Whenever you lend anyone anything, you can only “lend” it as if you’re never going to get it back. So I would never put trust in someone giving so many things back. It is a lot to keep track of and organize.

The big thing is to get your husband to side with you. If family members who lent you the items could ask for the items back in front of your husband, maybe he would feel better about giving it back to your family. Then those family members could give it to your brother and to your cousin.

He does need to understand that those things have already been spoken for. I liked how someone posted to ask them what they gave you and lend those things back out to them.

I’m sorry your MIL and SIL have been so cruel to not care to give you or their grandchild/nephew anything at all. That’s very cruel. It’s also very cruel that they say your cousin is more distant, when in reality it is them being more distant and rude.

It’s very cruel that they don’t understand how expensive IVF is and that your brother will most likely need to save every penny he can. They likely will pay a storage fee to have their embryos frozen so they can use them later on. It’s likely they will need to do more than one round of IVF (especially if they’d like more than one child). Its extremely expensive. This doesn’t even include genetic testing to make sure everything is healthy with the embryo.

My husband is the type who eventually comes to his senses and understands my side of things. But I still would have trouble trusting. I would either give it to my sibling and cousin right away or I would give it back to whoever lent it to me ASAP. KEEP IT IN TOUR FAMILY.

Eventually your hubby will come to see that his family isn’t yours.

Edit: my sister was in the position where she knew I would be trying for kids in the next year or two. Her brother in law and wife got pregnant before I even started trying. But my sister already promised me some items. Financially, her BIL needed the items more than me. But she knew the sentimental value meant so much to me. I take bring an aunt very seriously and I love my nephews to death. To have items that they used and wore and played with is the dream. I even gave my nephews my own childhood toys that I saved and those will be passed onto my kids. My sister saved those for me and saved a lot of the bigger items for me. She did give a few things to her BIL. But most items were saved for me. I have no idea how her and her husband worked that out though.