One more reason

This past weekend was Canadian Thanksgiving.  We packed Buddy into the car (no explosive diarrhea this time!) and drove to M's parents' place on Sunday for turkey dinner, and then spent the night so we wouldn't have to deal with holiday traffic until the next day.

Over pancakes on Monday morning, M's mom told us that she had been diagnosed with early stage breast cancer and would be having a lumpectomy later on this week, followed by a course of radiation treatment.  She seems to be of the same school of thought as my own mother when it comes to health information, which is basically that unless someone is going under the knife, you don't need to worry about it and I won't tell you.

I always feel bad for people who don't get along with their parents-in-law.  I've certainly had boyfriends in the past whose parents weren't people I wanted to spend a great deal of time with, but when it came to picking a husband I got lucky.  His family is so similar to mine and his parents are such great people that I felt instantly comfortable with them, and it's only gotten better as time goes on.  Also, even though they live in different provinces, my mom and M's mom have become really chummy during their few visits together.  It's to the point now that they call and email each other regularly without M or I as intermediaries, and I'll sometimes find out about something going on in my family from M's mom, who has talked to my mom before I had a chance to.  It's really cute.

I sometimes feel guilty about spending more time with M's mom than I do my own.  But my mother-in-law is only a two hour drive away, while my family is halfway across the country, so it's kind of natural that I've gravitated to her as a surrogate mom.  When we were planning our wedding, I ended up going to her for second opinions and advice on a bunch of stuff from venues to decor to wedding dress shopping, which M later told me had meant a lot to her.  As the mother of two boys, she had kind of given up on ever being able to do things like that with a daughter and so to be able to help me out with that stuff had apparently been a bigger deal than I'd known at the time.

Something else that clearly means a lot to her is having grandchildren.  Right now we're pretty much her only shot at that, since M's brother is in the process of divorcing his wife (to whom he was only married six months before separating a year ago) so he isn't going to be having kids anytime soon unless he accidentally knocks up one of his internet dates.  Of course there's never been any pressure, and she's been a pillar of strength and positivity throughout our infertility struggle.  She even gave us money to help us fund our most recent IVF.  But it's obvious that she really wants to be a grandmother, and it's got to be hard for her watching all of her friends talk about their grandkids and not be able to join in.  

Right now, her prognosis is supposedly good due to the small size of the cancer and the fact that they've caught it relatively early.  She had her surgery this afternoon and we'll know more once they have a chance to analyze what they took out as well as a few lymph nodes that they're testing.  In the meantime, I can't help thinking about how badly I want to make her happy by being able to tell her that we're pregnant.  That she's finally going to be a grandma.  And how badly I want our child to be able to know her and be loved and spoiled by her.

It's just one more reason I want need this FET to work.