One day, maybe my mother will understand

My mother and I have always been close.  I've hated that I've drifted away from her over the past three years of infertility.  I've written about this before and reading what I wrote in the past makes me feel horribly guilty.  I love her so much and I want to see her and spend time with her, but I can't seem to talk to her about what's going on with us without making myself feel worse.  So, I don't.

Part of the problem is that she doesn't seem to have any clue how hard three years of infertility and a miscarriage have been on me.  I keep thinking she'll magically understand one day.  But, it's occurred to me that it isn't going to happen.  I'm going to have to directly tell her.  I thought I'd done so -- I've mentioned how hard it all is for us and how hard it is to hear about pregnancies, etc.  But, then she does something like what happened in December where she somehow forgot to tell me that my cousin A's wife was pregnant with their second child and let me find out by getting hit with her giant 7 month pregnant belly when we went out for dinner together about a week before what should have been my due date.  And, I guess that's my fault -- I mean, maybe she does understand that I don't want to hear about pregnancies so she didn't tell me.  But, seriously, if I'm going to have to find out eventually, there's probably a more sensitive way to tell me about it than that.

A week ago she left a message saying she wanted to talk "no big news or anything, just missing you."  I called back thinking it would be just a little chat.  About halfway through the conversation, she was telling me about all the extended family and friends they were having over for Rosh Hashanah.  She then said "well, you know, with [her business partner and family-like friend] J's family expanding -- OH!  Did I tell you they're pregnant?!  I mean, not J of course but [her son who I used to babysit and his wife] S and L!!  Isn't that exciting?"   I said "huh" and then essentially shut down for the rest of the conversation.  Yeah, they've been married about as long as we have (although have not been together for nearly as long -- they got married kind of quickly because of immigration issues), so I figured it was coming soon. I have no idea if they've been trying for a while.  And, frankly, I don't really care.  I just wasn't ready for the announcement.

So, after hanging up and screaming all around the house and crying half the night -- I mean, I used to BABYSIT him, even if he's an adult, now, he's still a kid in my mind!!! -- I finally realized that I needed to say it explicitly.  I needed her to understand how insensitive she's been.  And, I felt incredibly guilty for doing so.  (I don't normally go for stereotypes, but Jewish-mother guilt is a very real thing.)  My mother gets so excited about other people's happiness and she knows that I generally do, too.  But, it needed saying.

So, I composed a long e-mail.  I couldn't do it on the phone.  I knew I wouldn't make it through it.  I asked her not to give me pregnancy announcements on the phone anymore but to please give them to me by e-mail.  It's easier to get over my initial jealousy and disappointment in private before bringing out the genuine happiness I feel for my family and friends who are pregnant.  And I do feel genuine happiness for them and I don't want everyone walking around on eggshells for me -- I just want the time to grieve a little in private first.

I told her how upset it made me not to ever find out about my cousin's wife's pregnancy until I was confronted with it belly to belly.  I apologized for being so private about all we're going through.  I told her how I wished I could share but that my husband and I needed this to be for ourselves (and, apparently, the internet).

And, she wrote back and thanked me for telling her.  And, she said she felt she understood more.  And that she also felt bad and had mistakenly thought the phone was a better way to tell me these things because it wasn't as impersonal as e-mail.

And, I breathed a giant sigh of relief.

Until yesterday.  Because apparently she interpreted that message as "please tell me all about other people's pregnancies and how excited you are for them all the time but just do it by e-mail and then it will be ok." 

See, what I haven't shared here is that I have another cousin whose wife is expecting.  It was the not-so-cryptic family event I mentioned a few months back.  My cousin M and his wife K are expecting triplets.  I think she's about 18 weeks, now.  It's a situation that, for me, is fraught with confusing emotions.  They took a hard road to get here -- two incredibly tough losses and infertility.  I always thought I'd be ridiculously happy for them when they were successful -- and hoped it would be before us so we wouldn't make them feel bad instead.  And, I was and am.  But, the triplets thing threw a whole different kind of wrench into the works.  Because, obviously, some treatment they've done has actually worked.  I feel guilty for feeling jealous when this is such a scary, exciting, nervous-making, exciting, life-changing, high risk, scary situation. 

For the past two months or so, after telling me the news on the phone, of course, my mother has been sending me random updates both by phone and by e-mail about the pregnancy.  Enough so that I dread answering her calls or opening her messages each morning.  You know the type of "non-news" updates I'm talking about -- "When your aunt told everyone at the office about the triplets they all said 'My goodness!'"  Or, worse, messages that remind me of how excited she is for their pregnancy and how much she doesn't understand at all how it could possibly hurt me.

Yesterday she wrote "I was thinking about what baby afghans I'd make for the triplets so I called K to see what their color scheme is like and it turns out she was on the way back from the doctor.  She wasn't feeling right so she went to see him but he found all three heartbeats right away so everything was fine!"  First off, I don't want the details of the blankets you're making for your great nieces and/or nephews that you may never be able to make for your grandchildren.  And, secondly, why do I need to know the "non-news" that she thought things were off but they turned out to be OK?  That's not an update.

I tried to ignore it, though, after telling my DH about it who rolled his eyes at her and told me I needed to confront her again.  Then, this morning, she sent me a message telling me all about the Skype baby shower she and one of her friends are planning for M and K.  How they'll ship the presents to them ahead of time (they live out of town, too, and K won't be able to travel).  How they'll have M and K up on a big screen for everyone to watch and how they'll have a computer camera in Atlanta to pass around so everyone can say 'hi.'  And, what did I think?

What do I think?  First of all, they're only about 18 weeks -- personally, I think it is WAY too soon to be thinking about baby showers.  K has gone through recurrent loss -- I can only imagine how worried she must be about this high risk pregnancy!  I know I wouldn't want anyone asking me about baby showers that early.  Maybe she's different and is able to completely embrace the excitement without worry, but it would stress me out.

Secondly, what the hell do you think I think?  I think that I don't want to know about it.  I think that I don't want to be there (and I won't be since I'm 12 hours away) and I think I don't want to be in on all the planning details.  I think I don't want to know how excited you are to plan this shower and how excited you'll be about the shower for J's son's baby as well.  I think I don't want to know about your friend's grandchildren and great nieces and nephews that you have so much fun babysitting.

I think I want to believe that my mother, who is generally incredibly sensitive about how everyone else in the world feels would realize that this is hurting me.

But, she isn't.  So, I'm going to have to tell her flat out.  I'm going to have to tell her what I want to hear about this pregnancy -- if anything (G-d forbid -- see there's that Jewish guilt) goes wrong I want to be able to support them.  If they find out the sexes, I want to know.  I want to know the news.  I don't want to know the non-news.  And, I don't want to know about this great joyous occasion where all the family will be coming together to celebrate something that I may never celebrate.

I'm not saying it will never happen for us.  I wouldn't be shoving hormones in my stomach every night if I didn't think it might work.  But, knowing we have a "good" chance right now doesn't make baby showers any easier. 

Since she can't seem to figure out how I feel about this, I'm going to have to make her think about what it would be like if the tables were turned and my aunt was calling and e-mailing K to tell her all about my baby having a heartbeat and the wonderful shower she was planning for me. It's funny, when I think about that I cringe.  When I think about my mother doing the exact same thing to me, I just shake my head.  I guess I'm kind of used to my mother thinking of others before me.  That sounds awful and like I think she doesn't care about me.  It's not that way at all.  I think she cares so much that she sees me as an extension of herself.  When I was a kid and we were traveling, she'd volunteer my bed or my room to others in the family so I had to sleep on the living room floor assuming I'd be fine with it because she is an incredibly giving person and she would do anything to help someone else.  And, she still does that sometimes -- despite the fact that my husband and I have bad backs and can't sleep on the floor.  So, I think, sometimes, it is hard for her to realize that I'm a different person than she is.

Once again, I'm taking the "easy" route and writing it as an e-mail.  At some point I'm going to just have to talk to her about it.  But, I know it won't come out completely if I don't write it.  I'm waiting until the end of the day so she doesn't get it while she's working.  I've never talked to my mother the way I'm talking to her in this e-mail right now.  It's making me anxious.

But, not saying anything is obviously not working. Well, admittedly, saying something isn't really working, either.  But, I've got to try again before I start having to block her e-mail address and ignore her calls.

Wow.  That was long.  And, now I have to get back to the giant proposal I was working on.  I just had to get that out.  Thanks for reading if you made it this far.