Mum doesn't understand TTC

[Craycray87]

DM has made no secret of the fact that she’d like more grandchildren (she has 3 already). We are ttc but after 7 months I’m not yet pregnant. DM knows that we’re ttc but cannot seem to understand that it doesn’t always happen straight away. She assumes that everyone will fall pregnant within a month or two (clearly it must have done for her – I don’t really want to know the details..). She feels that because I’m not pregnant yet, we’re not trying hard enough. The latest comment was when we were discussing the end of my contract at work. The conversation went like this:

Me: I’m going to start looking for a new job next week
DM: or you could have a baby?
Me: yes, but it takes some people longer than others
DM: remember your age (I’m 33), you can’t leave it any longer

Is it me or does she totally not get it!? We’re not leaving it….it just hasn’t happened. In pretty much every conversation we have she angles the baby comments in.

I currently feel fortunate that we live 200 miles away but we’re having to visit in a few weeks for a family celebration. Is it bad that I’ve been avoiding visiting because of this?! We’re desperately trying to stay relaxed about it but she really isn’t helping! Any ideas on how I can get this through to her? Sorry for the essay - I'm just so frustrated by her!

Start calling her every time you have sex? Make up a folder charting your cycle, temps, cervical mucus etc and deliver it to her monthly? You know, as she's so keen to be kept in the loop...

that's actually tempting (the charting maybe not the sex bit). I haven't charted etc for a few months though and she'd notice that straight away and tell me that's where we're going wrong! Honestly she seems to think we're doing it wrong and she know exactly what we need to do. If only she did - she'd be a millionaire.

Wow she sounds incredibly annoying. I'd just tell her straight that you're doing everything you can, that you'd love to be pregnant right now but sadly you're not. Say that her attitude and constant nagging is making you feel even more miserable about an already upsetting topic and would she please stop mentioning it.

I've been ttc since the start of the year and if my mum had that attitude I would have stopped talking to her entirely by now.

I agree with Doublechoc, your DM is being obtuse and needs this spelling out, and spell it out so emphatically that it doesn't need doing twice.

I think it has come to the point where I need to put this to bed. I hate confrontation but I think I will have to do it. I know it's going to come up when we visit. Yep Anecdoche I'd love to know what we should be doing too! The things is I actually don't want to share every detail and I don't feel that I should have to just to keep her quiet. I feel it's very much between DH and I and we're actually in a good place with ttc feelings at the moment.

Just rereading and she does sound awful. The truth is we've always had a very good relationship but she's always been obsessed with me settling down, getting married and having babies. I had the same thing when I was "still" single at 27. I think she's had it all fall into her lap and she is totally naive about the whole thing (I'm not making excuses for her!). We had a conversation about a friend having ivf recently - DM was totally surprised to hear about the long waiting list, the tests, hormone injections and the emotions. I'm pretty sure she thought you just go to the dr and few weeks later have an embryo implanted (which is always successful first time).