PG- 29 Weeks 1 Day - Family Stresses

I’ve been wondering whether or not to write about this here, especially since my mother does read my blog, but my mother and I don’t seem to be getting along again. I say again, as we’ve had a strained relationship for many, many years. Definitely since my college days, but a bit when I was in high school. I know in her mind she thinks I “just don’t get it”, but I don’t understand what “it” is that I don’t get. Personally, I think she just doesn’t get “it” but I can explain exactly what that is. I’ve felt for most of my life that my mother doesn’t support me and my decisions or really love me, which is very difficult coming off Mother’s Day and being successfully pregnant for the second time.

We’ve had difficulties since college, but I always racked those up to the usual issues women have with their mothers as they become independent. Especially since I am a very independent creature. I will listen to the opinions of others, but I make up my mind based on what I think is best for me. I’ve been on my own since I left for college, paying my own way for tuition, books, housing, food, etc. Thankfully, my parents don’t make much money, so I was able to get good financial aid, but I filled out all that paperwork myself. If I wasn’t so determined to make something of myself, I don’t know if I would’ve given up at some time and never finished college, but I did and got a BS in Electrical Engineering from a very good university in Philadelphia, PA. During that time, I also gained a lot of good work experience and this helped me find a job after I graduated. I met my husband there and we got engaged the year after he graduated and I was in my senior year. This is where things got really sticky with my mom. She didn’t seem to want me to get married. I couldn’t understand why, as he’s the most wonderful, handsome, smart, terrific man in the whole world. We’re still married after 15 years and while we’ve had our ups and downs, we both mean the world to each other. I would’ve thought that she would’ve been happy for me, but she didn’t seem it, and even refused to help pay for the catering of our wedding, which was quite a reasonable cost. We ended up borrowing the money from my in-laws and paid them back right away with the money we received from the wedding cards. This said, our idea of a honeymoon was driving to Florida and having a vacation on the cheap. Considering that we were young and romantic it was still wonderful.

There were other things over the years that have happened, but my real issues have been since my “Momma Bear” instincts have taken over when we had Phoebe. It took us over 5 years to have Phoebe, including surgery and ovulation induction/IUI. My mom was there for the surgery, and I thought that things would be great between us now that I was having the first grandchild, but after awhile things started going south again. I know I wouldn’t let my mom into the delivery room, but I was never able to explain to her that the reason why is that I was trying to keep a positive tone at the end of a very nerve-wracking pregnancy. We knew that there was something was wrong with her right lung even before the delivery and we were very scared. I wanted to have a natural delivery with no drugs, so I could be there for Phoebe immediately without waiting for an epidural to wear off. Plus I am kind of a crunchy granola type of girl and wanted to do with as little medical intervention as possible. My mom is a registered nurse and she gets this nervous look on her face all the time like something is going to go wrong. I could not look at her while trying to be so upbeat for Phoebe. I had to believe that everything would be OK. I know this hurt her feelings, but I had to do what was best for me.

During Phoebe’s infancy and toddler years, things were great. We all visited a lot and I thought she agreed that Phoebe was an amazing creature. But then things got weird when the visits became just her annual birthday party and one year she didn’t even come, having an excuse that she was visiting a friend in Oklahoma and had gotten a great plane ticket rate for that weekend. I think it was either her third or fourth birthday, I just know that Phoebe remembered, because she asked the next year if Nana was coming to her party, because she didn’t come last year. I was thrown off by that question, because I don’t bring up my issues with my mom and try to keep thing light with Phoebe, so she doesn’t get the wrong impression.

Since then we’ve had quite a few issues with my mom thinking I should come visit her more often, even though we’ve had a dog that we would have had to kennel to go away for the weekend and trying to fit it around Phoebe’s weekend activities – and Phoebe is in no way an overscheduled kind of girl. So she ended up doing what she hated her father for doing, not understanding that she’d like visits from him instead of forcing them the other way around. For the past few years, she’s only visited us once a year for Phoebe’s birthday party and we’ve only gone up to visit right after Christmas. But we seemed to have a kind of truce. I don’t see any point in arguing, because I know it’s not going to get me anywhere except frustration.

But things have really come to a head recently. My mom told me when my surprise baby shower is for the twins and she didn’t come. She called me last Saturday to tell me that she wouldn’t be able to make my baby shower next Saturday, because she needed to buy her mother a Mother’s Day gift. And also that it didn’t matter if she showed up because “I was going to get what I was going to get whether she was here or not”. Great attitude, eh? Personally for me having my friends throw me a baby shower was not about what I’m going to get, but a celebration of overcoming 8 years of infertility and finally finishing building our family. You’d think she’d be happy for me. Granted she did tell me a few weeks ago that my SIL was calling her about the baby shower, but she didn’t tell me when it was and when I asked Leo about it, he didn’t tell me when either, as we decided to try to keep some surprise to it. I found out that my SIL and friends were throwing it and that they were calling my mother for contact info for my side of the family. I gave Leo the information on my family and had him lie and say that he found my address book.

So I had a great time at my baby shower, and I’ll post more about it, but I’m not feeling the love from my mother and I’m not sure why she’s acting the way she is. I hope that it’s not a jealousy of what I’ve achieved in life. Yes, I have a nice house, job, husband, etc., but I have my own stresses too. But I always have an attitude of gratitude for the stresses in my life, because one goes with the other. So maybe that is why some might think my life is all roses and no thorns because I’m generally an optimistic person.

But I’m sure I’ll let this roll off my back sometime soon. I’m not sure what I could do to make my mother realize the pain she causes me. I’m not sure she really cares. I thank those who have read all this. I think this is my longest post ever. There’s so much more about this situation that I could go into, but it’s past history that I’ve tried to forget, but find it hard to as more and more things come up.