Why This is All a Very, Very Bad Idea

I love my mom, really I do. But we’ve always clashed, and even now as two adults our relationship is often a bit strained.

I’ve come to understand over the years – though I haven’t quite reached the point of acceptance yet – that no matter what I do, I’m never going to make her happy. It’s just not going to happen. She’s always going to find fault with something about me; that’s just her way. Even when it comes to how R and I start our family. Or, more accurately in her mind’s eye, how R and I go about producing her grandchildren.

There’s a 40-year age difference between us. My mom grew up in an age when daughters didn’t move out of their parents’ home when they got married, they just moved to the duplex upstairs. Young ladies didn’t go to college, unless it was for the purpose of finding a mate. And then when they married, it certainly wasn’t their place to go off to work outside the home every day.

So the idea that I would want to go to college to actually (gasp!) get an education and start a career was just something she could not understand. And what my mom does not understand is, in her opinion, fair game for ridicule and criticism.

Mostly I just try to ignore the barbs and put downs, but the ones about how we’re trying to start our family drive me a little nutty lately.

When we first began the infertility rollercoaster, we sat down and explained to her that we were having problems conceiving because we didn’t want to continue dealing with questions about when the grandchildren would be popping out.

I explained that I’d be taking Clomid. She shook her head and said in her most sanctimonious tone (it’s usually the tone that irritates me the most), “Oh, I don’t know about that. I mean, you don’t know what kind of effects a drug like that will have. I don’t think that’s smart.”

We moved on to injectibles, and the tsk-tsking continued. “You’re giving yourself shots? You know, I talked to someone at work and they said those shots will make you have six or seven kids at once and then you’ll die of cancer. She read that someplace. You really should look into that further. You haven’t taken the time to consider this.”

Yes, of course, her one friend who read a single article in some a newsstand magazine is an expert on this! Why didn’t I realize that sooner??

I shouldn’t have spent all those hundreds of hours online researching fertility drugs, treatment options, risks, doctors and clinics. No siree, instead, I should have just turned to the “expert” who spent 10 minutes reading a magazine that probably cited 30-year-old studies and quotes from other “experts” who spout off as if they know everything about infertility even though their own children were conceived faster than most people can blink. (Bonus points to anyone who figures out which magazine I’m referring to.)

Injectibles failed, we got pregnant anyway, we lost the baby. We decided to move on to adoption.

Can anyone guess what could be wrong about this option, as my mother sees it? Come on, surely you can guess one or two – she’s got a long list. There are the usual concerns most couples have when they’re considering adoption – possible drug or alcohol use on the mother’s part, whether the baby is getting prenatal care, the birth parents’ family medical and mental health history.

I can’t really fault her for having those concerns, but what annoys me about them is that she acts as if they’ve never crossed our minds. As if we’re simply rushing into this with a blind eye turned to all those issues. (Because if you know me, you know how often I tend to rush into things without carefully considering the ramifications of all possible courses of action - crazy, impulsive, free spirit that I am…)

But I’ve saved the best for last. My all-time favorite on my mom’s list of “Why Adoption is a Bad Idea and You Should Reconsider It”: The birthmother could have a big gap between her front teeth. Yep, it’s on there. Toward the top of the list, I might add. And no, I’m not making this up.

She said to me recently, “What if you meet a birthmom and you don’t like the way she looks? What if she has a big gap between her front teeth? Can you back out?”

Well, gee, let’s see. What if she does have a big gap between her teeth? I suppose we’ll wait and see if our baby inherits her birthmother’s dental pattern. And if s/he does, we’ll do what my mom did when I inherited hers, complete with a big, toothy gap that was wide enough to accommodate a third tooth.

Can anyone say “braces?”