Your Parents and In-Laws and Infertility

orangemell2012 · October 2013

Last night DH and I were talking about our parents and their lack of support/lack of understanding through all of this. I was having a down day and my Mom happened to call and she could tell I was upset and I said why and she just said "oh" and changed the subject.

My In-Laws NEVER ask how we are doing or for any updates. We live less than 30 minutes from them and haven't seem them since early September. It's so weird. But before all this we saw them at least once a month.

How are you parents/in-laws through all this? If they aren't the most supportive how do you deal? We never asked them for money or anything in regards to this but you would think they would at least check in to see how we are doing?

liz4paws · October 2013

One thing I've learned during this awful struggle with IF is that just because someone may not be asking about me or responding in the right way, it usually means they just don't know what to say at all. But in general they do care - at least when it comes to close family members. Of course there are situations where they actually don't, but I think more often than not the people in my life do care - they just have no idea how to help or are afraid of saying the wrong thing.

Personally, I've learned not to be too quick to assume that their lack of talking about it means they don't support you. I had to have a hard conversation with my dad a couple of years ago because I felt like his apathetic attitude toward our IF and our IVF was hurtful. He also passed off some of my updates with an "oh" and changed the subject. When I confronted it head-on he admitted to me that he hurt so badly for us but he literally had no idea what to say so he'd say hardly anything. We had a good heart to heart about it and I told him how much it would mean for him to be there for me and everything changed after that. Things are great now and even though he doesn't always say the most perfect things, he tries and he knows saying nothing hurts more than saying SOMETHING most of the time.

I try to give people, especially my close loved ones who I know love me, a pass on this sort of thing unless I know for certain it comes from a bad place. Would you be able to have a good conversation with them to try to understand why they aren't acting more supportive? Do they just not know how to help and are trying to do right by you by thinking less-is-more?

stinkerbell6879 · October 2013

We are lucky that both sets of parents are very supportive. They still can say the wrong things at the wrong time etc...but they both care. I did have to step away from telling then about this cycle because the constant phone calls, questions etc. were getting to stressful for me. I love my MIL but she can be very emotional and my DH has had to take over giving the updates because her being sad/upset for us was really hard on me.

I will ditto Liz about sometime not asking =/= not caring. I am very close with 2 of my co-workers and they know of our struggles but because they don't want to ask the wrong question they let me come to them or will just be very general.

lincoln79 · October 2013

mh family is clueless but means well. so we don't over share, but answer any questions they ask.

my family borders on cruel ("the only people who don't have children are people who don't want it enough"). we started out being open, but have decided through our three miscarriages that it is just too dam hard to go through without being kicked while you are down. i haven't talked to my parents or sister since the most recent miscarriage in september. it just isn't worth it while we are grieving and trying to recover after three miscarriages in a calendar year.

so, we have discovered to take support from wherever you can find it, but it may not be from our family. our pastors and some colleagues have been amazing.

otherwise, we have come to realize we don't owe anyone.

i really credit jalara for giving me strength to extricate myself from a painful and harmful situation!

xmaystarx · October 2013

I'm sorry you are not getting the support you would like. Do you think maybe they don't want to pry and don't know that you would like to share more with them?

I do not tell my parents anything but I think they have a general idea of what we are going through.

Loss mentioned:

The one and only time I was pregnant I had a missed misscarriage at 9 weeks. We told our parents we were expecting at about 6 weeks and specifically told them that it was early and not to share the news with extended family because we wanted to wait until 2nd tri to do so. Well my mom decided to tell tons of extended family and then when we lost the baby I told her that it was now her job to go tell everyone she told that we were no longer pregnant. For this reason and this reason only she is not sharing any of my current journey with me. (as you can tell I'm still a bit upset about it). DH's parents on the other hand never said a word and are in the know about our doing IVF but not so much about using donor eggs. We don't really talk about it with them though.

orangemell2012 · November 2013

This is all really great advice. With the in-laws I think if DH said something to them they might be more supportive. I really don't know. My MIL is pretty icy in general.

As for my Mom, that's just the way she is and is notorious for being horrible in difficult times.

It's just hard to not have people in real life to support us. The boards are fantastic and truly make this somewhat easier.

BeckyP005 · November 2013

I'm in between running errands for work but just wanted to give you some hugs!

My mom thinks I'm crazy because of my age and I can't talk to her about this. She thinks I'm not going through with this cycle. She told me to go see a therapist.

My MIL doesn't know because she had made comments to be about my age also. She said some hurtful things so she has no clue we are trying. If this works I'm curious of what is going to be said! Hopefully all good!

Good luck and it is nice to have these boards

ladyrader0227 · November 2013

It sucks when you feel family isn't being supportive. My mom and I had a fight about it last year because she always talked about herself & never asked about me or IF. When I couldn't deal with it anymore - I told her & she said she was afraid to bring it up or say the wrong thing so she would just talk about herself. While the "Oh" response is the horrible it better than ... it will happen with you least expect it. I just told her it was better to say she loved me and listen. She didn't have to come up with a perfect response.

After the last BFN, I told my family to NEVER bring it up again unless I did. So now, DH & I are going through this round with just us & the doctor knowing.

Big hugs to you all!

singingirl96 · November 2013

Hi. I want to jump in and give you some support.

We too conceived using DS. My in laws were extremely unsupportive. My MIL in particular was the worst. They're both very traditional catholics and were highly against any IF treatment especially when it came down to using a donor. They flipped shit! We dealt with our diagnosis since 2008. During that time we looked into options and my husband even had a biopsy and an mTESE. Both unsuccessful. My in laws were certain we were gonna stop there, but when my husband mentioned DS to them, they freaked out even more. We talked about using BIL's sperm, but once he was tested and also had fertility problems, we decided to go anonymous. MIL tried to get DH to change his mind... she said that I didn't think he was enough. DH and I were on the same page, but with her constant muddling he became more 'on the fence'.... eventually we continued through with our plan. FF>> 5 IUI's 1 IVF, I got pregnant. Even 4 years later, she was barely talking to me, and did not acknowledged my pregnancy at all. There was no "how are you feeling?" or "are you getting morning sickness?" or " how did the ultrasound go?" Nothing.
At 20 weeks we found out our son had a severe heart defect.... She even alluded that it was because of the route we chose to take.
But... time passed. At around 7 months pregnant she started coming around. She came to my baby shower, and started to get a little more involved. FIL was neutral most of the time.
Once he was born most of this went out the window. She came to the hospital, she was more involved, liked to hold him, came to visit etc.
As he got a little older she was more involved and things were pretty normal. Nothing else was ever brought up.
Unfortunately, a week after my son turned 1, we lost her to cancer.
During her funeral, we met many of her church friends, and they were unanimous when they all said how much she bragged about her grandson, how happy she was when he was born and how excited she was when I got pregnant! What?! Where did that come from? I was in shock!
Before she died, she asked me for forgiveness for being so difficult and so hard on us in regards to our choices.

Anyway, this post got way longer than I wanted to, but you get the idea. Don't worry too much about how your in-laws or own parents are acting now. They'll come around. Babies have a way of bringing families together and everything will be ok. If they don't come around, it'll be their loss, not yours.
There are days when I still feel sad that our son isn't a mix between the two of us, but we wouldn't change a thing. He's our son and we both love him to pieces!

BTW, I'm PUPO as of yesterday. And my FIL is so excited. Time changes things.

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