF and would be doing another, but I was intentionally vague on the details. And they've never asked. And my mother was undergoing chemo, surgery, etc., so it was easy to avoid this topic, although we did have one amusing conversation in which we compared assvice offered up to cancer patients and infertility patients.

So now, here I am, slogging through the first trimester, the end of which isn't too far off, and my parents have no idea. (My brother is in the know, however.) I'm trying to figure out when to tell them. After the next ultrasound? Or do I just wait to spring it on them dramatically in person at Thanksgiving?