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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:
AlexanderHalexander · 29/12/2019 22:50

@SarahandQuack

coercion
/kəʊˈəːʃ(ə)n/
Learn to pronounce
noun
the action or practice of persuading someone to do something by using force or threats.

The OP reads as the mum and boyfriend saying they will offer no support s she better have an abortion, the OP wanting the baby and being asked for support to keep it, and them saying no. THe OP therefore felt she had to have an abortion, rather than be homeless and jobless with a baby.

There is no suggestion f force or threats, so no coercion. The OP says she pointed out a fox on the day, only to be told off by her boyfriend for not taking it seriously. You are massively projecting that they used violence to get her there.

I'm really confused as to how you think this is coercion? If yu really want this to be a case of forced abortion, or don't understand the concepts involved- fine, but shouldn't you admit to it?

stilldoesntknowwhatshappening · 29/12/2019 22:52

But the mother saying she categorically not support the pregnancy does not make her wrong.

LolaSmiles · 29/12/2019 22:52

There have been threads where an OP's daughter found herself pregnant and almost all comments were along the lines of :"You have to support her OP, whatever she decides".
I agree, with the understanding from those threads that posters were speaking about emotional support

To me a parent should emotionally support their daughter whatever they do in that situation because to do otherwise is shitty.

What they're not obliged to do is financially provide, offer unlimited free accomodation and cover all bills for an indefinite time frame, cover the financial costs of the child, end up taking the role as live in nanny picking up childcare regularly etc.

Some may choose to offer additional support and that's great, but they're not obliged to and they'd not be bad parents for being upfront about what their daughter should expect regarding support beyond emotional support (just look at threads on here with grown adults who are pissed off that their own parents don't want to spend their 60s providing full time childcare for their grandchildren and then start with the "but we would struggle to find money for childcare" as if it was their parents job to find this information out/their parents' job to solve the situation for the child they chose to have).

AlexanderHalexander · 29/12/2019 22:55

I feel very uncomfortable with the presumption on this thread that posters know better than the OP what happened to her. I can't presume to know. I can only know what she says. And she says she was forced. She says she didn't have a choice.

These are her feelings, but not the facts. What PP have said is, councelling will help you work through your feelings, and understand where they are coming from. The fact that they have surfaced now, when OP is facing infertility, implies the feelings are coming from grief over not having a baby, and so she may be looking for a place for her anger and frustration, and may be looking at things in a certain way.

There is no suggesting coercion in the information, just that the Pis angry that she feels she had no choice based on her circumstances.

SarahAndQuack · 29/12/2019 22:57

There were choices. Again not nice ones. But they were there.

Do you want to explain what those choices were?

I imagine, based on this thread, that a lot of posters picture a situation where a sensible, mature teenager might have weighed her options, done some careful research, and worked out how she could have this baby. A lot of posters also imagine a situation where, before a pregnant teenager signs medical consent forms, there is an opportunity for that teenager to say no, with no repercussions.

Can you imagine alternatives, please?

What about the teenager who is not allowed out of the home she lives in with her boyfriend, and has no access to the internet or the phone? What about a teenager whose mother will not let her out, either? What about a teenager who has been forcibly taken to a hospital, who is sitting in an appointment with her mother beside her. If she doesn't sign the consent form, she may well know that she would be physically or mentally punished for it.

When I was 18, I was legally an adult, but if I disobeyed my parents, I was physically beaten up. I was terrified of doing the wrong thing. In legal terms, I had freedoms. In real terms, I did not. I am a fairly well-adjusted adult, and I am capable of looking back and seeing that what seemed to be 'choices' were, in fact, very limited.

I really think a lot of posters on this thread have not accepted as a realistic possibility the idea that the OP may be telling the truth when she says she was coerced.

stilldoesntknowwhatshappening · 29/12/2019 22:58

Pack a bag and leave.

Find her own information. Find her own job and fund her own life.

Near on impossible. But that's the point.

SarahAndQuack · 29/12/2019 22:58

These are her feelings, but not the facts.

How do you know? Confused

There is no suggesting coercion in the information - but, surely, if they frog-marched her into the hospital, that is coercion? How do you explain it otherwise?

stilldoesntknowwhatshappening · 29/12/2019 22:58

So how do you see her mother stepping back and not getting involved. How was the OP going to self fund absolutely everything at 17?

SarahAndQuack · 29/12/2019 23:00

@still, is that a question to me?

stilldoesntknowwhatshappening · 29/12/2019 23:00

Yes. So it's easy for 17 year old to fully self fund another person within 9 months?

SarahAndQuack · 29/12/2019 23:03

Ok. I think (as I said upthread) that most 17 year olds are not old enough to have babies.

I think it's highly likely the OP wasn't ready. Obviously. It would be a hugely difficult situation to bring a baby into.

Why?

Hayhayleigh · 29/12/2019 23:04

💐

stilldoesntknowwhatshappening · 29/12/2019 23:04

So what was the alternative to a termination?

malificent7 · 29/12/2019 23:05

So if her mum dosn't want to do a lot of childcare ( reasonable) or step up and be a good mum and grandparent ( unreasonable) the logical conclusion would be for her to use manipulation to get her dd to have an abortion.( very unreasonable).
Talk about conditional love.

SarahAndQuack · 29/12/2019 23:06

Confused How do you mean?

I think a termination was probably the right thing. Do you mean, you want me to speculate out the range of different courses that could have happened? I mean, obviously, she could have not had a termination, had she been given the choice, but she wasn't.

CanICelebrate · 29/12/2019 23:06

Flowers OP
Some of these replies have been unhelpful, condescending and unnecessarily unkind.
I think counselling would be a good idea and possibly removing this thread. For some reason certain posters love kicking people when they are clearly already down.

AlexanderHalexander · 29/12/2019 23:06

The OP says she thought about leaving and raising the baby, but she chose not to. Not that she was held prisoner and forced to have an abortion, she chose not to.

In the post where she says she was frog-marched, she says her mum forced her to have an abortion by saying there was no help available.

I think you are letting your own difficult past cloud your judgment.

stilldoesntknowwhatshappening · 29/12/2019 23:08

But that's just it. There were choices. I believe her current grief is sticking her in a loop of her past. And seeing it through the eyes of a 17 year old with years of regret.

But lacking the logic of adulthood.

malificent7 · 29/12/2019 23:10

People are weird about female fertility op. Get the councelling you need. Someone tried to force me to have an abortion...not nice. It is abusive and it was because it didn't suit THEM.

SarahAndQuack · 29/12/2019 23:11

Maybe so, @AlexanderHalexander, but I think perhaps you are letting your lack of experience of coercion cloud your own judgement, to the point that you've actually misrepresented the OP.

She does say quite clearly she was forced into this decision. Physically forced. How can you explain that bit away?

SarahAndQuack · 29/12/2019 23:12

But that's just it. There were choices.

How so?

I don't follow you at all.

stilldoesntknowwhatshappening · 29/12/2019 23:14

She had the choice to physically leave her mother. Leave her mothers home and remove all power from her mother. To not get in the car. To walk away.

plumpmom · 29/12/2019 23:15

Go and get counselling. If you want a baby this much then I’d suggest stop dwelling on the past and start working out how to get one. Book yourself an appointment at your nearest IVF clinic. Go speak to an expert and see if they can help get you pregnant. If not, contact a surrogacy agency. Have you got an close friends or relatives? Ask one of them to be your surrogate. Adoption? Start putting all this bitterness into action. Once you’ve got your baby you won’t give a shit about your mother’s past actions. You’ll be too busy with your newborn.

AlexanderHalexander · 29/12/2019 23:16

Becuase she indicates she did have a choice, but that the choice she had was unacceptable. There is nothing the OP has said that indicated physical force or violence, frog-marched is emotive language designed to indicate she was dragged by her ear, taken somewhere like a naughty child etc. I imagine in reality her mum and boyfriend were supportive, she was upset and the whole thing was horrible, but there is nothing to suggest she was shoved into a car, dragged kicking and screaming etc.

I find it very interesting that you won't accept there may not have been any coercion.

SarahAndQuack · 29/12/2019 23:17

She had the choice to physically leave her mother. Leave her mothers home and remove all power from her mother. To not get in the car. To walk away.

How do you know?

She says she didn't have a choice. She also mentions being physically forced to go to hospital, so clearly her mother wasn't actually reluctant to use force on her.

You are presuming that, when she says she was coerced, she is either lying to us, lying to herself, or using hyperbole to make us feel sorry for her.

It is quite possible she's simply telling the truth, surely?

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