I was 23 and about to start my second year of teaching. My first year was kind of a mess, so I was determined for year two to be better. My cousin was getting married in PA the weekend before the first day of school. I had RSVPd "yes", but the day before realized I had too much left to do to get ready for school to go so I canceled and my mom was pissed! I sent a nice check to make up for my absence, but my mom was hurt and upset that I wasn't there. She got over it, but it was tense for a couple days.
Fast forward 7 years to MY wedding. We were trying to keep to a particular budget and at my mom's suggestion used a family friend as our photographer. When she dropped the pictures off we noticed that there must have been damage to her lens because there was a blurry dot in the same spot toward the middle of EVERY picture. I immediately burst into tears. I wasn't mad, just disappointed. My mom felt bad so she started to cry. Nothing could be done about it so we moved on, but it was tense for a couple of hours.
Fast forward 7 more years. We have shared with several targeted groups about our IVF journey. Our immediate families, our church community group (3/4 of which have experienced infertility), select college friends (most of whom experienced infertility or loss), and my mom's best friend. That was how we intended for it to stay until we were ready to announce towards the end of our first trimester.
Saturday morning I got a text from my cousin. "Hey lady.. Your mom told us last night exciting news .... We will keep you and JT in our prayers and please let us know how your sonogram goes ... Praying for u 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼".
Uhh, come again?!? Why was my mom announcing MY pregnancy? I hadn't explicitly told her not to tell anyone, but assumed it was understood that this was OUR news to share when and how we wanted to! After processing for a bit I figured she was just excited. I called and talked to my sister (who lives with my parents) and nonchalantly fished for who all my parents had shared our news with. Well turns out it was all my aunts and uncles and my cousins on my mom's side. My sister said everyone was happy and that my cousin's wife had tears in her eyes. That would have been a great moment to have been a part of...My mom stole our thunder!
My mom must have realized her faux pas because the next day she sent an email apologizing. I gave her a call ready to put it behind us. Then she said something that made me ask a few more questions. Turns out she not only told them that we are expecting...but also it was through IVF...with donor eggs. We are not embarrassed about either of those two things; however, if people have not had any experience with IF it can be really confusing. I imagine we would have told them eventually, but on our terms. I guess on the bright side it's one less decision to make as to what those terms are:(.
I started to cry, which led to my mom feeling even worse and she started to cry. She put my dad on who felt just as bad. Ultimately nothing can be changed. It can't be undone. I still have no earthly idea what they were thinking, but know they were not ill-intended. After feeling sad and disappointed Sunday night, we realized we just needed to move on.
We will just need to be very explicit moving forward...
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