Hello Ladies~
After having some fun reading (and sometimes adding my own advice to) other brides' posts, it appears that the time has come for me to pose a question of my own. I apologize in advance for its length.
My wedding is slightly less than four months away, and I just had my first dress fitting on the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend. It was, at first, a lovely afternoon with my mom. We had a great time chatting with the seamstress, approving the work that needs to be done, and going to lunch afterwards - but then she decided to up the ante on the pressure that's been slowly applied since September for me to get pregnant.
I got a lecture on how my sister and I both need to "hurry up and get on with having kids, unless we're going to adopt, but even then..." and I was pointedly asked, "How long do you think you really have?" My sister and I both turned 30 this year; I have been with my fiance for six years (just engaged this June) and my sister's been with her boyfriend for about two years. I realize that according to statistics, sometimes the risk of pregnancy complications and birth defects / disorders can rise if you wait longer to have kids. But what my mom doesn't realize is that
A. I'm pretty sure it's nobody's damned business when I get pregnant;
B. I SO don't need this put on me in addition to the stress of planning the wedding;
C. We have friends who are struggling to get pregnant right now and, since they're not too much older than we are, it's freaking me out to watch; and finally
D. My fiance and I already have a difference of opinion over how long we want to wait before trying for kids - he wants to have a house, a lot of money saved up, and a game plan for one of us to stay home so we can be as prepared for children as possible, while I don't have as many reservations - so Mom's making an already stressful situation that much worse.
This intensity with baby talk really got out of control when my older brother and my sister-in-law welcomed their first child on September 5. Suddenly this baby MUST have cousins to play with, stat! And Mom must come over to babysit all the time, every day, and she promises (or... threatens?) that I'll never be able to get her out of my hair once Baby arrives!
I'm trying to see this through a compassionate filter in that maybe, just maybe, her criticism and nosiness is actually her warped way of being happy and excited for my future. But the unfavorable comparison to my brother and my sister-in-law is getting old, and this is the bitter icing on that particular cake. As happy as I am for them, they have been routinely held up by our parents as the Couple Who Can Do No Wrong, while it seems my fiance and I are seen as the Couple Who Can't Do Anything Right. When I explained to her our rationale that we'd like a house and some funds saved up before we start our family - which I think is a responsible goal - Mom acted like that was the dumbest thing she'd ever heard in her life. I'm tired of being first hinted at, then henpecked, and finally attacked, like I need to defend my reasons for not having a baby in our current apartment.
I should add the humorous irony that the "lecture lunch" took place no more than half an hour after she suggested we make a pact to be honest with each other, from now until the wedding, if one of us steps out of line. Why is it that the person who conveniently comes up with that pact is also the person who has no problem stepping out of line?
Does anyone else have a mother or other relative who's laying on the baby guilt trip? If so, what would you say (or what have you said) to make this STOP?! One bridesmaid suggested that the next time she starts, I ought to tell her that children are simply no longer an option for discussion - but I'm thinking that may be hard to do without either starting a fight or making her cry.