When this JoUrNeY fucks you up so much you’re not even sure if you’d make a good mother anymore.
Posted Mar 29, 2023, 11:39 AM UTC
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This one felt personal…
I almost feel like it’s my brain just trying to cushion the blow of never getting to be a part of the birth process. Like “Oh No! If we don’t let her get preggers she’s going to flip! Let’s convince her she never wanted to in the first place!”
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I’m afraid that it will make me a very entitled parent. Since I had to struggle to have what so many easily get, I’m afraid I’ll think my child deserves more.
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I’m afraid that if/when I do manage to have a child, I’ll see them as some kind of personal savior, or prize for suffering more than an independent person. I don’t want to make another person responsible for my personal happiness, especially not someone who I’M supposed to be the support system for. I know people whose parents are like that and it’s not fair to the child.
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I was actually doing pretty well in terms of childhood trauma and my mental health. I was in a good place for a year when we decided to start trying. For the first time in my life I felt like maybe I could break the cycle and be a good mom. Then I miscarried and it brought all the self-hatred right back. Now I’m terrified I’m never going to recover, and if I do have a kid I’m just going to do the exact thing I’ve always been terrified of doing- ending up just like my dad and fucking up the next generation.
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Same. I was terrified of pregnancy because of a history of mental illness and postnatal depression seemed a scary AF possibility. HAHAHAHAHA! Got pregnant, baby died and well, I think postnatal depression would be a holiday from this torturous mind fuck tbh 🙃
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Yeah I was honestly prepared for PPD. Had a therapist. Talked a lot about it. I was not prepared for my baby to die inside of me then just hang out in there for 4 fucking weeks while my silly body pretended I was still pregnant.
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I’m so worried that I’m going to spoil them rotten just because they managed to make it here… and then they grow up to become insufferable adults (of my own making) that I can’t stand to be around.
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I feel less alone after reading all the comments here so thank you to everyone. I have a lot of different worries and fears about parenthood than I did when I started trying, but some of them are difficult to voice to those who haven't been through fertility issues or pregnancy loss.
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Waited years of being together until we felt the most prepared to have kids.. like we were truly ready to live for someone else. Our relationship was at it's best and trying went from the most exciting time to the thing we fear poses such a wedge between us it could cost us more than what's already been lost. It's been almost 3 years... still trying and 5 babies lost. Sometimes I wonder what if we finally get to our family but it's cost us so much of ourselves and relationship that the environment we could have provided 3 years ago is now too tainted. Would we have been better off going for it before we felt emotionally and financially ready? Would there have been infertility 10 years ago... Would that have been a better place than this grief stricken one....
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I can relate to this so much.
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I had a major meltdown in 2021 following a flashback of a repressed memory from when I was 5. The very fabric of my universe tore and I was frantic and panicking, I thought that there’s no way I could ever be a parent and keep my kids safe if that memory happened.
The thing is, now I learned from that and I know that we can process trauma with support. I had 0 support following my traumatic event. I did everything I could; I told the other person to stop and when they didn’t I got my mom and told her what was happening and she stopped it. However, it was never discussed again and I repressed the memory. Had I been given proper support and been allowed to ask questions and speak with a therapist, I would have understood and processed the event appropriately.
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The comments are here are so honest, raw and helpful. Thank you for sharing as I relate to so many of these inner thoughts. I also worry that all my “dreams and expectations” of having a baby will compound maniacally if/when I have a child, and that’s not fair to put that level of expectation on them because they will be their own person with their own humanity and likes/dislikes. I’ve spent soooooo long fantasising and dreaming that if it ever came true, I’m scared I’ll put that pressure on the child. I talk about this with my therapist and my plan is if I’m ever lucky enough to be a parent, approach it with love and curiosity about who the child is as a person rather than my own expectations and dreams for our “family unit” - the saying that helped is “one shouldn’t have kids for yourself, you have kids for THEM”
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I feel the same.
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Not me having a mental breakdown almost everyday this last week.
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I feel this way too. I've swung back and forth on how I feel about it. We're planning to start the fostering application process next month and I keep cycling between excited and terrified.
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This Schitt's Creek guy should be the Trollingforababy spokesperson
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I threw a bowl of cereal and milk across the room yesterday in anger due to stress of TTC 4.5 years. I’m questioning my sanity
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At what point are you so emotionally damaged that it’s irreparable and you run the risk of passing on that damage to any “potential” children?
Asking for a friend.
That’s why I’m not as open to adoption as I was before. I’ve been through enough damn trauma that I don’t know if I could raise a child who has been through trauma too.
Adoptee checking in: samesies. Could I love them? With every fiber of my existence. Is that enough? No, my experience with an adoptive parent dealing with their own traumas says no. I really needed someone who could show up and advocate for me when I was little. Showing up and advocating for myself, now, is hard and all the harder from this jOuRnEy. No kid deserves this bs.
This! Infertility is one type of hard. And adoption is another type of hard. I don’t think I can deal with another kind of hard.
My mom tried saying, “well if you adopt a baby, you’ll get to raise it!”
Doesn’t mean the trauma is gone! Also, being a teacher, I’ve seen it all. This year I have a kiddo who is in a foster home, birth mom drank all throughout her pregnancy, so his behavior is off the wall. Every time something doesn’t go his way, he LOSES IT. I’m talking about tearing the room apart, hitting, kicking, etc.
I had one last year who was adpoted. Birth mom did cocaine through her pregnancy so he’s missing part of his brain and is disabled. Sweetest boy but still a lot of work.
I’ve worked in behavioral health and I remember a lady told me, “I have schizophrenia and I gave up my daughter for adoption. And it turns out she has it too.” It’s certainly not a clean slate. Maybe decades ago when teen parents were the ones having to give up for adoption. But now it’s a lot of people who have some type of severe mental illness or addiction. I think I would break if I had to deal with infertility, miscarriage, and then having a child who has some sort of trauma like that.
I 100% agree with this but feel so terrible saying it out loud. So, thank you.
I felt terrible too until my therapist (who also went through infertility) said, “It’s not the job of those who struggle with infertility to save all the children who don’t have homes.”
I think it’s less selfish to say it’s something you mentally can’t handle.
Omgosh your therapist said what I needed to hear. I feel compelled to consider this if we can’t have bio kids even though idk if I could be the parent an adopted kid needs. Thank you for sharing this!
This is my feeling exactly. I might adopt someday.... but it's not going to be until I've recovered from this shitty time and 100% want to adopt without feeling like adoption is a consolation. An adoptee deserves more than I can offer right now.
The fact that you’re actually wanting to be a good mother is really good. I feel like my mom just wanted a baby and then I was very strong-willed and had some pretty severe mental health issues that were neglected because my mom assumed that it was nothing she did so nothing could be wrong.
As long as you support your child and guide them to make good and healthy choices, you’ll be ok.
There’s no perfect parent.