We are family. Supposedly.

I really try not to complain too much about people in real life here, as you never know when they may stumble upon your blog and figure out you’re talking about them. But what I’m going to say here is a simple fact, and it cannot be disputed.

Baby B is nearly 18 months old, yet a fairly significant portion of our small family has not met Baby B, and I can’t help but be at least a little disappointed. The Husband’s mom has not met her. My only sister has not met her. The Husband’s only brother has not met her (despite the fact that we gave them 5 months’ notice on our visit to New England for this past New Year’s Eve, The Husband’s brother goofed and apparently misunderstood when we’d be there, so he requested the wrong days off work and was unable to make the trip to Connecticut from Maine to see us while we were there).

Yes, The Husband’s mom lives 2,500 miles away, but this is her granddaughter. (I guess it’s not as exciting when it’s the second grandchild, as she made a trip to visit the first when she was 3 months old. And saw that granddaughter at both BIL’s wedding and our wedding. Though in fairness, she hasn’t seen our niece since our wedding. Three years ago this week.)

Yes, my sister lives 800 miles away, but this is her only niece.

Yes, The Husband’s brother lives 1,000 miles away, but we even made an effort to go up there to visit specifically so they could meet her, but he couldn’t figure out his work schedule enough to actually get to see us.

I try to give them all the benefit of the doubt; I know they all live far away, and it’s expensive these days to travel, either by car or by air. Perhaps even they’d prefer to use their vacation time to go more interesting places. I do get that. But it’s disappointing all the same.

Especially when you take into account the fact that my parents do live in town — about 20 to 25 minutes away from us — and we rarely see them. My mom used to complain all the time when my sister had her daughter that she was so sad that her granddaughter lived so far away and that she’d give anything to have her here in town so she could watch her grow up, blah blah blah. But now that she has a granddaughter who lives in town? We see them maybe once a month, if that, and that’s only because we have to go over and visit them. I absolutely hate doing that most of the time because they’re smokers, and I don’t particularly want Baby B (or us) around that, plus everything we take over there ends up smelling like smoke for days (hello, Febreeze!). But it’s the only way they’ll actually see our daughter, so we do it from time to time. (And I say “see” on purpose, because apparently they’re now scared of kids and hardly interact with her. My dad has literally never held her, even when she was smaller and easy to hold.)

We’re really good about taking lots of pictures to post on another website for our family and friends who don’t have a chance to see Baby B. We also take plenty of videos that we post for them. It’s just hard when I feel like we’re the ones making all the effort to share Baby B’s life with all of them, and we hardly get anything in return. They are no better than strangers to Baby B, and how can that not make me sad, especially when I hear tales of grandparents who volunteer to babysit (it would have to be a life-and-death emergency before my parents would babysit — and before I’d even consider asking) and stories of going to family holiday gatherings and virtually losing track of the baby because so many people are wanting to hold it.

When I hear stories like that, it’s very hard for me to relate, and I suddenly feel so alone in raising Baby B. And that’s not even getting into the fact that most of The Husband’s friends, who are notoriously un-baby-friendly, pretty much have ignored the fact that we have a child now and not only haven’t met her but barely acknowledge her existence.

The good thing (hey, I usually try to find a positive spin on things) is that the disappointment in those around us has really helped me appreciate the support we do get. It might not come from a great number of sources, but the quality is there, and that’s what matters most, I suppose.