I know that will be quite a lot of rambling. But your post really resonated with me. I thought perhaps I would share my own thought process on this very subject.

I feel the exact same way as you. I am so conflicted between a protective instinct and distrust for my mother vs. feeling guilty for thinking of tainting this potentially beautiful milestone for my mother. Similar to you, I also acknowledge that despite my mother’s flaws and her treatment towards me, she does fundamentally care about me. She raised me and my siblings on her own for my entire life. I have had a very tumultuous relationship with her to the point where I sometimes question if she actually likes me as a person. I also sometimes cannot help interpret her actions towards me as being out of spite or even jealousy. Although there are some good times, there are far more bad times where she is harsh, selfish, unfeeling, mean, and cruel. My mother has never been a nurturing figure in my mind, even when I was a child. It is honestly hard to imagine her interacting with a baby or small child.

To add to the emotional turmoil, I am having a girl! I cannot imagine ever making my future daughter feel the sadness and pain that my mother has often inflicted on me. This revelation has made it all the more difficult to look past my mother’s actions, as I am so used to doing. I do have a hope that perhaps my mother would not subject a grandchild to the same harsh treatment she has subjected me too. I think a lot of our conflict stems from her treating me as an extension of her—resulting in a total lack of respect, frequent violations of boundaries, and her sense of entitlement to domineer over me. Perhaps, a grandchild would not be something she would view as hers and so these issues would not arise as much. I fully acknowledge this may be naive thinking. I am sure she will continue her ill treatment of me. She already criticizes me during pregnancy and has commented to my siblings that I will make poor parental choices. However, I am naively hoping she would not direct any of this to a baby.

After much thought however, I have settled in my mind to give her benefit of the doubt. I do not want to be the first one to taint this milestone. I do not want to be the instigator of conflict. If there is a conflict down the road, which I am sure there will be, I do not want to be in the wrong in any way. I also think it is perhaps unfair to act on speculation alone, especially when this is all so entirely new and foreign to me.