Being pregnant when your mum not well

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As my pregnancy progresses I find I'm having more sad moments about the parts of it I'm not able to share with my mum due to her illness. She has Alzheimers. Right from the moment I told her I was pregnant her reactions and interest in things haven't been anything like how she would have been say 5 years ago. It's my first baby. She always wanted to be a granny and it's quite upsetting that now it's happening she's not getting to fully enjoy it.

It's upsetting me more just now (hormones certainly don't help either), so just wondered if anyone else was missing their own mum, for whatever reason, during the pregnancy journey?

My mum lives 7000 miles away and is a narcissistic alcoholic... I often wish my mum was different and didn't lie to me (like when I told her they were investigating pcos and she said she had it and then told me two days later she didn't). I miss the mum I wish I'd had...

I'm 36 wks and my mum is now in a nursing home with Alzheimers. It's tough, but I grieved for my mum a long time ago. We were never very close (brother was blue eyed boy and I refused to be a budding stepford wife) and she could be horrendously cruel (which in hindsight were probably early indicators of the disease). It really doesn't help that the nursing home my arsehole father has stuck her in is rancid. At times the smell of urine is so strong, it makes me nauseous and I need to cut an otherwise lovely visit short. I visited at lunch this weekend when they were sat in the conservatory eating, she was sat on her own looking miserable. I burst into tears.
On the plus side, she's the only person I've told our chosen names to. She thought they were lovely and then promptly forgot :)
I knew she would never be interested too much, which does help. However I will take baby to see her as soon as I am able and get a few precious photo's. My brother has a similar issue with my niece's and I've suggested to him to no longer take the 5 yr old, there are no good memories she can take from seeing her grandma like that.

I fully empathise with where you are, growing up you have visions of what being a mum and having a family will be like, to have this disease rip apart the family you already have. It's hard not to be jealous of friends having that wonderful relationship with their mums. Some of mine have gone through cancer, heart disease etc. with their mums, but their mums still care deeply. It's the pure selfishness of Alzheimer's that is the worst trait to deal with.xx

Thanks for sharing x

I feel that Alzheimers can seem worse than a physical condition due to the lack of treatment options and the horrible way it changes a person, often meaning they differ from day to day.

Sometimes she's great and shows concern but it's the lack of excitement that makes me sad for what she's missing out on, what we're all missing out on.

for everyone. I too miss the mum I wish I had

I feel your pain,my mum is in a nursing home due to schizoaffective disorder and she has basically just given up,spends all day in bed,can barely walk as a result etc and is just a completely different person than she was five years ago.

Sometimes I think I have already grieved the loss of my mum and other times I feel hopeful that we can get her back,but maybe I am being naive (very treatment resistant and experienced lithium toxicity which seems to have done some irreparable brain damage)

I am 12 weeks pregnant-my mum always wanted grandkids and would have been a great grandmother-as she is now there is no chance of her having any sort of meaningful relationship with them. I always wanted my mum to be the first person I told about being pregnant but even after my first scan I will have to try and find a window where she is vaguely better than she is now so she can have some appreciation of what I am saying-to tell her In the state she is now would break my heart because it wouldn't even register with her and she wouldn't care.

I really empathise with you and it is very hard to not think about how things could have been if this had happened earlier etc