The chicken pox debate

"The chicken pox debate" also known as "What happened on my birthday."

DH has two sisters, who will be referred to from here on in as good sister, and bad sister.

Good sister, the younger of the two, is happily married, with 2 kids. She is sensible, and thoughtful, and lovely.

Bad sister, the eldest out of the 3 kids in DH's family, has 5 kids to 3 different dads, 1 divorce, and immeasurable amounts of boyfriends (quite afew of whom have been in jail, and/or on drugs). Luckily, when she has the c-section with the last child (who was premature, born at 27 weeks) they tied her tubes, and she can't afford to get them untied, even though she has threatened to each time she gets a new boyfriend.

So.

I was texting good sister on my mobile, discussing what we might do for my birthday. I decided that coffee and cake in the afternoon would be a good idea, and less hassle than a meal. She pointed out that my father in law has golf on Saturday arvos, so we decided on Sunday afternoon instead (my actual bday). Then I received another text from good sister, letting me know that one of bad sister's kids has the chicken pox.

I tried to ascertain when she'd gotten the pox, and if the spots had scabbed and dried up yet, but I was getting mixed messages from my mother in law, and one of bad sister's kids, who lives with my MIL. In the end, I asked DH to contact bad sister, and let her know that we would catch up with them in a few days time, rather than have chicken pox kid come to our house.

Does this sound unreasonable?

Because let me tell you, that I think it was completely unreasonable to make me feel so bad about that decision, particularly on my birthday. I'm sorry, but when we're putting so much time, effort and money into making a baby, I don't really want to unneccesarily expose myself to chicken pox. But bad sister seemed to not understand my point of view.

After DH left bad sister a message telling her we'd catch up later, she rang him, all upset. As if I was telling her not to come because I didn't like her, or some petty reason. When in fact, it was a pretty important and valid reason I thought. She was crying that the spots were all dried up, and in fact, almost all gone.

I also felt like DH wasn't really sticking with me on this one. He was saying things like "Mel would prefer if you didn't come today," rather than making it about the two of us, which I certainly let him know I wasn't happy about either.

In the end, we came to an agreement that MIL would go to bad sister's house on the way to ours, to inspect the child. And if she was less than 100% happy that chicken pox kid was not contagious, then she wouldn't be coming.

So in the end, she came. It was true that most of the spots had gone. She was told not to come near me, so she hid behind bad sister for awhile, which made me feel even better. Not.

In summary, I felt incredibly bad about the whole situation. I didn't think it was too much to ask for family members to be respectful of our wishes at an already stressful time, but apparently I was asking too much, and was overruled anyway.

Happy birthday to me.