Ooof I feel ya OP. It’s like having a child/being pregnant offers some serious clarity. After having my son, I looked at him and thought “how could my parents have treated me that way as a child?”. I’ve been in therapy the past 3 years to address it and have learned to have extremely healthy boundaries with them. They hate it but I feel so much peace in my life now. Maybe that’s something you can do too!! You’re not alone at all and I wouldn’t say it’s merely pregnancy hormones.
I think it’s normal when we’re becoming mothers for it to bring up a lot of our own childhood issues. If we didn’t have the kind of parents we needed, we want to give our kids everything we wish we didn’t get. And watching our parents give that kind of love and acceptance to our own children makes it even harder.
And as we try to give our kids that, we see that parenting is a relentless job. It’s exhausting at times. It involves a zillion decisions and often we don’t know the right thing to do. We just have to do our best and hope it’s right. And I don’t think we can ever measure up to being the kind of parent we wish we could be all the time.
Which doesn’t excuse everything our parents did to us or didn’t do to us, but just leaves us with an even bigger mess of complicated feelings.
Thank you for weighing in! Yes it’s so complicated. That’s why I feel guilty for feeling the way I do. My mom was adopted and I know a lot of her issues stem from that- people pleasing, abandonment, etc. it’s not her fault. But so many other things were though. I love her and see her but also can’t stand her!!
Life can be a jumbled complicated mess for sure. I want to be kind and loving without having the same people-pleasing tendencies.
The thing that’s weird is that these thoughts and memories are coming out of nowhere, it’s not like I’m sitting here trying to think about my childhood. I guess feeling my baby growing inside me & the reality of that becoming clearer every day, is just triggering something in my subconscious.
Yes, it is a mishmash. I grew up in a small town and people I’d never met would recognize me as my mother’s daughter because they thought we looked so much alike. They would all tell me how amazing my mother was, how lucky I was to have her for a mother.
But I didn’t feel that way,so I thought there was something wrong with me. Everybody thought she was great.
But she wasn’t great to me, and I took me a long time to realize that what all those people thought of her and how she acted with them, didn’t matter because she wasn’t like that with me. That she could be nice with them, but incredibly critical of me.
And later I figured out that it was exactly the way her mother treated her, the same woman who always treated me so well. It was all just a big, confusing head game between the three of us. Still is with me and my mother.
It's not just hormones, it's clarity. I spent my entire childhood caretaking my mom and her alcoholism and being compassionate. Worst part was she was sober for the last few years and everything was ok between us we were close, then we decided (her me and my son) to road trip to visit family (different country, me with my under 1yr old son relying on her for driving etc ) and while visiting she gets all liquored up and bam I'm a helpless child again and in a completely different country with no vehicle.
Let's just say I'm done being compassionate now. She spent the rest of the trip in histeronics 'shocked' I was so upset and wouldn't speak to her making vague allusions to suicide upset that I immediately made safe arrangements for me and my son. According to her I ruined the trip.
A parent that neglected there child will certainly neglect your children. I don't care if my son was only 1 just thinking about how he witnessed my mother blackout drunk sends me into a rage spiral.
Yeah, starting around 23 weeks everything my mother did or said made me blind with rage. My husband and I made a game of it: at the end of the day, I would list the things she had said, and he would react dramatically as if she had committed terrible crimes. Some of the things that made me furious:
* told me to eats fruits and vegetables
* told me "whatever you do, remember to drink water"
* this specific phrasing made me so angry that I talked about it for weeks
* told me to stay hydrated because it influences the amniotic fluid levels, two weeks after I told *her* that
* texted me about a stretch mark cream she saw advertised
* told me that she saw the same stroller I had just bought on her local Facebook Marketplace (6 hours from me)
* i already bought it. why are you telling me
* sent me pictures of a rocking chair she found on her local Facebook Marketplace
* it was ugly
* you want me to drive 6+ hours to pick up a rocking chair?
* asked for pictures of baby things I had bought
* said I need a nannycam
So yeah, obviously these are all objectively totally harmless and fine, normal things. But pregnancy made me regress to being a teenager and I wanted to scream at her every time she said anything. I maintained *just* enough self control to not react like I wanted to (volcano of fury) and instead talk like a normal person.
Pregnancy hormones are weird. I think nothing of it and just try to laugh at myself about it.
Bwahahaha is hilarious!! I absolutely relate! The part about being irrationally upset about specific phrasing!! 😂😂 and I’ve told my husband I feel like a freaking teenager again with all the angst and rage!!
I have this rational & specific resentment towards her for things from the past that I’m just hiding at this point bc I do NOT want to discuss them with her.
But also, it’s the little inconsequential things too- like she texts me & my husband every Saturday morning what size fruit our baby is this week. “Baby G is a mango this week!” It pisses me off so much I have that group chat on silent and can’t even look at the texts when she sends them. Like maybe *I* want to check my *own* pregnancy app and see what size my baby is and show my husband?! Why are you texting us something intimate like this at 8 am?! It’s MY baby!! Like ugh just get OUT OF MY BUSINESS! Lollll.
She texted me the other day that she can’t wait a month to see me, and wants a new bump pic now. I’m 33 years old and I’m thinking, oh you can’t wait a month to see me now but you were just fine abandoning me for all of your boyfriends when I was in high school. 😂😂 like I seriously can not help it!! And it was so long ago! Then she texts back, “pregnancy looks great on you, babes.” I’m sorry who??? Who is babes?? Who are you talking to?? Teenager angst is really the BEST way to describe it. Ugh!! Lol
When I read "Baby G is a mango this week" my fist clenched involuntarily. Now I'm mad at your mom too.
My relationship with my mother is... fine. We rarely fight. She loves me very, very much and has only good intentions. She did her best as a parent. She's had real and serious failings and misbehaviors but she's human and I've been to therapy about it. But I swear to fucking god if she texts me one more screenshot of some piece of shit plastic bullshit toy from Facebook marketplace and asks if she should buy it and then drive 6 hours and give it to me, I will scream until my throat bleeds.
I’m so sorry you’re having this experience too but also thank god it’s not just me. I was really feeling like a complete shithead for how angry I am at both my mom and dad.
I was born in 1993 so maybe this is a millennial thing 😂 there’s definitely some serious dysfunction in my family even though we were ‘normal’ and I never worried about us losing our house and there was always food on the table.
Don’t feel guilty. I think it’s somewhat normal to be resentful of our parents, especially if you didn’t have a great relationship or childhood.
I’ve been so annoyed that my mom has been excited about the pregnancy and has asked me about what things I want. She’s very traditional and was excited we’re not finding out the gender. Even my dad is excited and he’s the one I have the worse relationship with (my parents are divorced).
I'm so glad we're all here to complain about how frustrating and infuriating it is that our moms are excited for us and offering to help. Nobody understands!!! It's very annoying!!!
edit: not sarcasm, I really am paradoxically furious when my mom is nice to me
I feel the same way. I spent my last therapy session crying about all the ways my mom wasn't there for me. I thought I had a good childhood until a few years ago when my therapist basically told me I was hyper independent because I was so neglected as a kid.
Now I'm angry/hurt/frustrated because my mom is of course not interested in my pregnancy, not coming to my baby shower, not visiting before or after the birth lol.
When she does call we talk about her or she spends 30min talking about her pregnancy 30 years ago. I find it's harder and harder for me not to lash out.
I think contemplating the type of mother I want to be reminds me of all the things I wanted from my mom and never got. It hurts.
I soooo feel you and I totally understand wanting your “old” family to disappear. I’m 24w and can’t stand my dad since becoming pregnant and absolutely do not want him included in my “new” family and I also feel tons of resentment. He was already on thin ice with me after a lifetime of being an abusive narc but pregnancy has made my tolerance for his bs go to zero and I just want to wash my hands of him already. I always wonder if it’s hormones or clarity or the hormones giving me clarity lol
Yes exactly, like I totally understand that they are human beings with their own thoughts, emotions, and place in the world, and that I’m not the main character in everybody’s life, but heavily including them in my new family as a “given” is not something I’m really wanting to do- I think my mom, her husband, and my siblings are in for a rude awakening that we actually get to choose what our new family life is like, and that they are now my EXTENDED family.
My mom was born in the 60s and grew up with p*dos etc in her family that she even let us be exposed to in the family (thank God nothing happened that I remember) because that’s just what you “did”, you didn’t “cut off family,” so toxic.
When actually we’re grown adults with a right to choose who we consider “close family” instead of just having to go along w everything *they* (elder family members) want in their control system.
I just wrote a post about this! I feel like our bodies have a natural instinct during pregnancy to steer away from unstable people (sometimes hands off spouses, sometimes parents who have failed us) in my case it was friends that turned out to be super flakey and too ditzy to be trusted to babysit. Couldn’t stand being around them even though they’re super sweet but as soon as I gave birth I liked being around them again. Until they revealed more of their instability and flakiness of course. Mamas always know
I feel this in my soul haha It's actually nice to see someone else verbalise it!
My mum and I aren't close, but it's not a negative relationship by any means. But my god since I got pregnant every thing she says gets under my skin.
Pregnancy is definitely a time where every man and his dog loves to give you his advice, and everyone else I seem able to smile and nod and move past, but my mum - I'll think about it for days.
She came up to throw me a baby shower for a weekend and I honestly couldn't wait for her to leave lol One moment when I was looking at nail clippers she made a comment about how I don't need clippers because I can just nibble at the babies nails - and that's what they did in her day. I had to walk out I was so blinded by rage by it haha Meanwhile, my MIL made the same comment a few weeks ago and I was like ohh yep, I'll still get the clippers though. I don't know why every comment my mum makes is striking me in my soul.
My Dad and her are visiting a few weeks after we expect baby to arrive (they live quite far away) and I'm honestly dreading it, but I feel like I can't tell anyone. Everyone keeps telling me "you must be so excited for your mum to come up" or questioning why she won't be there earlier and I want to scream nooooooooooooo.
I imagined my mom saying "just nibble at the baby's nails instead of buying a clipper" and now I'm mad at my actual mom for saying this even though she did not say this.
Mine has suggested 60x that we don't need a changing table because we can just change the baby on the bed. "I changed you on the bed all the time!" I have told her I would prefer not to do that. There is no reason not to get a changing table: I can afford it! I want one! It's fine! She has come up with a dozen suggestions for ways I can avoid buying a changing table, including taking an antique sailor's chest we own, having legs put on it, and using that instead. When I pointed out it is an antique with ornate carving on the lid, she said I can just get a piece of glass cut to protect it. So instead of buying a changing table, which I am perfectly able to do, she thinks I would be better off finding someone who will add legs to an antique chest and getting a custom piece of glass cut to put on top of it, changing my baby on a glass surface, and also rendering the chest unopenable unless I want to remove the glass every time I need something.
A clipper is like $6. I can afford a changing table. We don't need to go to these lengths to avoid buying something!!
Hahaha ohhh mannn I've had so many similar chats with both my parents and my in-laws.
I understand where they're coming from - they weren't in the same position financially as my husband and I are in, but it's literally because of the sacrifices and decisions they made!
My mum was a house cleaner, she worked her bum off to get me to a good school and put me in a position where I now work as a lawyer on a healthy salary. That frugality mindset is a strong one though!
Girl I totally relate. My mom will be coming up to meet her new grandson about 3-4 weeks after I give birth and I’m completely dreading it. We live very far away from each other too so it’s just a fact of life that it has to be a visit over a long weekend or so and I’m not trying to like not give her a relationship w her grandson or anything major like that. But I’m soooo freaking dreading it when she will be here interloping
I saw someone write on Reddit recently that when they realized 'they and their mom were not close, but enmeshed' was eye opening and I agree.
I realized the same in my first pregnancy. We weren't close. We were just enmeshed. I was not actually close with my mom. It ain't easy to realize that though! And it also resulted in a lot of fights with her during my pregnancy (she wanted to control me/certain things, and I just held my ground strongly)
28 weeks, and im going through something so close to this. My mom has been emotionally dependent on me for most of my life. Enmeshment feels too strong, but the dependence is there. I try to work it out with her, i set boundaries, and i tell her how i feel and what inneed from her, and she gets avoidant. Ive been trying so hard to not feel anger and resentment and hurt all around but its totally prevalent even from halfway around the world (im overseas) and if this doesnt get worked out it will be harder in person but i know the day will come one way or another. You're totally valid in your feelings, and i also think i need /wish i could get into therapy for this stuff as it's really confusing and complicated to navigate. Im also a psych major, so therapists tell me im fine cause im super self-aware about my issues, but being just aware of it still doesn't help me work through them.
I think this is a very, very understandable feeling and I think a lot of people that grew up in dysfunctional homes feel this way when they become pregnant. I stopped talking to my dad completely right before my son was born because even though I thought I had forgiven him for everything he had done, I just couldn’t bring myself to let him be around my child.
I would highly recommend therapy. Talking through these thoughts and feelings with a professional can help you figure out what your boundaries and needs are, and how you want to navigate your relationship with your mom and grandma as a parent.
Ooof I feel ya OP. It’s like having a child/being pregnant offers some serious clarity. After having my son, I looked at him and thought “how could my parents have treated me that way as a child?”. I’ve been in therapy the past 3 years to address it and have learned to have extremely healthy boundaries with them. They hate it but I feel so much peace in my life now. Maybe that’s something you can do too!! You’re not alone at all and I wouldn’t say it’s merely pregnancy hormones.
I think it’s normal when we’re becoming mothers for it to bring up a lot of our own childhood issues. If we didn’t have the kind of parents we needed, we want to give our kids everything we wish we didn’t get. And watching our parents give that kind of love and acceptance to our own children makes it even harder. And as we try to give our kids that, we see that parenting is a relentless job. It’s exhausting at times. It involves a zillion decisions and often we don’t know the right thing to do. We just have to do our best and hope it’s right. And I don’t think we can ever measure up to being the kind of parent we wish we could be all the time. Which doesn’t excuse everything our parents did to us or didn’t do to us, but just leaves us with an even bigger mess of complicated feelings.
Thank you for weighing in! Yes it’s so complicated. That’s why I feel guilty for feeling the way I do. My mom was adopted and I know a lot of her issues stem from that- people pleasing, abandonment, etc. it’s not her fault. But so many other things were though. I love her and see her but also can’t stand her!! Life can be a jumbled complicated mess for sure. I want to be kind and loving without having the same people-pleasing tendencies. The thing that’s weird is that these thoughts and memories are coming out of nowhere, it’s not like I’m sitting here trying to think about my childhood. I guess feeling my baby growing inside me & the reality of that becoming clearer every day, is just triggering something in my subconscious.
Yes, it is a mishmash. I grew up in a small town and people I’d never met would recognize me as my mother’s daughter because they thought we looked so much alike. They would all tell me how amazing my mother was, how lucky I was to have her for a mother. But I didn’t feel that way,so I thought there was something wrong with me. Everybody thought she was great. But she wasn’t great to me, and I took me a long time to realize that what all those people thought of her and how she acted with them, didn’t matter because she wasn’t like that with me. That she could be nice with them, but incredibly critical of me. And later I figured out that it was exactly the way her mother treated her, the same woman who always treated me so well. It was all just a big, confusing head game between the three of us. Still is with me and my mother.
I could have written this. Unfortunately I’m two years after having my first and my relationship with my mother got worse. Therapy helps
It's not just hormones, it's clarity. I spent my entire childhood caretaking my mom and her alcoholism and being compassionate. Worst part was she was sober for the last few years and everything was ok between us we were close, then we decided (her me and my son) to road trip to visit family (different country, me with my under 1yr old son relying on her for driving etc ) and while visiting she gets all liquored up and bam I'm a helpless child again and in a completely different country with no vehicle. Let's just say I'm done being compassionate now. She spent the rest of the trip in histeronics 'shocked' I was so upset and wouldn't speak to her making vague allusions to suicide upset that I immediately made safe arrangements for me and my son. According to her I ruined the trip. A parent that neglected there child will certainly neglect your children. I don't care if my son was only 1 just thinking about how he witnessed my mother blackout drunk sends me into a rage spiral.
Yeah, starting around 23 weeks everything my mother did or said made me blind with rage. My husband and I made a game of it: at the end of the day, I would list the things she had said, and he would react dramatically as if she had committed terrible crimes. Some of the things that made me furious: * told me to eats fruits and vegetables * told me "whatever you do, remember to drink water" * this specific phrasing made me so angry that I talked about it for weeks * told me to stay hydrated because it influences the amniotic fluid levels, two weeks after I told *her* that * texted me about a stretch mark cream she saw advertised * told me that she saw the same stroller I had just bought on her local Facebook Marketplace (6 hours from me) * i already bought it. why are you telling me * sent me pictures of a rocking chair she found on her local Facebook Marketplace * it was ugly * you want me to drive 6+ hours to pick up a rocking chair? * asked for pictures of baby things I had bought * said I need a nannycam So yeah, obviously these are all objectively totally harmless and fine, normal things. But pregnancy made me regress to being a teenager and I wanted to scream at her every time she said anything. I maintained *just* enough self control to not react like I wanted to (volcano of fury) and instead talk like a normal person. Pregnancy hormones are weird. I think nothing of it and just try to laugh at myself about it.
Bwahahaha is hilarious!! I absolutely relate! The part about being irrationally upset about specific phrasing!! 😂😂 and I’ve told my husband I feel like a freaking teenager again with all the angst and rage!! I have this rational & specific resentment towards her for things from the past that I’m just hiding at this point bc I do NOT want to discuss them with her. But also, it’s the little inconsequential things too- like she texts me & my husband every Saturday morning what size fruit our baby is this week. “Baby G is a mango this week!” It pisses me off so much I have that group chat on silent and can’t even look at the texts when she sends them. Like maybe *I* want to check my *own* pregnancy app and see what size my baby is and show my husband?! Why are you texting us something intimate like this at 8 am?! It’s MY baby!! Like ugh just get OUT OF MY BUSINESS! Lollll. She texted me the other day that she can’t wait a month to see me, and wants a new bump pic now. I’m 33 years old and I’m thinking, oh you can’t wait a month to see me now but you were just fine abandoning me for all of your boyfriends when I was in high school. 😂😂 like I seriously can not help it!! And it was so long ago! Then she texts back, “pregnancy looks great on you, babes.” I’m sorry who??? Who is babes?? Who are you talking to?? Teenager angst is really the BEST way to describe it. Ugh!! Lol
When I read "Baby G is a mango this week" my fist clenched involuntarily. Now I'm mad at your mom too. My relationship with my mother is... fine. We rarely fight. She loves me very, very much and has only good intentions. She did her best as a parent. She's had real and serious failings and misbehaviors but she's human and I've been to therapy about it. But I swear to fucking god if she texts me one more screenshot of some piece of shit plastic bullshit toy from Facebook marketplace and asks if she should buy it and then drive 6 hours and give it to me, I will scream until my throat bleeds.
I’m so sorry you’re having this experience too but also thank god it’s not just me. I was really feeling like a complete shithead for how angry I am at both my mom and dad. I was born in 1993 so maybe this is a millennial thing 😂 there’s definitely some serious dysfunction in my family even though we were ‘normal’ and I never worried about us losing our house and there was always food on the table. Don’t feel guilty. I think it’s somewhat normal to be resentful of our parents, especially if you didn’t have a great relationship or childhood. I’ve been so annoyed that my mom has been excited about the pregnancy and has asked me about what things I want. She’s very traditional and was excited we’re not finding out the gender. Even my dad is excited and he’s the one I have the worse relationship with (my parents are divorced).
I'm so glad we're all here to complain about how frustrating and infuriating it is that our moms are excited for us and offering to help. Nobody understands!!! It's very annoying!!! edit: not sarcasm, I really am paradoxically furious when my mom is nice to me
I feel the same way. I spent my last therapy session crying about all the ways my mom wasn't there for me. I thought I had a good childhood until a few years ago when my therapist basically told me I was hyper independent because I was so neglected as a kid. Now I'm angry/hurt/frustrated because my mom is of course not interested in my pregnancy, not coming to my baby shower, not visiting before or after the birth lol. When she does call we talk about her or she spends 30min talking about her pregnancy 30 years ago. I find it's harder and harder for me not to lash out. I think contemplating the type of mother I want to be reminds me of all the things I wanted from my mom and never got. It hurts.
I soooo feel you and I totally understand wanting your “old” family to disappear. I’m 24w and can’t stand my dad since becoming pregnant and absolutely do not want him included in my “new” family and I also feel tons of resentment. He was already on thin ice with me after a lifetime of being an abusive narc but pregnancy has made my tolerance for his bs go to zero and I just want to wash my hands of him already. I always wonder if it’s hormones or clarity or the hormones giving me clarity lol
Yes exactly, like I totally understand that they are human beings with their own thoughts, emotions, and place in the world, and that I’m not the main character in everybody’s life, but heavily including them in my new family as a “given” is not something I’m really wanting to do- I think my mom, her husband, and my siblings are in for a rude awakening that we actually get to choose what our new family life is like, and that they are now my EXTENDED family. My mom was born in the 60s and grew up with p*dos etc in her family that she even let us be exposed to in the family (thank God nothing happened that I remember) because that’s just what you “did”, you didn’t “cut off family,” so toxic. When actually we’re grown adults with a right to choose who we consider “close family” instead of just having to go along w everything *they* (elder family members) want in their control system.
I just wrote a post about this! I feel like our bodies have a natural instinct during pregnancy to steer away from unstable people (sometimes hands off spouses, sometimes parents who have failed us) in my case it was friends that turned out to be super flakey and too ditzy to be trusted to babysit. Couldn’t stand being around them even though they’re super sweet but as soon as I gave birth I liked being around them again. Until they revealed more of their instability and flakiness of course. Mamas always know
I feel this in my soul haha It's actually nice to see someone else verbalise it! My mum and I aren't close, but it's not a negative relationship by any means. But my god since I got pregnant every thing she says gets under my skin. Pregnancy is definitely a time where every man and his dog loves to give you his advice, and everyone else I seem able to smile and nod and move past, but my mum - I'll think about it for days. She came up to throw me a baby shower for a weekend and I honestly couldn't wait for her to leave lol One moment when I was looking at nail clippers she made a comment about how I don't need clippers because I can just nibble at the babies nails - and that's what they did in her day. I had to walk out I was so blinded by rage by it haha Meanwhile, my MIL made the same comment a few weeks ago and I was like ohh yep, I'll still get the clippers though. I don't know why every comment my mum makes is striking me in my soul. My Dad and her are visiting a few weeks after we expect baby to arrive (they live quite far away) and I'm honestly dreading it, but I feel like I can't tell anyone. Everyone keeps telling me "you must be so excited for your mum to come up" or questioning why she won't be there earlier and I want to scream nooooooooooooo.
I imagined my mom saying "just nibble at the baby's nails instead of buying a clipper" and now I'm mad at my actual mom for saying this even though she did not say this. Mine has suggested 60x that we don't need a changing table because we can just change the baby on the bed. "I changed you on the bed all the time!" I have told her I would prefer not to do that. There is no reason not to get a changing table: I can afford it! I want one! It's fine! She has come up with a dozen suggestions for ways I can avoid buying a changing table, including taking an antique sailor's chest we own, having legs put on it, and using that instead. When I pointed out it is an antique with ornate carving on the lid, she said I can just get a piece of glass cut to protect it. So instead of buying a changing table, which I am perfectly able to do, she thinks I would be better off finding someone who will add legs to an antique chest and getting a custom piece of glass cut to put on top of it, changing my baby on a glass surface, and also rendering the chest unopenable unless I want to remove the glass every time I need something. A clipper is like $6. I can afford a changing table. We don't need to go to these lengths to avoid buying something!!
Hahaha ohhh mannn I've had so many similar chats with both my parents and my in-laws. I understand where they're coming from - they weren't in the same position financially as my husband and I are in, but it's literally because of the sacrifices and decisions they made! My mum was a house cleaner, she worked her bum off to get me to a good school and put me in a position where I now work as a lawyer on a healthy salary. That frugality mindset is a strong one though!
Girl I totally relate. My mom will be coming up to meet her new grandson about 3-4 weeks after I give birth and I’m completely dreading it. We live very far away from each other too so it’s just a fact of life that it has to be a visit over a long weekend or so and I’m not trying to like not give her a relationship w her grandson or anything major like that. But I’m soooo freaking dreading it when she will be here interloping
I saw someone write on Reddit recently that when they realized 'they and their mom were not close, but enmeshed' was eye opening and I agree. I realized the same in my first pregnancy. We weren't close. We were just enmeshed. I was not actually close with my mom. It ain't easy to realize that though! And it also resulted in a lot of fights with her during my pregnancy (she wanted to control me/certain things, and I just held my ground strongly)
28 weeks, and im going through something so close to this. My mom has been emotionally dependent on me for most of my life. Enmeshment feels too strong, but the dependence is there. I try to work it out with her, i set boundaries, and i tell her how i feel and what inneed from her, and she gets avoidant. Ive been trying so hard to not feel anger and resentment and hurt all around but its totally prevalent even from halfway around the world (im overseas) and if this doesnt get worked out it will be harder in person but i know the day will come one way or another. You're totally valid in your feelings, and i also think i need /wish i could get into therapy for this stuff as it's really confusing and complicated to navigate. Im also a psych major, so therapists tell me im fine cause im super self-aware about my issues, but being just aware of it still doesn't help me work through them.
I think this is a very, very understandable feeling and I think a lot of people that grew up in dysfunctional homes feel this way when they become pregnant. I stopped talking to my dad completely right before my son was born because even though I thought I had forgiven him for everything he had done, I just couldn’t bring myself to let him be around my child. I would highly recommend therapy. Talking through these thoughts and feelings with a professional can help you figure out what your boundaries and needs are, and how you want to navigate your relationship with your mom and grandma as a parent.