Typical

I know my mom loves me, the best she can. And I know she wants to see me have a child. But, I know she is pretty much the most irrational and stubborn person in the world when she wants to be. Even so, sometimes I don't really realize how much that her beliefs mean to her, and how much more important they are to her than doing something to help her daughter.

I'm in the midst of a huge struggle to build my family. We've spent upwards of $40,000 on trying to have a baby with no success. We are going to spend more to use donor eggs very soon. I've been an emotional mess, anxious, depressed, for about 4 years now and have tried to get my family to understand what this struggle means to me. Most of my family and definitely my friends really do understand, the best they can, without going through this, but my mom clearly does not.

I sent family and friends an email, similar to the post I made yesterday, about having them fill out a form ask their Senators to support a tax credit for people paying for IVF. Here is the response I received from my mom:

"Since I am not ok with IVF, I can not promote this bill, Peace be with you, Mom"

Nice. Thanks for your support, Mom.

A Mother's Day Wish

I want to be remembered today, on Mother's Day. I want the people in my life to think of ME today and say, "Hey Tippy, I know today might be a hard day for you. I just wanted to say I'm thinking of you and hopeful that you will be a mom someday soon."

(A little self-centered? Feeling sorry for myself? Yes, a bit.)

And some of my friends did (Thank you :-) )  My SIL and her husband did too. Even a classmate from gradeschool, who I am only facebook friends with and haven't really seen in over 20 years, who is struggling with her own brain tumor fight right now, did.... How selfless!

But my mom, the one person who I really wish would recognize what this means to me, did not. I'm not sure what it is about her personality, her disease, her own emotional health, but she is not very empathetic. I think back to a lot of my childhood with her, and many of my memories are jaded with cravings of more affection, more comfort. I don't think that I always went to her for those things as she was either tending to her younger children who needed her more at that time, or her bipolar disease was more active and I tried to stay away from her. In the recent past, as she has been more stable and healthy, we have developed a more loving and affectionate relationship. She says things like, "Tippy, you're the cutest!" and gives me a hug, and I feel fulfilled for a moment or two.

Despite this more recent affection, there will always be an underlying disapproval from my mom of the way that I am going about finding my child, and that stings. My mom doesn't believe in IVF. She is Catholic and she takes a very literal interpretation of the teachings of her church. I know that Catholic does not mean anti-IVF, and please, for your Catholic readers out there, do not take my writings as anti-Catholic. They are merely a discussion about how my mom interprets her religion....  Anyways,  my mom is also disappointed in me for not practicing the religion that she and my dad brought me up in. I truly believe, that she thinks if I come back to the church, that god will finally give me a baby.

So, here I sit, on Mother's Day 2011, craving a little understanding and care from my mother, but not willing to let her know what I need from her. I don't like to ask, for one, but I also don't like to get in conversations with her about our infertility because they often lead to her disapproval of us doing any more IVF cycles. I can't even imagine what she would say if we told her we were considering Donor Egg IVF...

Because I am stubborn and don't want to ask for help, I will sit here silently and wish for my mom to call me and say, "Tippy, I'm thinking of you today too... "

Reminders in the City

I always feel better about life and my future prospects of being a mom after a visit to see my sisters for a night out in the city.

I'm the oldest of 5 children. Me (36), J (sis, 33), J (bro, 31), L(sis, 29) & C(sis, 26)...

Yes, my mom was fertile.
And yes, my parents are Catholic.

All of my siblings, except for me, live in a very fun neighborhood in the city, within about a mile or so radius of each other. Every once in a while I go down after work on Friday for a night out on the town. It takes me a few hours to get down there, depending on traffic and I SO enjoy getting into my car, cranking up the tunes and driving in my zippy car.. (Ha, just thought to my self, Tippy's got a Zippy car...lol! I'm such a dork)... Where was it... Oh, the energy of the city is so fun. It gives me a boost, a charge, especially at night. In my next life, I will definitely live in a big city, in a high rise and not own a car or a house and take public transportation everywhere and eat out a lot... It sounds SO wonderful and sexy to me.... But I digress.

So we had dinner and some drinks at a fantastic French-Mexican fusion restaurant with my sister J, some of her friends and my other sister L, all for J's birthday. Besides the good food, drink and dressing up, it's also great to be reminded that there are a lot of women out there near my age who aren't mom's yet and that's... ok!  They have fun, fulfilling lives and they don't have the agenda of needing to have already popped out a few kids. I think I forget that sometimes because I am so immersed in a life here in my smaller city where all of my friends are parents 2 or 3 times over and most of my other friends are those that are trying and struggling to be parents just like me.

Reminding myself that I'm not the only one at my age with out children, even though that should be a VERY obvious statement, is a good thing to do every once in a while... and heck, if I HAVE to go to the city and have a few drinks and awesome food to do that.... I think I can manage.