"As soon as he's born I'll want to see him a lot, and you'll have to hand him straight over to me. I get very possessive and I'm not going to like seing you holding him, I want to be the one feeding and cuddling him."
So, how would you react to this?
A bit of background, it wasn't said in jest or even in a humourous way, but very seriously and firmly to me, as if I were a naughty child being given a talking to. I'm 33 weeks pregnant, will be having an ELCS at 39 weeks and will be formula feeding (physically can't bf). To add some context, MIL sees another family baby 3-4 times per week and always thinks that isn't often enough.
DH and I are private people, and although this will be our first DC, we've had losses before and we want some time to ourselves to enjoy our family unit when our baby arrives. We had told family that we will have no visitors for the first two - three weeks (and no visitors at hospital) and they all seemed to accept this happily, which I was a bit suspicious about as I didn't think it would be a popular decision. Then I get this from MIL.
In response, I laughed and acted as if she'd been joking, I said firmly "good luck with that as DH and I are very possessive too!". DH then explained very firmly that she wasn't so much as to try to touch our baby without my permission, and that all contact etc would be strictly on our terms. MIL seemed to back down and agreed, but I'm a bit .
We (DH and I) usually have a good relationship with MIL, however she has tried unsucessfully to throw her weight around in the past and bully DH and/or I, and for the first few years of us being together she was a nightmare and really resented me for taking DH away from her. Not sure why as he is the complete opposite of a mummy's boy and their relationship was already on very rocky ground before I came into his life.
Her starring moment was when, two days after I'd had a terrible accident and was paraplegic and critically ill in hospital, she phoned my parents and told them that she "didn't want any son of hers saddled with a cripple for life" and that they should make me leave DH as it it would look bad on her to have a cripple for a daughter in law.
This was after she'd spoken to DH and tried to get him to leave me as I was apparently "good for nothing now". She was told where to go in no uncertain terms by DH, who refused to have anything more to do with her after that, and my parents (who had a recording device on their telephone as they'd been getting a lot of harrassment calls, so they played DH and I the tape of her phonecall.) I have since learnt to walk again, despite being told I'd be paraplegic for life, but it look a long long time, and DH was my carer and my absolute rock through it all.
DH still hasn't forgiven her, but as time went by I tried to patch things up so that we were all on good (ish) terms as it's just easier and nicer all round, and I am usually a forgiving person. Things have generally been pretty pleasant since. This was on the strict condition that if she ever put a toe out of line again, then we go non contact for good.
Sorry, that was longer that I thought it would be! Didn't want to drip feed though. So back to the original question, how would you feel about that? I feel pretty affronted but also feel that it was a really surreal and weird thing to say, and for some reason I can't get it out of my head, so I guess I'm just trying to get my mind around it.
Please or to access all these features
Please
or
to access all these features
Get updates on how your baby develops, your body changes, and what you can expect during each week of your pregnancy by signing up to the Mumsnet Pregnancy Newsletters.
Pregnancy
If your MIL said this to you, how would you react?
56 replies
StarsInTheNightSky · 15/04/2014 09:18
OP posts:
Don’t want to miss threads like this?
Weekly
Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!
Log in to update your newsletter preferences.
You've subscribed!
Please create an account
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.