How do I approach my stepmom about her insensitivity about our infertility? (long)

[CanadianMaple]

I love my stepmom. We had a rough start when her and dad started dating because she and dad had caused the affair that broke my parents up. Dad worked with her for years and I knew of her my entire life. She was quite wild, was a single mom of 5 kids (3 fathers) and my dad hated her. You can imagine the shock when I found out he was leaving mom for her when I was 17.

I hated her for probably about 5 years. We eventually started talking when I moved away for a year and we actually were pretty close when I was a single mother; she really seemed to get what I was going through.

Fast forward to now. My husband and I married last summer. We found out he is sterile, he has no sperm in his sperm analysis. Needless to say, we were devastated. She knew he wanted his own child more than anything and how good of a dad is has been to my son. They were the first people we told and we cried and cried with them just before Christmas.

She goes on and on now about all of her kids and how she had them so easily. She keeps talking about her daughters are so "good" to bring her lots of babies to love. She even said something to us about how their (hers and dad's) kids are all "slacking" now, they haven't gotten any pregnancy news this year. (One of her daughters got her tubes tied and regrets it, but there are no baby announcements expected from her)

I just found out my cousin is pregnant last night because she texted me just before bed. She texted me before that to ask if someone we both know has given birth to her baby yet. She is constantly bringing up people's pregnancies and how much she loves babies to us.

DH is not wanting to go there this afternoon for Easter. Between all of the babies, pregnancy talk and expecting a comment to be thrown at us, I can't blame him. He wants me to announce at dinner that he is sterile for everyone to hear if she says another comment. It makes me not want to talk to them about where we are with the testing and if we use donor sperm, I don't even know if I want her to know. (But I want dad to know, so that won't work.)

Do I talk to her about it? It's not like she doesn't know how severe "Chris has no sperm" is. We have filled them in on the testing and what could happen. I am afraid I am going to blow up at her or avoid her completely. They babysit my son for us every few weeks and I appreciate them a lot, it's just this aspect that is the main issue.

I know if a lot of this is just her personality, but I hate worrying that she will hurt DH or I.

If you got through all of this, do you have suggestions on how to handle her? My mom and stepdad and my ILs are such great support to us, they are quiet about it but are there to talk anytime we need it. They only bring it up when we do.

 

[ELR]

I'd suggest just having a quiet word with her, and saying that all this baby talk from her is difficult for you to hear. She might not realise she's doing it, or she might think that you want to talk about babies. I think people don't get it if they haven't struggled themselves. Of course it might be neither of those, but it's worth trying first!

 

[CanadianMaple]

Thanks for your reply. Dinner today was no exception. We talked to us about babies and told me I was being "stuck up" because I didn't make a bit fuss when they told me in person that my cousin was expecting.

I'm just going to distance myself for a bit. I'm doing better now with everything and I don't need her weighing me down.

In all fairness, she also mentioned that one of her kids was "huge" and make comments about how much she was eating in front of everyone. At least I know it's not personal.

 

[Feisty Fidget]

Oh my goodness she sounds like a terrible person!

I have an insensitive bio Mum who believes that my infertility is self inflicted by either DH congenital heart problem (we checked, it isn't) or me 'thinking about it too much' I am personally a coward and will just avoid her or change the subject or just tell her I don't want to discuss it but that is only because anything else would result in a huge argument and our relationship is strained enough as it is.

Perhaps you should make a public display of the next time she brings babies up or criticize you, you should just say that seeing as you are sterile there isn't much chance of any babies from you is there. I personally find that being blunt and wording things to cause the much impact generally helps make people back off when it comes to our infertility.

Good luck! x