Newborn comments I wish I'd challenged

[user1492528619]

DS's birthday is coming up and I've been reminiscing his newborn days.

I vividly remember MIL during this time. She is usually quite amiable and we get on well enough.

I gave birth two weeks premature with complications and he was in NICU for a week. Only DH and I visited, as I was still in hospital. We were told we could take him home twice and they ended up keeping him in a little longer, so the days leaked by. MIL gave us hell about coming to see him. She picked DH up from the hospital one evening and spent the whole ride home complaining how disappointed she was in him for not letting her 'nip up'.

We didn't find out his gender until birth and for my baby shower my sister bought me some neutral accessories. One was a baby blue banket. She shouted across the room 'Does she know something we don't?' Before making digs for the rest of the pregnancy of knowing the sex and telling my family but not his. When we called to tell her he had been born we told her she was a boy and he response was 'What a surprise... not.'

When she first visited she didn't bring a card or a present, not an issue in the slightest, but we invited both her and my mum at the same time. She later commented that the fact my mum brought things made her feel 'uncomfortable.'

These are the three that really stand out. It had been such a turbulent time that I either ignored or just let DH deal with it but whenever I think about it, I get angry and really regret not saying anything.

Did anyone experience similar?

OP I feel your pain. DC1 was 9 weeks prem & all we got was shit from our families over visiting times. No one took into consideration that you can only visit for an hour twice a day & only allow two adults in at a time ONE of which has to be a parent. MIL didn't speak to us for 5 weeks. She was however the one who missed out. She did later apologise & we do now get on very well.

Whilst it's very hurtful that people can act like this when they should be supportive there's only so much you can do. It says a lot about them & can be a real eye opener to who they really are!

We have invariably let it go. But I do harbour some resentment that we had that hanging over our head at the time of DC1 being born, we will never get that time back. DC2's birth also resulted in major family drama & my mum & sister refusing to talk to me but that's a whole other thread!

@user1492528619 The NICU is not a matter of having living relatives come and visit your baby it is a hospital for your child to get well. Everything else, everyone's wants and feelings come second to that

Yes this. And of course in terms of safeguarding, a catheterised mother is also a patient in need of supporting and protecting from unwanted attentions.

Surly BIL walked in, took a cursory look and said "Huh...better looking than the first one, at least." The devil took over and I said "I was just telling MIL how he took after my family, not yours." I was never forgiven for that

You STAR pollyglot

Its amazing how crazy some people can become when they are grandparents...

MIL told me she had asked a friend's daughter with a newborn about feeding because "she's struggling like you!" I wasn't struggling at all
We also left PIL with bottles of expressed breast milk whilst we went out for the first time for my birthday and came back to find them trying to pacify a screaming DS1 with the hall lights. They refused to feed him because "It hadn't been four hours!"