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Play it by ear. You say you aren't even 100% sure you're having a second, so don't worry about this too much now. If you do get pregnant, see how you feel. You don't need to make any big decisions about it. Your main concern when you're pregnant should be your health (lots of stress isn't good during pregnancy anyway!) and your other child. If you do feel like talking to your mother about it eventually, you'll know when it feels right. Don't pressure yourself about rushing into it.
I had my husband and mother at the births of both of my children, but I have a very close relationship with my mother. It would feel icky to have someone with me while I was giving birth if I felt in the least bit uncomfortable about it. Basically, you should never feel that you have to have someone with you during a medical procedure if it makes you uncomfortable. So if your mother makes you uncomfortable, definitely do not feel obligated to have her with you.
Others are saying that you should just forgive your mother and be sympathetic because of what she's going through. I'm sure she's having a really hard time, but I understand how it feels to be caught in the middle as a child. You don't want to be a part of your parents' marital problems, and being thrown into the middle causes resentment and pain. You have every right to feel that way.
Anyway, just focus on your daughter and, if you decide to get pregnant, your new baby. Do what feels right, and if that means carrying out the pregnancy on your own, go for it. Best of luck to you.
If you live distant from your mom I don't see a problem anyway. It almost seems like you are LOOKING for a reason to exclude your mom from some part of your life...a part that doesn't even exist yet. Odd.
But I'd bet my last dollar your mom knows what she is talking about in regards to her divorce from your dad. Daughters don't want to believe things about their dads so try not to think about it but give your mom a break. It might be you one day, and it could be your own insecurities driving a wedge between you two.
I've been married almost 28 years so I can relate to your mom in that way. She is still hurt and that takes a while. Encourage her to get out, volunteer, meet some new people.
She may meet someone and that will take the pressure off. Since you live so far away, you can just make plans to have her come after the baby is born. She doesn't seem to be demonstrating showing up at your door to care for the first baby. (I actually knew a mom once who moved across the country after her child did so at least, your mom is not doing that).
As another poster said, you don't know the whole story behind their divorce. There are no winners, no losers. It sounds like there is anger on both sides; that will subside eventually but for now, just take it a day at a time, enjoy your new family and your new location!
If and when you get pregnant I would not keep it from your mother till after the birth unless you don't care how she might feel and I'd say just telling her you only want you and hubby at the birth this time would be a whole lot less hurtful in the long run. I had three children and the only person there with me was my hubby and that's what I wanted.
As far as the possibility of your father cheating, I'm guessing you really don't know. My grandfather had been carrying on an affair behind my grandmother in a small town even and no one knew until after my grandmother died. Suddenly a girlfriend popped up not long after and the whole thing came out. She'd been accusing him and everyone just shined it on but it was true. Who knows what people do or don't do.
I don't believe my father cheated on my mom. I don't think he's the kind of person who could do that. He was constantly doing chores around the house for my mother and if he wasn't there cutting wood or building an addition on the house etc. then he was at work. I'm sure there are extremely minimal instances where he was 'unaccounted for'. My mother was the one who disappeared and no one knew where she was. I think the first chance my father had to be with someone else he left my mother in order to be with that person.
And either way, that's regardless. I was as supportive as I could have been to her. The day after he left I was on the phone with her and she told me I didn't have to come out when I offered, and I went out anyways and spent time with her and seeing her grandkid put a smile on her face. My husband and his son, my brother, me, and my daughter popped over to her place to mow her lawn because she wasn't doing chores. (Big lawn too) My brother actually ended up yelling at her, cause he's a dick. I tried going to spend time with her.
I eventually sent her a message saying that I needed her to talk to someone else about it because I don't want to hear "Your father's an a**hole" (Literally like a skipping record over and over). She said the message was so mean and hurt her so badly. I don't know how I could've asked nicer. There was NOTHING mean in the slightest about it.
In my trying to support her so much, she drove a wedge between us because she thought I wasn't being supportive enough. WTF was I supposed to do? Move in with her and pay her gambling addictions and spending problems, and tell my dad to go FO?
And that's the kind of person she is. She's always right, and you can never do enough for her.
If he did cheat on her, There is nothing different I could have done differently for her, and I have no regrets about how I handled the situation.
As far as "looking for something to worry about" - Anytime I get a message from her or I see her name on my phone, it's like my heart skips a beat and I think "what's this going to be now?". If a conversation goes well, I'm always deeply shocked.
Part of why I'm even debating having a child is because the first thing I think of is, "How am I going to deal with my parents?". I consider what the birth will be like in a new place and I wonder, will my mom insist on coming out immediately? I am going to "Devestate her" by simply asking her to come after the birth or by saying, I don't need/want help this time - just like the message I had sent her before. No matter how nice I think I'm being, she thinks I'm shoving a knife in her heart.
As someone said - I don't need more stress during a pregnancy/birth! And unfortunately I can't help but be stressed just thinking about her.
Maybe I am simplifying this, but why would telling your mother that you are pregnant automatically mean she will be at the second birth? Huh? Is it a cultural thing that I am not getting?
Maybe I am simplifying this, but why would telling your mother that you are pregnant automatically mean she will be at the second birth? Huh? Is it a cultural thing that I am not getting?
More or less, I simply think she'd want to be and would ask me if she could be at the very least. Because she was so involved the first time, I feel she wouldn't want anything less the second time.
In a couple years, maybe this thread will be revived so I can let you all know if my doubts, insecurities, and worries came true and if it sucked as much as I think it will.
More or less, I simply think she'd want to be and would ask me if she could be at the very least.
Then just tell her no.
I don't understand why your mother's potential asking of being there would have so much power over your decision to have another child. There must be much deeper-seeded issues taking place here, eh?
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You and your mom
