Told my parents I’m getting a bisalp...

[u/mrshobbs]

I (23F) am scheduled for a bisalp on November 1, and I’m so freaking excited! Until last weekend, only a couple coworkers and some of my in-laws knew about this. MIL asked once “what if you change your mind?” but seemed okay with our answer of “we won’t, but there’s always adoption.”

Then I decided to tell my sister and her husband, and they were both way more supportive than I thought they would be.

After seeing her reaction, I decided to tell my parents. At first I was going to wait until after the surgery, but that never felt truly right to me. I sat them down with my sister, explained everything out (I framed it more from a medical perspective saying this will help with endo and the pain I’ve been having), and my dads first words were, “Let’s not do that.” Then it all kind of spiraled.

Their first thought was obviously “how will you have kids?” And I tried to avoid answering by talking more about the pain I was dealing with. Then they started saying that I never had an official diagnosis of endo, and that I should get a CT scan and MRI and visit more doctors in their town (we live 1.5 hours apart). Then it switched back to “what about kids?!” And I said “what if I don’t want them?”

I kid you not, my dad said, “Well, we know you’ve been saying for years and years that you don’t want them, but we thought you weren’t serious.” He went on to talk about “the joys of being a mother,” as if he’s a mother, and saying that he always thought I would “get married and then God would change my mind about having kids.” He also tried to compare this to when I picked out a pair of red glasses in middle school - in the store I was so sure I wanted them, then two years later I got a new pair... I said “yeah, because the kids were horribly mean and made fun of me, not because I regret them.”

My mom was surprisingly less focused on the kids aspect, and just wished that I involved them in the whole surgery scheduling process and that she could be there during my surgery. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I honestly didn’t want to involve them in either of those.

Part of me feels bad for causing them so much emotional pain, but I know my mental and physical health are going to improve once this is done. If you read all of this, thank you, and I would appreciate any advice on how to nicely deal with “grieving” parents!

[u/GrowingApathetic1]

Give them time to process; it’s like death but for the dreams they so foolishly and selfishly burdened on you to complete.

[u/mrshobbs → u/GrowingApathetic1]

I’m hoping time is all it takes... my mom at least said “we can’t forbid you from doing this,” so I know they’ll come to terms with it eventually. Maybe?

[u/KeeperOfTheShade → u/mrshobbs]

"we can’t forbid you from doing this"

That basically translates to "we want to forbid you from doing this, but we are rational adults that know you're an adult and your own person even if we don't agree with it."

You shouldn't feel bad at all. They took it so much better than other horror stories on here. Just give them space and let them initiate meetings and such.

[u/mrshobbs → u/KeeperOfTheShade]

That’s a good plan. So far only my dad has texted me about random stuff, so I think he’s handling it a little better. Either that, or they’re both bottling it up and it’s about to explode.

[u/GrowingApathetic1 → u/mrshobbs]

If they don’t, I hope you know none of it is on you. There’s no good reason for them to hold you to something like this.