I have two DC, a DS who is 8 and a DD who just turned 1. My DS was an unplanned surprise when I was 18, and though I was in a committed relationship at the time I was terrified throughout my pregnancy, had a long and difficult labour and an abusive midwife for several hours of it, and suffered PTSD symptoms and severe anxiety afterwards as well as post partum depression.
These are the main reasons I waited so long to have DD. Now, she was planned, but my now ex partner and I were struggling and decided to stop trying, not realizing we were already pregnant when we decided to call it quits. As a result he was resentful throughout the pregnancy, we slept apart, and once the newborn stage was over with we broke up, so it was a thoroughly miserable year for both of us. And unfortunately I had another difficult labour with her, and I have suffered very badly over the last year with anxiety as a result. Over the last year I have been suicidal, and when I called the emergency team and told them what I was feeling they instructed me to tell my partner, whose response was to just shrug and tell me he didn't care anymore, and if I was gonna kill myself could I do it outside.
Now, I tried really hard to be nice to him over DD's birthday. I don't have any family but DD's father has an extensive and wonderful family so we agreed to go to his family house (200 miles away) for a three day birthday weekend. Which basically meant spending three days telling people the "cute and funny" version of the birth story and listening to ExP lament about how wonderful the pregnancy and birth and first months were and how everything gone to shit now. She had a great time and I'm happy, but I spent the weekend in one huge panic attack and ExP was so oblivious that he just kept making it worse. I've consistently tried to get support for my anxiety and it's frequently dismissed, and though I am seeing a private therapist now I struggle to talk about it. I have no support from him or his family, and I don't feel it's appropriate to try and lean on them for support under the circumstance, so I gritted my teeth and got on with it as best I could.
Eventually I apologized and excused myself and spent a few days avoiding him and, well, basically everyone but the baby. He wanted me to go back the next weekend for the family members who didn't get to see her on her birthday, but I refused. Since then I've had a lot of grief from him and his family and even some of my friends telling me that I'm being antisocial and I'm ruining the baby's birthday for her, and even the ones who are trying to be supportive keep telling me I have to "get over it" and I can't keep freaking out every year on her birthday because it'll ruin it for her.
I love her and I want to celebrate her birthday, but her and her brother were born in the same month and it's so hard for me to get through that time, and by the time I get to her birthday (which is later than his) I really don't have the reserves to deal with the ex and his family and the constant intense anxiety. Even if I removed him and his family from the picture, all I want to do when I think about my birth experience is curl up somewhere under a blanket and cry, and hearing that I'm being selfish and ruining things for my DD makes it so much harder.
AIBU?