nicole norstrud

So, my mom is definitely a unique individual. I give her a lot of credit because she raised three children (two of us were twins) without a lot of help, worked full time, cooked, cleaned, and did almost everything for us while my dad brought home a paycheck and sat on the couch the rest of the time. So, I say this to make it clear that I have deep respect for my mom . . . but sometimes I wish she was a little less ignorant about what I’m going through. She claims that she is a “feeler”, meaning that she often feels other people’s emotions and can empathize with others. In my experience however, her empathy hasn’t always extended to her children, especially when it comes to me and my sister. Yesterday I told her about the pregnancy and where we were at with our levels and odds. She immediately told me that I needed to relax (in that adamant mom voice that has the opposite affect of relaxing) and proceeded to lay out different examples of what I should do. In that moment the only thing I could do was close my eyes and try to convince myself that it was not a good idea to explode on my mom. She clearly had no idea what I was going through, and her immediate response was to try and tell me what to do. Instead of sympathy I got mom arrogance. I took a big breath and tried to calmly explain that telling a woman going through infertility to relax was pretty insulting, and that if I could relax – I would. She thought it about it for a while, and then proceeded to tell me that maybe I didn’t want to be pregnant. In that moment I gave up on expecting her to understand. It was clear that unless she had experienced infertility for herself, she was never going to be sympathetic. I was not thrilled with my mom’s lack of compassion, but on a weird level I get it. I’m sure that if one of my friends was suffering from infertility and I hadn’t experienced it myself, I would probably be offering flippant advice like ‘maybe you should just relax” as well. In fact, I know I would have been that mom, confident in my own ability to have a baby while simultaneously discrediting another woman’s struggle by offering aberrant advice. I hate the idea of doing that to someone, but I can see how my own insensitivity would have allowed it. Just like my mom was doing to me. So, I didn’t explode on my mom like I secretly wanted to do nor did I try to force her to understand. I’ve got my own priorities in regards to this pregnancy, and my mom’s ignorance wasn’t on the agenda yesterday. Maybe some other day.