AIBU to expect my sister to accept my fourth pregnancy when she is child free not by choice ?

@TheFunnyPoet you are totally NBU!

She has said to me that every single one of my pregnancies has felt like a punch in the stomach because I already have three children and am now having a fourth.
This is her problem to resolve, sounds like she needs therapy

But she has now basically said that she feels I’m being incredibly insensitive by having another baby when I know how desperately she wants one.
This is jaw-droppingly insensitive - on her part, I mean. Does she seriously expect you not to have a baby that you want just because it makes her a bit sad?

My husband thinks I’m being far too considerate already and says that while we should obviously be kind to her, our family planning is nobody else’s business.
And your husband is 100% spot on. Listen to him.

My mum, however, has told me I need to “put myself in my sister’s shoes” and perhaps accept that she might not want much contact with me during the pregnancy or after the baby is born. I am fine with no contact my life shouldn’t stop for her to be happy.
I think you are trying incredibly hard to do exactly what your mum suggests. Has she suggested that your sister might try to put herself in your shoes?

Obviously, you can't stop the baby now, it's on its way. You are definitely doing all you can - trying to be sensitive to your sister's feelings and accepting you might not see so much of her. There's not much more you CAN do, and nobody should be making you feel guilty about this baby.

Good luck OP - stick to your guns!

I know 2 sisters that were in this situation. Sister 1 couldn't conceive and sister 2 became pregnant.
Sister 1 couldn't be in the same room as Sister 2, she was devastated, wouldn't meet the baby, cut off the relationship for about 3 years, never met her nephew.

After 3 years she had a child via surrogacy and wanted to rekindle the relationship and have the kids grow close. Graciously Sister 2 accepted her back in her life and they are all very close but I certainly couldn't be so forgiving.

She should have had therapy to work through her feelings.
Life is hard but an adult but you should have the wisdom and logic to seperate the fact you can't have children and the grief that brings and know at the same time there's a joy for your sister to have her child, it's very sad.

I think your husband is a fool to have more children than he can sensibly be a good father to.

I have every sympathy with your sister and what must be immeasurable pain for her

I don't think you can ask her to be happy for you. I think the kindest thing is to accept she may need to keep her distance

From your post about her treatment of you over the years, in my opinion she is just bitterly jealous of you full stop. She chose to stay with a man who prevaricated about children and now regrets her choice and is now punishing you. Enjoy your family and pregnancy you won't change her, there will always be something for her to hate on with your life.

Your sister is being childish.

Life is chock full of disappointments and things that don’t go our way. It is up to her to manage her grief and sadness over this, rather than spewing it on to you.

It would be different if you were insensitive to her, but that’s not the case.

Be proactive and cut her out of your life. No way she should dictate your personal business. However much she wants a child, it isn’t your fault she hasn’t had one. The audacity.

I can totally understand why your sister feels how she does.
However it doesn't give her the right to be nasty to you.
Give her space and leave her to it.

I really don’t agree that your sister has Carte Blanche to say and do whatever she likes because she is upset that she is childless, whilst her sister is pregnant for the 4th time. I’m not really sure you can count this as infertility, as such, but is nevertheless obviously very painful for OP’s sister.

However, whilst being hurt is the reason for her behaviour, it simply does not give her an excuse for hurtful behaviour and horrible comments. It just doesn’t . She can be sad, she can take a step back from her sister (as long as she doesn’t try to freeze her out from family events, for example), she can even ask her sister for time and space- but she absolutely does not get to do and say hurtful things without consequence forevermore.

I also think it might, ultimately, be counterproductive to just continually absorb any unpleasantness and not ever challenge it. You can counter unpleasantness, and set boundaries as to what you can and cannot tolerate, without being unkind.

I had a situation not so long ago where a friend lost almost all of our friendship group because of her behaviour related to infertility. I sometimes wonder if she had not been pandered to and treated with kid gloves for so long- even when her behaviour was absolutely atrocious- whether it might have prompted her to get help or made her more open to changing her behaviour. It might not have, of course, but I think we tolerated behaviour for far longer than we should have. I don’t think being excessively kind and understanding helped her (or anybody else) in the long run. In fact, I also think it meant when it all came crashing down there was so much going before, that it reconciliation was totally off the cards with many (and unsuccessful for those who did try).

This.

Firstly congratulations on your pregnancy. Wishing you and your baby all the very best with the next few months and the delivery.

OP your sister seems to be taking her resentment out on you much more than on your elder sister and perhaps its no coincidence that she gets more push back from your elder sister. And if that is the case I would be a bit fed up with a mum who says things like "put yourself in her shoes" and instructs you to lay low, basically keep yourself and your baby out of the way.

and as @Catshaveiteasy says
" Your sister needs intensive therapy. Even if she somehow persuaded you not to have another child, how would that make her happier? It's a totally mean attitude that serves no one"

It feels to me that she has transferred the resentment she feels for her ex who refused to have children and then went on to have two with another woman (and who can blame for feeling resentment about that) but it feel like she's transfering that onto you as the nearest person she can say things to without too much pushback.

Whilst I feel incredibly sorry for her, it doesn't mean that you have to wear sackcloth and ashes.

When she sends you nasty messages about friends and the nice ones about them on facebook. I would call her out t. You don't want to hear any more of these nasty comments about her friends.. Because it is her way of saying it to you too I think. So ask her to stop.

and as @Catshaveiteasy says
" Your sister needs intensive therapy. Even if she somehow persuaded you not to have another child, how would that make her happier? It's a totally mean attitude that serves no one"

At the end of the day though, you can't change the facts and can only try to do what seems right, whilst still being compassionate, because its unlikely that your DM and Dsis will change dramatically.

One thing I’ve always absolutely refused to feel guilty about is getting pregnant and having a baby.

I spent many years trying to get pregnant, and have been poked and prodded and loaded up on fertility treatment. Same for subsequent children. Whilst doing this I endured other people having 2 or 3 DC at the drop of a hat.

And ohhh, I wasn’t ready for the joy of finally getting pregnant bring quashed by people not happy for me, telling me not to tell this or that person as they’ll be upset etc.

I refused to apologise for getting pregnant and having MY baby. You see that’s what it is all about. It’s about having your own one, no matter how many anyone else has.

OP, I’m sorry about your sister, but don’t let her or anyone else spoil this vulnerable and special time. It’s not like you’ve put dibs on the last baby. She can have one with her current partner, go it alone, or adopt. The fact that she doesn’t is her choice.

Well, I think your sister is being ridiculous.While I do understand her position she needs to sort her own feelings out, with help if necessary, and not load it onto you. Life can be extraordinarlily unfair at times and there's nothing you can do about it: this is one of those times.

I don't know what you can do, if anything, though.

She isn't infertile.

This is what I was thinking. From what OP has said, her sister has never TTC, she spent her fertile years with a man who didn't want to TTC with her.

Infertility is the inability to conceive, or carry a child, despite actively trying for more than one year.

Infertility and pregnancy loss carry their own trauma. I've no doubt OP's sister now has regrets over her life, but you can't call her situation infertility when she has never tried for a child.

It's surprising that 21% of responses are that OP is BU. DSis is out of line for saying such shit to OP. If I were in OP's shoes, I'd let it go out of sympathy for her - this time. If she says something like that again, I'd politely but firmly tell her that it's not OK and disrespectful for her to treat me as a whipping boy. It's actually not helping DSis for everyone to pander to her. She really needs therapy.

OP's comment that maybe DSis would enjoy to be auntie was a bit tone-deaf but it's clearly not OP causing the anger in DSis, since DSis also makes churlish mean comments about other women having children.

That's not the OP.

But it was a choice. She knew he didn't want children but chose to stay with him because she loved him (🙄)

She prioritised her relationship.

She could have prioritised having children and left him.

She had a choice she just now regrets the one she made and that can happen to anyone.

I remember when I was in a similar position as your sister. I went through infertility whilst my SIL (BIL’s wife) kept having DC, she had 5 eventually, who are all adults now. I then had IVF and she told me I shouldn’t because of the ‘spare embryos’! (Ironically, it turned out that I had no eggs.)

Friends were also having DC, we were all in our 30s and it was a time when a lot of babies were born.

My DSis then had her first baby (she also has a DSS from her DH’s first marriage, 2 bio DC and one adopted DS), but by then my DH and I had decided that we were going to adopt, so it wasn’t so painful this time.

I never made negative comments, I just congratulated them and broke down in private. (Apart from when my SIL criticised us for doing IVF.)

I sympathise with your DSis, OP, especially since your other sister is also having DC! However, she is also being unkind to you, which you don’t deserve. She shouldn’t inflict her pain on you, she should instead have therapy to help her come to terms with her feelings of loss. I did and it really helped.

Your OP is quite misleading.

THE SISTER IS NOT INFERTILE

She waited too long and now she regrets it. If she was desperate for a baby she would have tried for one with or without the ex.

Your sister needs to bitch and moan to her friends, not to you.

Actions have consequences or in the case of your sister, her inaction has consequences instead. She chose to stay with her ex and waste her fertile years on someone who was never going to have kids.
As sad as her situation is, I must agree. At one point alarm bells must have started to ring.

Actions have consequences or in the case of your sister, her inaction has consequences instead. She chose to stay with her ex and waste her fertile years on someone who was never going to have kids.

If I were you I'd just pull away for a bit until she's got a grip of herself and then let her make the first move. Sounds like you need to be more like your older sister and be firmer when she starts saying awful things to you. The only person she has to blame is herself for the situation she is in.

Of course Yanbu to have another child if you want one. That’s your choice and your business. I can understand that she’s hurting but as you said, she’s in this position because of her own life choices. I do think her response and your mums response are a little unfair - almost treating you like you’ve done something wrong when ideally you’d hope that your family would be happy for you. However I guess if it’s really that difficult for her then you may have to accept that contact has to stop for a while.

My concern would be that when the baby’s born…then what? Are you expected to hide it away and act like it isn’t something to celebrate just to spare your sisters feeling? A bit of an unfair family dynamic for an innocent child to be born into.

You see, this comment is unreasonable. And it may hint that you are not quite as sensitive as you think you are.

You are both in a difficult situation, but your sister‘s situation is much more difficult. I can understand why she might not be happy having nieces and nephews as it drives home her loss.

And I say that as somebody who conceived both times first time and had no miscarriages. I was lucky but I can still understand how utterly devastating it must be for somebody who has fertility issues and/or has ended up with no children.

She isn’t infertile though, is she? Not that she knows of anyway, she just stayed for years with a man who only said he ‘might’ want children one day. If she felt as strongly about having DC as she seems to punish OP with, then she should have ended of it her own volition and pursued her dream of children elsewhere.

I suspect her anger is really at herself that she let it all pass by, and it’s easier to lash out at everyone else.

Yeah thats a WILD overstep on her behalf. She sounds quite cruel? It is possible for her to be genuinely sad and upset AND an unpleasant person, women dont become saints when they are unable to have the number of children they want to have wether it’s 1,2,3 and so on.

Stop expecting her to be "happy to have nieces and nephews" as though they are supposed to somehow compensate for her not having her own children.

You are not showing much empathy or compassion for her. If distance makes things easier for her, for now, then allow her that.

How did you tell her about the latest pregnancy?