My dying mother wants me to have a baby

[SadOz]

Hello all - apologies for the long post, but I really need your help - I feel like I'm in the middle of an impossible knot.

My mother was recently diagnosed with terminal cancer, with a prognosis of around 2 to 4 years - maybe less, maybe more. I am 34, and - although we are close and I love her and I consider her a really great mother - ever since I turned 26 (the age my mother had me) she has been pressuring me to have a baby, saying things like: 'If you don't have children, what will my life have been for?' And since being diagnosed, she has upped the pressure. I have two younger siblings, but neither of them are in long term relationships and my mother doesn't pressure them in the same way.

The main problem is that my partner of 12 years doesn't want and has never wanted children. Although I always imagined myself with children, when we met in our early 20s it didn't seem important and I hoped, although didn't expect, for him to change his mind. I assumed I would at some point get broody, as my other friends had done, and that would force the issue i.e. I would have to make a choice - but the broodiness never kicked in.

Even before my mother's diagnosis, it was something that I worried about constantly - due to my age, I knew I had to make a choice between my partner and my life (which I am worried will be consumed by a child), and having a baby. I had come to a decision that I was going to use the next year to travel and perhaps live in countries I have always wanted to live in, and I would have a baby (with or without my partner).

However, now my mother is ill, the timeline I had laid down has been torn to shreds - and it isn't just for her that I want to have a child while she's alive, it's also for me - I would really value my mother's help.

But I don't want to break up with my partner - although we have our problems like any couple, I can't imagine being with anyone else. In addition, my mother loves him too and would be devastated if we broke up. I also don't know if I would even have time to break up, heal, meet someone I could fall in love with, get pregnant and have a baby in the time my mother has left. He's also not the only obstacle - I'm earn a good salary, but I'm freelance, so no maternity pay, and honestly I don't really feel ready. I also live overseas and I'm not sure whether I should move home now - but my partner can't/won't move due to his work, and my work is also tied to a certain location-specific industry. But I know I'll look back and regret not moving back home and spending more time with my mother.

I'm in an impossible situation - I really just want to go to bed, pull the covers over my head and not think about any of it. I feel that I have totally messed up my life and I can't understand how I have let myself end up in this position. All my friends somehow managed to have careers and relationships and children and I feel like a total failure. I have no idea how to work out what I want or what I should do.

Any advice would be very very much appreciated - I feel like it's driving me mad

Thanks so much for reading (have name changed for obvious reasons)

This is emotional blackmail. Just awful.
No one should ever have a child to please a parent no matter what the circumstances.
I have two older boys who are both adamant they will never have children and nothing on earth would make me pressure them.
Unbelievable!

Rubies12345 - haha, no I won't shoot you down (although that's quite a cynical outlook you have there!) I went to all her hospital and doctor appointments with her, saw her scans, saw her having surgery, treatment, etc.

In my opinion don't have a child for anyone else. If you are unsure or don't want to tell your mum. Your the one who will be raising the child, possibly without your other half, if they really don't want kids.

You seem to be living a life dictated or potentially dictated by others. What's all that about?

princesssparkle1 I wish I knew...

My mother was diagnosed with a terminal illness. She hinted about wanting me to be married. It's something I'd wanted for a long time and convinced my boyfriend of 8 years to marry me quickly (my mum had a shorter time left).

You should NOT have a baby because of wanting to make your mum happy. It sounds like it wouldn't happen with your partner and that is far too much pressure to break up, emotionally recover, move home, find a new man, fall in life be, get to the trying for a baby stage, actually falling pregnant (took me 9 months first time and I have no medical reason for it to take that long). My mum died sooner than predicted. My sister actually had a baby (her second) 4 days before my mum died but he was intensive care so didn't get to meet my mum - my sister was so unbelievably stressed as she was a few hours away from my mum so didn't say goodbye. My other sister was also pregnant and being pregnant while your mum is dying is horrible! I really don't think you should do it. Tell your mum it's just not going to happen and ask her to stop asking about it.

You can't have a child for your DM. She's had her kids and it's clearly not your turn yet.
Also 2-4 years is an average that patients with the same condition last. It could be shorter or longer for your DM, no way of knowing.
FWIW I never felt broody, DH said let's have a baby so I said yes. I knew he wanted kids when I married him so was happy to go along with it and I love DD. However, I would have been equally happy to not have had kids too.

Have you explained the situation to your mum - that your partner doesn't want a child, that you'd get no maternity pay etc? Does she understand the dilemma you face?

Hmmmm. @SadOz - you need to find out. Wishing won't create the life you're meant to live.

I think you are so scared of making the wrong decision that you're allowing others to choose for you , so that you can (internally) blame them.

It's your life. Whatever decisions you make, even if you're following other people's advise - are YOUR decisions.

You can't duck out. You can't absolve yourself.

Everything you do and every choice you make is YOU making a life for you.

I love my kids - but it is the hardest thing I've ever done. Having to focus on a wanted and healthy small baby dispute having a fully committed husband is life swallowing.
Having to care for a baby I wasn't sure I wanted, hoping my husband will do his share but knowing he didn't want baby - even if the baby is healthy, all while seeing my mother struggle with cancer.
That would be hard.

I think it would be worth finding a therapist and talking it through. Just book 4/5 sessions and state you need help navigating through this issue.

I’m in your mum’s position, I’m 43 and have secondary breast cancer with the same prognosis. I am mourning the grandchildren I will never have, I can’t put pressure on my children because they’re 12, 10 and 5.

I am receiving great support from a counselling service at my hospital, it is only for people dealing with a cancer diagnosis and helps me to work through my feelings. Macmillan also offer support to anyone affected by cancer, perhaps you or your mother might find some benefit in talking to a neutral individual.

My dad had cancer. The last 3 years of his life were the worst. I already had children but I lost my dad, and my children their grandad, long before he died. His wife said similarly.

His morphine was upped to manage the pain for the last 2 years and he was unable to converse or spend any meaningful time with us. He'd sit in a chair in his living room drifting in and out of awareness. Some days were better than others but he was married and he and his wife had 2 young children and she was effectively a single mother. She relied heavily on her parents for help because he was no longer able to do anything. It was difficult managing 2 school aged children and visiting my dad in hospital, my children found his appearance distressing (my eldest because he understood death and could see his grandad dying, my youngest was just scared), and they still required a lot of me. When I think back to those days, I would have found it impossible to adequately care for him and appropriately look after a baby, especially as a single parent (if that is what you would be facing).

I'm really sorry to put it as bluntly as this but this is what it boils down to:

When your mother has gone, she won't know or remember whether you had children or not. At the moment, she is only thinking about what is best for herself, which is understandable in the circumstances.

But you could be left as a single parent; with a child you didn't really have for yourself in the first place; your child could be anything between a newborn and starting school at the time.

Having been through it all myself, I would actually feel quite resentful of someone putting pressure like that on me.

Given that your partner doesn't want to move, you'd either have to become pregnant by him and move to your mother, therefore denying him a relationship with his child and his child a relationship with him. But as he doesn't want children in the first place, you might face moving to your mother, and hoping you have the time to meet someone new and nurture a new relationship in order to have a child with them. Or use a sperm donor and fully go it alone with a child you didn't really want in order to appease your mother.

All whilst caring for your terminally ill mother.

I think that you and your partner have to make plans based on the next 60 years of your lives and not the next 2 to 4 of your mother's.

So sorry she is ill though. It's an awful illness.

I don't think you should have a baby for your mum, and I think she's being very unfair.

Having said that, you do need to decide whether you want children for yourself.

I've always known I wanted children - couldn't imagine a future without a family, and DH felt the same. However I wouldn't say I ever actually felt broody - I'd never been a baby person, and didn't feel any kind of biological urge. So if you're waiting for that, it might never come.

Do you believe you and your partner will be together forever? How would you feel if you split up in 10 years' time? Will you still be glad of your decision not to have children?

There's just no right or wrong answer here. Don't have children to please your mum, but don't not have children to please your partner.

Op think about this question,

Imagine your life in 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, how will you feel at say 50 with no children?

This question helped me to realise l was very scared or having children due to the loss of freedom, but MORE scared of being 50 and NOT having them so l had my answer.

Your answer may be different.

Once you decide this you can focus on sorting the rest.

From a purely practical point of view, taking the emotions out of it.

Your DM has been given a prognosis of 2-4 years. Some people will have longer, some will have shorter. The last period of this 2-4 years will likely be spent being very ill.

So by some miracle you actually conceive tomorrow - you still have to be pregnant for 9 months. You have the baby. But at the end of it, your DM is not any help to you because she is now ill and in the last year of her life and you are now worrying about her going in and out of hospital, plus you have a new born baby. Plus your relationship is under massive pressure because your partner didn't actually want the baby.

Have the baby or don't have the baby according to what you want to do. Don't let your DM's illness hold you to it or make promises to her that you can't keep.

I'm sorry about your mother.

I think that if you really, really wanted a baby then you would know. I was planning to be childless but when I got broody it was an all encompassing thing that couldn't be ignored.

Be gentle to yourself as you think it all through and make some decisions

I’ve just come back to this thread and realised I may not have been clear before. Do not have a baby to please your mum - as others have pointed out this will make being there for her more difficult and she may not be in a position to appreciate your sacrifice.
If I were your mother I would want you to feel fulfilled and happy with your own life choices - surely she did not create children just to produce grandchildren.

How would you feel if your partner left you and it was too late to have children?

there is a way through this. The very LAST thing you are is crap. You are facing some really difficult stuff here - really difficult - and there isn't an easy answer. Any one of these factors would be difficult standing alone, you have a lot all together.

The way through is step by step. There's a lovely 12 step maxim called Just for Today that starts - 'Just for Today I will try to live through this day only , and not tackle my whole life problem at once'. It's very tempting to think you have to have the answer Right Now - but this is something you have to inch your way forward with. I do appreciate that isn't easy - I'm also facing some big life stuff and finding it very difficult I don't have all the answers at once.

Go easy, be kind to yourself. You're facing some really difficult stuff here, give yourself a break. You done good so far, there is no reason you won't do good going forward.

I'm so sorry about your mum

btw this would be better in Relationships (not that you haven't had some good responses on your thread of course!)

You’re talking about splitting up to have a baby. How would you feel if you left your partner over just this and then discovered you couldn’t have kids? Hate to say it but there’s no guarantee

I am so sorry about your mum’s diagnosis.

She wants you to have a baby. Your partner doesn’t want one. In the middle of all this, what do YOU want? Because you’re tge one who would be doing all the hard work!

It is very wrong of your mother to put this pressure on you, understandable maybe, but wrong. And unfair on you, and any child that might result.

I'm so sorry to hear about your mother's diagnosis.

I second the advice of previous posters, that this is the worst possible time to make a decision of this magnitude. This doesn't add any additional pressure to the situation that already existed - the illness of a parent is not a reason to have a child; if anything, it's a reason to delay because your mother is likely to need a lot of care over the next few years, and far from being able to support you with a new baby, you may find yourself pulled in three directions, and divided between your child, your parent and your need to earn a crust. That can be a very, very stressful situation indeed.

Step back. Give yourself time to process what has happened with your mum - it's a shockwave through your live that will reverberate for a long time. Give yourself space and time, and above all be kind to yourself in terms of lowering pressures and expectations. As others have said, you need to have a whole load of conversations with your partner here, but now is perhaps not the time for that.

as a daughter and a mother, and having recently lost my mum, you absolutely mustn't have a baby for your mum. i think you've probably got that message by now!

you do need to sort out what is actually feasible and that will narrow down your options. talk again to your dp. but if you don't feel the desire for children and you can't see it in your life, don't.

I would also sit and have a talk with your mum. Tell her you're considering it (and maybe get fertility testing done privately to see if all this is out of your hands anyway).
But she needs to ease up on the pressure on you. That you and DH did not see yourselves having DC and trying to push the two of you into it, might

I know we all want to be understanding of a woman with terminal cancer but that phrase: “If you don’t, what will my life have been for?” about you having children, is plain emotional blackmail, and you probably should discuss it with your therapist for that breakthrough.

You can love your mother, you can be there for her through this hardest time, WITHOUT letting her dictate your life. I think that what she probably wants is to see you settled and happy and she is worried about that for some reason and feels that a baby will give you “instant” happiness and meaning, but that’s not what everyone wants or needs. People gain meaning in their lives from lots of things. And please also realize, she may be worried about you not having anyone after she is gone who will love you unconditionally since your partner sounds a bit focused on his wants, needs, and career. But a child can’t replace your mother - no one can. You will have to handle each of these problems separately - whether you want a child, losing your mother, standing up to your mother, possibly standing up to and losing your partner - and while they all sound dreadfully hard and I’m so sorry, you can do this.