To be resentful to her for my infertility

[TotallyDoneWithThis]

When I was 17 I fell pregnant with a long term boyfriend. My boyfriend wasn’t very nice and along with my mother they pretty much forced me to have a termination. Terrified and bewildered, my boyfriend told me if I kept the baby I would not be supported and wouldn’t get no money from him and would be kicked out of the flat we shared. I turned to my family and they (especially my mother) also said I wouldn’t be supported by them, there was no way I could keep the baby and what would I do homeless and jobless (I was in FT education) with a newborn? Being just a child myself I had no idea of the help I would’ve been able to access. I had to wait a while for the termination and spent days dreaming of what it would be like to run away and have my baby and knowing there was a life growing inside of me, I formed a bond. Anyway, despite me pleading to be able to keep the baby and that it would all work out, I was marched to hospital for a termination.

Since then many years have passed and I’m now in my mid thirties. I have had a long term relationship which lasted ten years. Unfortunately it ended last year. During that time we tried for a baby for 8 long years but nothing happened. I have also had unprotected sex with another partner which I didn’t get pregnant.

As I wasn’t able to conceive and due to other issues, I’ve been back and forth to the hospital and they have found out I have endometriosis, loads of fibroids and basically my uterus is fucked in the way it looks. Obviously this is messing with my mental health as I want nothing more than to have a baby but the resentment I feel towards my mother for making me give up my dream, probably my one chance to be a parent is really soul destroying.shes always been difficult and very self centred, selfish, everything revolves around her but now I just don’t want anything to do with her. I begged her for me to be able keep my baby. I also blame the boyfriend but I haven’t seen him for 17 years.

I’m sorry for your struggles

AIBU is not the place for this. I’d ask MNHQ to move it to Relationships.

If your mother is as self-centred and selfish as you say then you are right to consider nc.

But if my 17yo became pregnant to a waster I would be heavily recommending an abortion too. If your parents were unable or unwilling to support you, it would have been a very difficult road indeed and of course she could not have foreseen your fertility difficulties.

It must be very hard to bear. Have you had any counselling for this?

yeah, these issues sound honestly too sensitive & complex to get anything very comprehensive out of aibu.

Have you had any counselling to help you come to terms with your infertility? It’s easy to misdirect anger and at the situation you’re in towards other targets without dealing with the root cause of your sadness.

In the case of the abortion your mum’s reaction would be what any sane mum of a 17 yo living with a loser would have. I know it’s easy to blame her but she didn’t tell you to live with your ex, or got you pregnant before you were even able to support yourself — you need therapy to help you come to terms with your decision to abort and unpin the emotions that have become attached to it due to your infertility. These are two seperate issues that you have conflated due to grief.

THank you for your replies. I’ve thought about counselling PurpleDaisies but scared I’ll just break down and get even angrier that I am already. So, so mad at the world.

I'm not going to vote, I don't think either answer is right. I do believe you need counselling to help deal with your abortion at 17, your mother's role in that, and your current fertility problems. It's very hard, so please look after yourself.

Completely agree with @PurpleDaisies

So sorry that you are in this situation though....

@GrumpyHoonMain it wasn’t my decision though. That was taken away from me It’s got to the point where I feel so depressed about the situation that I can’t have painkillers in the house because quite honestly I would down them all when I’m feeling at my lowest. Infertility grief is massive. Who knew? It’s so shit

When my best friend got pregnant at 16 my mum told me she world have tried to talk me into a termination in her position, I think most mothers of teenagers would do the same. So to a point there I understand why your mum did that, but if she's how you've discribed her, then you're within your rights to go nc.

Please remember that councilling is there to bring forward those emotions and help you deal with them, it may be worth trying, don't be scared to get angry, it's human.

I'm sorry you are feeling so sad. It's so consuming and all encompassing isn't it?

I agree that counselling is a must so that you can work through all of this. It will be the best gift you can give yourself.

Do you have anyone that can be with you now if you feel that way about the tablets?

Strongly recommend you get this off AIBU ASAP, it’s not a ‘nice’ place I’m afraid.

However, I’m going to be objective for you and give you a much gentler version of what I suspect you’ll get.

YANBU to feel how you do about your infertility.

YABVU to blame this on (or resent) your mum!!

You were a scared and overwhelmed teen who couldn’t manage a baby alone, but having a baby is and was your sole responsibility. You DM wasn’t wrong to say she wouldn’t support you. She was entitled to say ‘I don’t want to have to deal with a baby’ and put that on the table. Your child was not your DM’s responsibility, they were yours.

You feel like she inflicted a decision on you, she felt you were inflicting a baby on her (you admit you couldn’t have coped alone/without her). Surely you can see that you both put each other in a terrible unwanted situation, it just worked out in her favour.

You may look back now and regret it but it was your choice I’m afraid, you just had to make it under less than ideal circumstances.

I have a friend who had a baby at 17 against her parents wishes. When baby was newborn they would scream all night (gastro issues) it stopped her younger sibling being able to sleep (Middle of sitting their GCSE’s) to her parents made her and baby leave. Their stance was that they had to act in the best interests of their own children and that her having chosen to have a baby wasn’t her siblings fault. She was an adult now, with her own child to take care of.

You’re so upset at the situation you’re now looking for someone to blame. Sounds like you have a hard relationship with your mum but she would have had no way of knowing that you would have a hard time getting pregnant in the future. It sounds like you need to focus on your physical and mental health and try not to think about the what if’s. Sorry you’re having a tough time.

Totallydone, I do sympathise with you. However your mum couldn't have anticipated that you would become infertile, nobody could. You know yourself many women have abortions and eventually have a child when the time is right.

This is no one's fault, it's just bad luck for you and I'm so sorry.

Counselling may help you, honestly it really can but during counselling you will experience anger and pain. It's healthy to express such things in the right environment.

I have to agree with one of the posters above in saying that had you been my daughter, pregnant at 17, I would have urged her to have an abortion too. You were much too young to be living with a boyfriend anyway!

Find out if there is any possibility of you becoming pregnant, we often hear of people in whom it is unlikely and then it happens. However don't pin your hopes on that. I gather from your post you don't have a boyfriend at the moment either.

What is the rest of your life like, eg do you have a job that you enjoy, interests and friends? Nothing will take away the pain of infertility altogether but it is possible to accommodate that grief and still be happy. You will never be the only childless woman around and many do live fulfilling lives, just not in the way they originally hoped.

I haven't been much help really but wanted you to know I care - so do lots of others here.

Bless you .

When you choose to become a parent, you have to accept all the responsibility that comes with that. You weren’t in a position to provide for a child and you can’t expect anyone else to do it for you. Your angry with your mother because she was the only person there and the reality is that you can’t direct your anger at harsh reality.

Tbh any mum who forces her child to have an abortion is a shit mum regardless of circumstances. I would have recommended ditching the boyfriend but refusing to support your own child's decision to keep a baby or not...no. Your mum was in the wrong.

Irrespective of your mum’s personality, your fertility issues are due to endometriosis not to the fact you had an abortion at 17. It’s the fault of your illness not your mum.

Most mothers would have advised the same at 17 and mothers do have the right to say they don’t want to be responsible for a teenage mother and baby.

I know two women who had babies at 16, in both cases the parents (ie the girls’ parents) ended up looking after the kid.

Forcing you to have an abortion was wrong. Your mother and boyfriend did something terrible to you and you have every right to feel angry and hurt. I'm so sorry that you went through that.

Your infertility isn't a direct result of your abortion though. That is a separate terrible thing, and it must be so hard to come to terms with. But your mother didn't cause it.

Are any of your problems conceiving due to the abortion?

You can be (rightly) angry that you don't have a child but would you have been able to give a child the life it deserved when you were 17?

Your mom was awful for forcing you to have an abortion but she wasn't in a position to support you.

Are you in a stable position financially? Could you consider adoption?

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I think there’s a huge amount of parents who would advise their child to do the same as your mum did. She’s not to blame for this not should she have had to support a child she didn’t choose to have.

Like Purple says, you weren’t in a position to provide for yourself let alone a child. Adult wants shouldn’t ever trump a child’s needs.

Agree that counselling would be the way forward.

Oh OP what an awful situation for you to be in.
Please do try counselling because you have very strong feelings about what happened to you and you need to express your anger and sadness.
I really am not familiar enough with your medical condition to give any advice and wouldn’t want to give false hopes to anyone, but have you tried to get different medical opinions to see if there is a way to move forwards, can you get better, is there a treatment? Anything available at a specialist hospital?
As regards your mother, with all due respect, you cannot tell for certain it is her fault you cannot have children now. Do you actually know the cause of your current condition, how long have you had it for etc. And you don’t know if you’d have carried the baby to full term, pregnancies are very delicate, you’d be surprised how many women, sadly, misscary all the time.
Your mother’s responsibility was to make sure you have all the chances to a good independent life. She didn’t have to support a grandchild when it would have been very difficult for you to look after the child on your own to start with. She probably did her best in a pragmatic way to solve a problem at the time. A 17 year old who cannot look after a baby should think very carefully about contraception.

There is no way I’d have supported by DD at 17 to keep a baby but she’d be welcome to go off and find her own way in life. Not as a punishment but because if they can look after themselves then here might be a chance they can look after a baby as well. Besides it wouldn’t have been the right time for me to look after another baby (selfish, maybe, but I had to work hard at my own family planning and trying to get my own kids in a life path and simply wouldn’t have had the time or energy to do a proper job of it, it’s the mothers job to look after a baby not the grandmother’s). It’s very sad you had to go through this big trauma and I’m so, so very sorry you are suffering from it. Please try counselling, I hope it will help you a little bit.

You need some counselling for sure and maybe see your GP as you sound so depressed.

Ruminating on what might have been 20 years ago if you had kept the baby is not helpful at all. You are focussing on this traumatic experience and blaming it and the other two people involved for your infertility and distress, which is unlikely to have had anything to do with the termination. You need help to gain some perspective on the whole thing.

You are imagining some kind of dream scenario with this first baby when it could have turned out to have been a dreadful mistake.

I am so sorry for your struggles and grief.
However. Your mum was in no way responsible for your unplanned pregnancy by an abusive and feckless man.

She would've been finically and emotionally paying out for a child she had no hand in creating.

As a PP has said, please do not blame yourself for what is happening. The abortion is not the cause of your infertility.

I concur with the vast majority of posters here, in saying at 17 the advice given by your mother, is probably what a lot of mothers would say.
Your illness is the cause of infertility and your issues with your mother are separate to that, maybe some counselling would help?
How are other parts of your life?
Could you maybe consider adoption/fostering? Or even volunteering with young people's charities?