Sister-in-law won't look at me and runs away from me!

I’d ignore them back. For good. Ignorant bastards.

'I can definitely get over all of the above, so long as SIL/BIL do actually start talking to us again at family events, looking at us, acknowledging my daughter, etc.'

What do you actually want from them? No one has to acknowledge your daughter. They send cards but they aren't required to be a big part of your daughters life. That's quite self centred. It's obviously hurting them a lot because of grief, so just let them be and get the family relationships from other members of your family.

what @Twinkletopz says
Compassion is the way
and bear in mind, for the people answering here, onMUMSnet, by it’s very name are likely to be mothers and may not have reached the end of hope in their journey to become mothers.
Let your child grow up with their cousin, family closeness is unique and at this point no one knows if either child will be blessed with a sibling.
Enjoy your beautiful chil, @TiredMummaChlo

Dear OP,
First of all congratulations on your beautiful 2 year old girl. Im sure you love her to the Moon and back and Dad is doting on her.

This is raw because its happening now with SIL and you are being retraumatised. (Im a Counselling Student by the way.)

What you experienced at the hands of your Brother and Sister in Law was trauma. Firstly the loss;
You were family, friends, social companions, they shunned you and Hubby. They shunned your beautiful new Child.

Let me be clear, Autism is a Spectrum, 1 person with ASD is 1 person with ASD, no two react the same. Empathy is not lost on Autists, no stereotypes exist.
Your Sister in Law chose to behave in a selfish, rude, jealous dismissive way to your news initially, then as time went on they stuck with those thoughts and you three as a Family were erased, it was disgraceful way to treat Family.
Life is life, there is no rule book, you didn't need to wait until SIL had her 1st baby before you! Life doesn't work like this...

As children we learn turn taking, as children we learn we are not always the winner, the 1st, the receiver of the toy or 1st on the slide or swing. This teaches us for adulthood.
As adults, its not always "our time". As adults we know we need to wait our turn, to have grace and gratitude and hope, love in our hearts and to have the patience to know "our time too will come".
Ive always lived this way and Ive had pregnancy loss and successfully have a loving beautiful Boy who has ABI (acquired brain injury) Non Verbal with complex medical needs.

I have been treated as you have announcing pregnancy. I too made time to personally reach the intended to "gently" break my Pregnancy to her, she chose to shout out loud at me and run from me crying in a Shopping Mall having coffee, ledt me sat on my own.
Time has moved on and this Lady still has the same issues whether it be me booking a holiday, having a Wedding Album (as they did!) getting a rug, new jewellery, a Birthday Party, haircut, aquiring a Car etc etc yet I don't expect her praise or reaction, I am happy with my achievements and I thank God (Im a Christian) for my blessings and I continue to be myself, which includes letting her show me her successes and gains. I am complimentary and super excited for People, I am a lover of People doing well and I accept that its not always my turn. I won't let someone elses reactions change me as a person.

It is extremely hurtful that your beautiful child was ignored and was side stepped whilst others chose not to join in the beauty & blessing that is a new baby arriving.

She also had trauma, the baby loss is brutal I know this.
Though not everyone will act as she did.
I didn't, in fact I remember it was my friend with her new baby whom I invited to mine for a little baby shower who cried her eyes out when I told her I had miscarried.
I was coping on my own way and I was happy for her and so delighted her wee Boy had a brand new Sister.
She is still a best friend.

Life is Life, no rules no laws in births and deaths its all unknown.
Initial reactions sometimes are knee jerks, yet to have time pass and they chose to null and void you for two and half years and your beautiful daughter too, its not acceptable behaviour.

It really will be you and your Hubby who on acknowledging the birth of their child (you can do so with a card and a gift and you do not have to rush to do so) how close you get to their Family.
Your BIL essentially dropped his own Brother and his first born, to me its unthinkable. Jealousy did that. A little person here was innocent and their life was completely null and void to them, its a huge deal.

Treat others as you see fit. They did the unthinkable to you and you owe nothing to them, yet I know you will acknowledge the baby and do the right thing as you experienced how hurtful that was and we don't retaliate, the new child is innocent and a beautiful blessing.
Family occasions you can meet, pass yourselves, be polite, as you said this will never be what it once was and thats ok.
When People Show you who they are you need not ask them twice.

Your immediately circle is your most important Family from now and forever.

All your feelings are valid and Im so very sorry you were treated this way. No matter what, Shine your light so that others may see it and find their way.
Were not hising your daughter under a bushell, she is here, she was born into this world to shine, grow, flourish, The Adults who didn't support this were entirely wrong and she shouldn't have suffered a poor reception into The Family.

People should be evolved enough to know its not always their turn.

Hugs from Ireland.

K.

And did your relationship with that closest friend heal? How did you feel about her and her child after your had your first?

Also OP, your SIL has shown that she has no compunction about being nasty to a pregnant woman. You don't want to be friends with someone like that. Someone worth their salt would have tried hard not to let it show, or talked to you about their feelings, or skipped the events if she felt so bad she had to have her head turned away from you at all times. But instead, she was perfectly happy to cast a shadow over your pregnancy. That's really nasty.

I think the SIL has arrived.

And today’s batshit award goes to…

I think you need to do whatever will make you be able to move on and let this go. I have been both the person trying for a baby with losses and the person pregnant while others close to be experienced infertility. I also had ivf and a traumatic birth for my child, so I feel I have some experience to be able to comment. You can choose to forgive your SIL and wider family for the way they treated you and your daughter or you can decide not to. There is no right or wrong and no point scoring system for who has had the worst times or behaved badly. Just real people with their own unique and difficult journeys. Everyone does the best they can at the time. To be happy ourselves we have to accept we can not control that and move on.

To be brutally honest, some people's love and friendship simply isn't worth having, even if they are family.

BIL and his wife struggled to get pregnant, no miscarriages, it just wasn't happening for them. They had all the tests but nothing was 'wrong' so to speak, so they started IVF.

In contrast, I got pregnant at the drop of a hat. As soon as we announced I was having DD1 BIL & his wife went dark on us. Went out of their way to avoid us. No acknowledgement of her birth. Didn't attend DD's Ist birthday. Left her christening at the earliest opportunity. Wouldn't visit MIL if she was baby-sitting DD1. BIL also stopped meeting DH for a drink or to play golf.

DH was genuinely upset. They'd always been very close. He'd always been a great big brother, looked out for BIL and bailed him out financially once or twice. Always there for him.

Three years of radio silence from them, until the IVF finally worked. DH and I were the better people, sent flowers and visited in hospital even baby sat for them etc. But they'd shown us who they really were and frankly they weren't worthy of us.

Sorry, it read as though they changed tack because she was in earshot. Maybe you know more?

Ugh, SIL sounds awful, refusing to even look at you. How childish! I lost my parents, whom I adored, much earlier in life than any of my peers or other family members, and I didn't refuse to talk to them or look in their direction!

Obviously miscarriages are dreadful, but if she hated your presence so much that she wouldn't even look in your direction, she should have just claimed illness and not gone to the events.

I would have a hard time getting past being treated like this, OP. I have had one family member (a cousin I was previously close to all our lives) and a lifelong friend treat me like absolute garbage during my parents' illnesses and my bereavement. I could not stomach them anymore, and we no longer have anything to do with each other, which was the healthiest thing for me by far. Sometimes the things people do are so hurtful the relationship can never be fixed.

Unfortunately this is an in-law, so I think you will just have to withdraw from her inside, as it were. You don't have to be friends with her. I guess you'll have to see each other on occasion, but you can really cut it down. Your husband can see his brother without you there as far as is possible. You can easily avoid each other at events. That cousin and I kept well apart at my dad's funeral.

I know it's hard, but I think you should just write her off in your mind and get on with enjoying your child. Try to forget about her. She's not worth it.

I lost a close friend when I became pregnant with my second child. She had only one and had tried for years to get pregnant. As soon as I told her she stopped speaking to me. I was upset but I accepted it. Some people can't get past their own pain to be happy for others. In that case having a close friendship with such people is just not worth it anyway. Let them go.

So? Doesn't mean it's okay to act like the world revolves around her and nobody else matters, only her feelings.

Wtf?

You sound insufferable.

This sounds really difficult for you and I'm sorry you felt you had to tone down/ not really acknowledge your own joy with your pregnancy and baby. It sounds like SIL needed some serious therapy at the time and hasn't done so, be ages that's well beyond considered behaviour even given the circumstances etc etc

I disagree, because it wasn't just when she was around. They pandered by changing their behaviour more widely. I'd be mortified if someone felt the need to tip toe around me to this extent because of something I'd been through. Such a shame for their first babies first few years and the relationship more widely.

I think it’s fairly normal to celebrate the birth of a baby and to go and meet a relatives baby.

Yes grief can make us feel a certain way in triggering situations but life is not a race to the bottom.

If someone is struggling so badly that they can’t even meet a close relatives baby (I’m not saying that it wouldn’t bring up difficult emotions and require some effort) then, really, some counselling should be sort.

It’s ok to feel these emotions, and express them but it’s really not ok to take them out on other people.

In this specific situation it’s a bit different because the SIL is autistic and will be processing it all differently so deserves a little bit more leeway.

It’s really a contradiction for people to demand empathy and kindness on the one hand for their own personal circumstances while refusing to give grace on the other. Ultimately it’s the SIL who will miss out on a relationship with her niece.

@Sudagame so because the SIL had miscarried, then had a successful pregnancy, the successful pregnancy doesn’t count, as she is to be accepted to be a cold, nasty excluding person to a 2 yo? That’s ok And acceptable?
how fucking awful to be sil’s child and to know that you’re not enough for your mother.

We experienced the same thing with SIL. She was struggling to conceive when I fell pregnant with our second child. She doted on our first child but I was instructed via MIL that she didn’t want to discuss my second pregnancy, and didn’t want anyone acknowledging it in front of her.

At the same time my sister was going through issues with her boyfriend (ended up breaking up the week before I gave birth), and two couples we were close to were trying to conceive. I can understand mixed feelings but it felt a lot more than that. They all seemed very resentful of our second pregnancy (one hung up after we told her).

I had lots of scares through my second pregnancy and was in and out of hospital and put on bed rest for the last month to try to stop early labour. It was scary and incredibly lonely. Once the baby arrived the in laws didn’t meet the baby for the first 3 weeks because I was told it might upset SIL. When they did meet her they all arrived at the house and completely ignored the baby. MIL also didn’t give her the traditional gifts she’d given to other grandchildren (I ended up buying them myself so my DD would have keepsakes).

SIL and both couples all had a baby each the following year, and sister a couple of years later. We were expected to dote on the babies (and we did) whilst my youngest (now 9), is still not treated the same as the other grandchildren. She’s overlooked at best and I’ve caught SIL snapping at her unnecessarily.