Long, whiny post - sorry

My weekends need to stop being so stressful. Seriously. I just wrote a super-long, whiny post and now I've cut it back.

After a week of beautiful weather, it got cold, rainy, and windy this weekend (of course today is bright and sunny again, go figure). I spent Saturday at home doing chores, and then we threw an impromptu dinner party which made a huge mess of our kitchen but which was a lot of fun.

Sunday though – that was the kicker. It almost killed me. I haven’t talked much about my relationship with my mother, and I don’t want to go into it much because then I start whining and I hate it when I whine. We don’t get along well – she’s a very difficult person, spoiled, demanding, controlling, manipulative, and so on. She hates my sister-in-law and makes my brother’s life miserable because of it. She also thinks that it’s the duty of her children to drive to her house (a 45-minute drive for me) whenever she wants and do anything she demands, and if anyone of use refuses (2 out of 3 isn’t enough) the ones who do come get to hear her complain about the ones who didn’t come the whole time.

I know things aren't the way she wants them - my father died quite a few years ago, and her behavior tends to drive everyone else away. And yes, I do feel bad for her and very guilty that her life has turned out this way. Unfortunately, she also feels bad for herself and wallows in her self-pity, pushing guilt trips as hard as she can to try to get people to pay attention to her. It makes any time spent with her very, very stressful.

So to try to make this long story just a bit shorter, I went over there this weekend to clean, in the hopes that she will try to sell her humongous house and move into something more reasonable. In the midst of cleaning her house while she more or less sat there and watched us, she brought up that she really wishes L and I would have a baby.

Um, SERIOUSLY?

Keep in mind that L and I took her to lunch LAST SUMMER to tell her we’d been trying for about 8 months and we were having some trouble, but we were going to start investigating and we’d tell her when we had news. (And by news I meant a pregnancy announcement – no way is she going to know every step of the process).

I’ll try to remember the gist of the conversation from that point onward:

Me: What?!
Mom: I want to know when you and L are having a baby, you ARE still planning to, right?
Me: Um, yes. We told you that.
Mom: I know, but it’s been a while. I want another grandchild.
Me: You already have two.
Mom: I know, I love A (my nephew – she never says she loves my niece – nice), but he needs someone to give him a rivalry.
Me: He has a sister you know.
Mom: She doesn’t rival him, and anyway she loves him, too. He needs a little cousin.
Me: Well, I can’t really do anything about that. You should be happy you have two grandchildren.
Mom: I want my daughter to have a child.
Me: (almost crying by this point)
Mom: I am going to say something and you’re going to get mad (yes, she really says this, all the time).
Me: Maybe you shouldn’t say it then.
Mom: (I can tell she wants to say it, acting like she didn’t hear me) What?
Me: Fine, what do you want to say?
Mom: I think that sometimes when women are really active they have trouble getting pregnant, you know, like in the Olympics (THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME SHE’S BROUGHT THIS UP)(and I’m not exactly an Olympic athlete).
Me: (Sigh). I don’t think that’s the problem – I am in decent shape but I don’t work out that much. You know what actually DOES cause infertility? STRESS. Like you calling me EVERY DAY to complain about my sister-in-law and all your other problems. (Yikes, shouldnt' have said that, probably).

Yeah, things didn’t go so well. She was upset that I blamed her for my problems (even though she had just finished blaming me), not that I completely blame her, I don’t blame anyone. I just know my life would be a lot easier without all the stress caused by her.


ANYWAY - Today is my LAST DAY of Clomid! Monitoring ultrasound on Friday, IUI early next week if all goes well!