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.

'frogmarched' is hyperbole.

Cross post.

@AlexanderHalexander, how do you know it's emotive language rather than a statement of fact?

This is the bit I don't get about this thread. I'm sure 'frog-marched' could be emotive language. But I don't for the life of me understand how you can be certain it is, when it's in the context of someone saying, repeatedly, that they were forced to have an abortion and given no choice.

frogmarch
/ˈfrɒɡmɑːtʃ/
Learn to pronounce
verb
past tense: frogmarched; past participle: frogmarched
force (someone) to walk forward by holding and pinning their arms from behind.

I'm so sorry you had to go through this and can understand why you would be mad at her.
I'm quite shocked at the comments the OP clearly didn't want an abortion.
Her mother is a disgrace. Our roles as mothers are to love and protect. She was protecting herself not her daughter. She knew her daughter wanted the baby. She knew her daughter would never be able to live with the guilt. But she made her do it anyway. Okay she wasn't in the financial position at the time but as a mother you would work it out.
I think the OP's mother and boyfriend were a bloody disgrace.
My DSis got pregnant at 16 and my mum would never ever would've told her to get an abortion. She supported her. Like most mothers would.

I know what the word means.

Why do you think that meaning isn't applicable here?

I'm assuming the OPs mother wasn't marching her into the hospital and into the doctors room by holding and pinning her arms from behind.

It's not literal language. it's emotive language to describe how the OP FEELS about what happened.

OK. She could've gotten into the hospital and screamed blue murder.
Part of the healing will be accepting that all of this is not her mothers fault.

I am so glad my mum didn't force me into aborting when I was 17 and pregnant. It was discussed as an option, but when I said I wanted to go ahead with the pregnancy that was that.

My situation was different in that I had a decent partner but if I hadn't my mum would have supported me to see what help was available. She wouldn't have said it wasn't her responsibility.

Yeah, OP could have gone to the library and researched it but she was 17 and I am sure if my mum had told me there was no help about and that I couldn't do it I would have believed her at such a vulnerable time. The lack of kindness shown by her mother is disgraceful.

If the OP says she was coerced into an abortion I believe her and it isn't anyone's place to tell her that didn't happen.

I feel for you OP, having had an abortion just turned 18, when I was at college.

Although technically an adult, I was very naive and immature still. As was my boyfriend.

I didn't tell my parents, who were on the verge of divorce, didn't contemplate going ahead with the pregnancy. Went for the abortion on my own and got the bus home straight after by myself, having to stand up a long and bumpy journey because school kids occupied all the seats.

Like you, there are key points of the day, like the bus ride, that stick with me.

Nobody could have looked into the future sadly, but for what it's worth, you sound like you weren't ready, just like me. Please don't be hard on yourself. Or others.

I don't know what my mother would have advised me to do. I didn't want to bother her with it at the time and while I sometimes wish I could have approached her and sought advice (like you I was clueless) I don't regret MY decision. I wasn't ready and neither were you by the sound of it.

However, I do have children now, so cannot understand how you feel.

Please seek counselling. I hope you can work through this and find the happiness you deserve.

@AlexanderHalexander - to take a different tack, may I ask you something else? Do you think teenage girls are ever physically forced to do things they don't want to do? Do you think forced marriages are a myth? Or FGM? Or do you think the forced adoptions that took place (for example) in Ireland until quite recently, were made up?

If you do, then I will be able to understand why you think the OP must be using hyperbole to describe her situation.

But if you don't, then I think you need to think about why you're so sure you can distinguish between one situation that's coercive and another, which you are convinced is not.

SarahandDuck - why wouldn't I believe those things?

I am an intelligent, reasonable person. I work in women's health and have an interest in feminism and women's empowerment.

You seem very keen to pin me in the role of 'bad guy' and yourself, presumably, as good guy/victim.

I would like the OP to have counselling, work through her feelings, let go of some of her anger and explore options available for having a child. You seem to want to prove this was a coercive abortion based on very scanty facts that don't support that? Why?

I don't in the least want to pin you as a 'bad guy'. Not at all.

And we are united in thinking the OP might well benefit from counselling.

However, I think you are reading very selectively, and I don't understand why. I have read the OP and taken her at face value. You have read her, then made up an alternative scenario that doesn't match with what she says.

I am not clear why you don't believe the OP (and this is why I asked whether or not you generally think teenage girls can't be reliable witnesses to coercion).

Why don't you believe her?

If you could explain how you know she's lying, we'd at least be able to figure this out.

(And, I am sure you are an intelligent, reasonable person. I'm not disputing your intelligence, only asking why you have come to the conclusion the OP is not being truthful when she says she was forced into an abortion.)

There's a massive difference between not believing someone. And recognising that memories are not always as factual as when they happened. They get distorted through our own lens.

Yes, still, and I agree with you that's an important distinction.

But, I would say, if the OP remembers being frog-marched to hospital, she clearly remembers a traumatic and coercive experience.

I think what you and others are focussing on is the OP's resentment that her mother didn't help her identify sources of financial support for a pregnant teenager. I agree that this may be a bit of an unrealistic resentment, and we might say with hindsight that it the mother was simply aware that the support the OP hoped would be there, wasn't. But this doesn't mean it's ok for us to tell the OP that nothing she remembers can really have been very bad, and I feel that's the direction of this thread.

I don't think she's lying, I think she's remembering things in a way that is coloured by her current situation, and is looking for a way to deal with her feelings of guilt and regret over her abortion. Her mum and boyfriend 'forcing' her to have it absolves her of her guilt and regret, and provide a focus fr her anger while she deals with her infertility.

Her posts are contradictory. I.e. 'frogmarched' but also able to happily and innocently point out a fox. Told she had no choice, but also considers leaving and bringing the baby up alone. I don't think she is being intentionally deceitful, rather that the OP reflects her feelings around events. That she wanted to keep the baby, but couldn't. That she wants a baby now, and is thinking abut that time of her life.

Do you always think in such a black and white way? Your posts and way of thinking remind me of my lovely sister, who has ASD. Sorry if that's way off the mark!

They were wrong to coerce you; it should have been your decision, even if it led to hardship. It has nothing to do with your infertility; you can blame them for the past incident but they didn't cause your present fertility issues. I'm sorry you are having trouble TTC. I know stress is only one of many factors in infertility but it is adding to your problems; if no contact with your mom will help, I wouldn't judge you. I wish you well for the future and that you can access more varied options now. x

Ah, I see where you're coming from @AlexanderHalexander.

Pointing out the fox isn't necessarily a 'happy' or 'innocent' point - this is something our brains do when we are in a state of heightened emotion, and it's a well-known effect. If you are in a state of high emotion, you may find you notice everything, in enormous detail, and almost in slow motion.

She fixed on it and noticed it, and it's stuck in her memory.

Sometimes, people who experience trauma will recall noticing the tiniest and most irrelevant details, with great clarity.

Likewise, considering how to leave and keep her baby, then realising she couldn't, is not an unusual response at all. A lot of women who experience traumas such as rape will go over their experience exhaustively, trying to think what they might have done differently; a lot of women who are in abusive relationships will think over and over how to get out, and will conjecture lots of different scenarios, while realising they can't actually make those things happen.

It's interesting you say you have a sister who has ASD. Do you think perhaps you have become accustomed to thinking that complex emotions are unusual as a result of trying to think in the 'black and white' way you feel she needs?

I work on trauma theory, and I can say for certain that it is not at all unusual for people in the OP's situation to have very complex responses to what has happened to them. They may not respond in the simple, predictable ways you might imagine would be natural (eg., by being furious all the time or sad all the time). But that doesn't mean their emotions are any less real or genuine.

What do you do in trauma theory?

Are you a clinician? I am.

I don't think in a black and white way. I feel you do. I have in no way suggested that OPs emotions aren't real or genuine

No, I'm not a clinician at all - and I apologise if you're offended that I brought up that context. It wasn't obvious to me you were familiar with trauma theory, as I presumed anyone who was, would recognise it.

I am sure you don't think in a black and white way. Perhaps what I mean is that you seem to express yourself in a limited way.

When you said the OP wasn't forced to have an abortion, I took that as you saying the OP's words (not emotions, note - words!) were not true or genuine. I thought that because you directly contradicted what she had said.

I still do not understand why you don't believe her.

Can you explain?

I'm another one who thinks AIBU isn't the most appropriate place to be asking this, OP, and the Relationships board would be a more appropriate place. Because neither decision would have been either reasonable or unreasonable, it was your decision to maki can empathise with your mum; from what you have said, it does sound as if she genuinely wanted what was best for you.

It was an impossibility difficult position you were in, so you really shouldn't beat yourself up about it, and no one else has the right to judge you, either. I agree wiry PPs that you will very likely benefit from having therapy to give you a chance to come to terms with what the decision you made and the impact it had on you.

It's because people still fucking hate pregnant teenage girls, and at a visceral level, think they should shut up and do what other people think is good for them,whatever that may be.

Like I said, I used to work with pregnant teens. Anecdotally, the pro choice , left wing feminist who goes on Take Back the Night marches was just as likely to have a go at a girl in her family/circle for keeping her baby, as the religious pro lifer was if she had an abortion.

There are a lot of posters who think your mother was right to encourage a termination. But what you have described was not mere encouragement. She pushed you towards it in circumstances where you felt like you had no other options. And I think that was wrong. You were entitled to a choice. She was entitled to say that she wouldn’t house you and a baby or offer financial support, but she could have supported you in getting advice about benefits etc and then left you to make your own choice.

All that said I think you need counselling before making any big decisions about your future relationship with her.

In terms of your fertility issues, are there any treatment options available? If you have the funds you might be able to consider private treatment without a partner using a sperm donor? It may be worth paying to see a private fertility specialist as the NHS might not be as good. If no treatment options available, could surrogacy be an option for the future?

YY, @mucky.

*I still do not understand why you don't believe her.

Can you explain?*

I have explained, and expressed myself clearly, if I say so myself

Seriously, read up on female ASD
www.refinery29.com/en-gb/autism-young-women
www.spectrumnews.org/features/deep-dive/costs-camouflaging-autism/