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Original poster

To be resentful to her for my infertility

216 replies

TotallyDoneWithThis · 29/12/2019 16:26

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.

OP posts:
Original poster
TotallyDoneWithThis · 29/12/2019 17:24

My mum didn’t advise me to have a termination thought though, she forced me. She gave me no choice. She told me there was no help. There would’ve been help from relevant authorities. Rather than let me make me own mistake and find out for myself she made that decision for me. I could’ve had a baby then. I could’ve been a mum.

OP posts:
MerryChristmasUfilthyanimal · 29/12/2019 17:25

Did you reach out to the council yourself?
I would echo others. Go to the GP and discuss your grief.

SarahAndQuack · 29/12/2019 17:25

I can relate to this. My parents coerced me into having an abortion when I was 18, and I'm now mid-30s and have had a decade of fertility struggles. It is quite difficult not to feel pretty angry. One thing you say stood out to me: Being just a child myself I had no idea of the help I would’ve been able to access.

I feel like that too. I remember both my parents and my GP telling me things that I now know were not true, which made me think there would be virtually no support for someone like me. I can understand they imagined they were doing the right thing, but I could feel quite bitter about it, TBH.

I think that back then (and perhaps still now) there's a mistaken belief that abortion isn't traumatic, and that no one regrets it. Indeed, I remember being told quite directly by the GP that only women who 'had something else going wrong in their lives' felt bad about abortions, and my mum was shocked when, a few years later, my mental health broke down because of it.

I think maybe you are posting because you need someone to tell you it's ok to be angry? It absolutely is. Whatever their motives, no one should pressure you into a termination. And no one should make you feel you are not allowed to be upset about that termination.

I think it is very healthy to own your anger, and even if you can't face counselling, talk to people about it. It doesn't need to define you or dominate your life, but it's a real anger and there's nothing wrong with that.

GiveHerHellFromUs · 29/12/2019 17:26

You still can OP. There are plenty of children already out there who need a loving stable home and someone who adores them. You don't need to give birth to be a mother.

lowlandLucky · 29/12/2019 17:28

OP i feel for you i really do and believe you need help. Please understand your Mums point of view, you said yourself you were still a child in F/T education with nowhere to live. You had no way of supporting yourself never mind a baby but would no doubt expected your Mum to house and feed you both and provide childcare, you have given no thought to how youe Mum must have felt through it all. I can imagine she must have laid in bed every night worrying because you chose to move in with a waste of space !

Original poster
TotallyDoneWithThis · 29/12/2019 17:30

Honestly her and my boyfriend at the time frog-marched me to the hospital that morning. Even though it’s 17 years ago I remember it clearly. I saw a fox in the hospital grounds as we arrived when it was dark around 6am and I pointed it out to them. My boyfriend shouted at me to grow up, that it’s just a fox, why am I getting so excited.

As soon as he knew the abortion had taken place he left to watch football.

Meanwhile when I got home I was feeling emotionally drained and as if part of me had died and laid on the sofa to be told by my grandmother that i had only had an abortion and stop being so pathetic. She then told me she had one when younger and had to get on with life as she had three kids to raise. I did not know this. Yep, thanks granny, two massive shocks in one day. I resent my family so fucking much.

OP posts:
SarahAndQuack · 29/12/2019 17:32

I think comments ticking the OP off for not considering how her mother felt are really shitty, TBH.

I get that it must be awful, as a mother, to realise your 17 year old is pregnant and her boyfriend is a waste of space.

But there's a huge gap between feeling awful, and thinking a termination is in your teenager's best interests, and forcing that teenager into a termination.

There's no excuse for that. It is fundamentally wrong.

Purpleartichoke · 29/12/2019 17:33

if you were ready to be a parent, you would have known how to find a job and a place to live and food etc.

I too suffered from many years of infertility due to fibroids. It was awful because every month I had to deal not just with not being able to have a baby, but with near debilitating periods. It’s a hard mental space to be in. You are best off focusing on the present and searching for the right doctor because with any luck, that will happen at some point. I eventually found one that was able to help me.

FruitcakeOfHate · 29/12/2019 17:34

You still can OP. There are plenty of children already out there who need a loving stable home and someone who adores them

Why, why, why do people always say this to people who are infertile! What a shitty thing to tell someone. First of all, children are not consolation prizes for the infertile. Secondly, the process is long and arduous and you're not guaranteed to be approved. And finally, some people don't want to adopt.

GiveHerHellFromUs · 29/12/2019 17:35

I don't understand why you're angry at your Nan and why her having an abortion was such a big deal.

OP you seriously do need some counselling. It sounds like you're angry at the world and that's not healthy.

dirtyrottenscoundrel · 29/12/2019 17:35

I completely understand you op.
I’d feel the same.

GiveHerHellFromUs · 29/12/2019 17:36

@FruitcakeOfHate I didn't realise that was such an offensive thing to say so I apologise if I was insensitive.

ukgift2016 · 29/12/2019 17:36

I understand you are in a lot of pain however how was your mother to know at 17 this may have been your only chance of having a baby?

You were a teenager. Many parents would have reacted the same way. Honestly, so would I if my DD got pregnant at 17.

SarahAndQuack · 29/12/2019 17:37

YY, @FruitcakeOfHate, I thought that was spectacularly crap, too.

FruitcakeOfHate · 29/12/2019 17:37

Adoption is also not the sole preserve for the infertile, either, Give, you're welcome to apply to offer a loving home to all those children in need.

stilldoesntknowwhatshappening · 29/12/2019 17:38

Honestly.
Who would've been funding you and this child? Housed you both? Childcare?

kateandme · 29/12/2019 17:40

but right now you still feel the thing you fear will come out.except now they have nowhere to go but inwards or out onto others.and or everything you do is tared by them.
so what if it comes out.then its out an thats when the healing begins.and if you talked to someone they could talk through it all with you.down to every last drop of despair and they could gie your advice or at least ways to heal and accept.
its never ever easy.but there are people who have horrific things happen to them.and they have to forigve and often do.but it isnt the forgiveness we think of where you are at ease with the person or love them again even.but more a forigveness to yourself.for feeling the way you feel.forgive the anger and pain and hurt and let it settle.
you might not accept what they done but you allow it,then heal.slowly but surely you can.
your feelings are warrented.but its hurting nothing but you now in not being able to move forward.you need to start to heal.its poison to hate and resent.and its usually left to the victim to feel it inside of them.

aroundtheworldyet · 29/12/2019 17:41

Op you just simply need proper help. Awful things happen to people and learning to deal with it is the only way forward.
Life is just not fair.

RJnomore1 · 29/12/2019 17:42

Have you thought about life if you did hsve that baby - and not in a rose tinted chance to be a mum way?

Tied to that arsehole who shouted at you about a fox for 18 years
Raising a child and trying to keep them safe from the emotional damage a father like that causes
What would it have meant for both your financial and emotional stability?

Original poster
TotallyDoneWithThis · 29/12/2019 17:46

Thanks for all your replies. @SarahAndQuack I’m so sorry you have been through this too Sad It’s so hard not being resentful for being forced through this Flowers

OP posts:
AlmostAJillSandwich · 29/12/2019 17:46

This reply has been deleted

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aroundtheworldyet · 29/12/2019 17:48

@AlmostAJillSandwich
Really
Fuck me some people are callous

SarahAndQuack · 29/12/2019 17:50

The doctors surely wouldn't have performed a medical procedure on you unless you consented?

I think (forgive me), that this is a bit naive.

It is quite easy to coerce someone into 'consenting' to a medical procedure, especially a vulnerable teenager who is financially dependent upon you.

It is also (in my experience) not that unusual that medics, at least the 20-odd years ago when this happened to me and to the OP, to think that parents knew best for their children in this sort of situation. Certainly, I remember being taken to a private clinic and hoping desperately that someone would stop and give me the opportunity to say I didn't feel comfortable with this. No one did. I was given forms to sign with my mother sitting beside me to make sure I signed them, but no one asked to speak to me on my own or tried to find out whether or not I wanted to be there.

I don't think that was so uncommon at all, either.

U2HasTheEdge · 29/12/2019 17:51

The doctors surely wouldn't have performed a medical procedure on you unless you consented?

Stupid bloody thing to say. Have you not heard of coercion?

and tax payers shouldn't be funding teenagers to have babies either getting housing etc just fore being pregnant.

OP this is why you should think about moving this thread. It will not end well. You will get twats like the above which will only make you feel worse. I am so sorry for what you have gone through Thanks

SarahAndQuack · 29/12/2019 17:51

@TotallyDoneWithThis - YY, it is hard. But I think it's really important to come to terms with it, because your life has so much more to offer. Your mum did a terrible thing, but you don't have to let it define who you are now.