I’m 25 and have had my first baby nearly four weeks ago. Since having him, I haven’t seen any friends or family due to the lockdown and from the day lockdown was introduced (and before that, really) I was in self-isolation with my partner as much as possible, only leaving the house for hospital appointments as I was high risk, so we got online food deliveries etc to make sure we were only making essential trips.
My pregnancy was difficult, I had gestational diabetes and pregnancy induced hypertension and after a week of reduced movements I had a csection at 38 weeks. Afterwards was scary, he didn’t cry and had intermittent grunting and they thought he had an infection, he was also withdrawing from mental health medication I was on so was very shaky, so we were kept in for three days. Luckily he had no infection and he was okay to go home. Hospital was hard as i was very scared and felt very alone with my partner only being able to visit for an hour a day. Obviously I know that so many other women are going through this too so I’m not special case.
Me and my mum have always had a very toxic relationship. We’re either super close or not taking, I’m always trying to please her and she talks down to me and treats me like a child a lot. During my pregnancy she was hard work. My partner had at first wanted an abortion as it was unplanned and he was scared, but after a couple of weeks was fine and wanted to be a dad. After this my mum made comments about how she’d love to tell my son when he’s older that my partner wanted an abortion and that he hadn’t wanted him. She also asked me to go to a solicitor to get grandparental rights to my son so that if anything happened to me my partner couldn’t have him. Obviously I said no. She did things such as putting up posts about my pregnancy but in weird ways; she told me she wanted other people to ask her if she was having a baby so that she could say ‘no I’m going to be a granny’. She told me she’d be disciplining my son how she saw fit in her house and if I didn’t like it don’t come over. She invited her friends to go for a walk with just her and my son when he’s here; even though I didn’t know who this friend was. When I told her I would get child care for my son when he was older so I could return to work, she said that was absolutely not happening and he’d be going to her. She demanded to me in my csection even though I told her I didn’t want to be at the hospital, I wanted it to be just me and my partner, eventually she sat me down and said ‘your dad and I have decided your partner should be in the csection with you (as if it was her choice) and then said ‘but I will be holding him first after you and your partner because I deserve that and I’ll be so pissed off if anyone meets him before me.’
I’m actually glad the lockdown happened when it did because it’s been nice to have a break!
Since having my baby it’s been even odder. We FaceTime her and she will tell me my son just wants to meet her and knows her voice and is smiling at her (when he has wind lol). If he starts crying she will say it’s because he wants to see her to make me feel guilty. She has posted photos of my son that I have taken at home and caption them ‘He’s smiling for granny’. She has uploaded a profile photo of her when she was pregnant years ago.
She decided to ‘self isolate’ seven weeks ago and hasn’t left the house even though dad is still working and my sister is too. She refused to take my two younger siblings out at all so they have been stuck in the house for seven weeks. She heard lockdown might be somewhat lifted this week and messaged me to say I’ll get to see my grandson soon.
Last night my partner and I had a chat and decided that we were going to carry on isolating from people until our son has at least had his 8 week jabs. We want to see what happens when lockdown is relaxed and don’t want to jump into outings too soon in case things get worse again. I told her this because I didn’t want her to expect to see him.
She hung up on me and started posting online about how she had self isolated for nothing. She then texted me saying she had done it all for me, even though I had never asked her to, in fact I encouraged her to go for walks. She told me she’s the only one that’s done it properly and that me and my partner had not been following guidelines anyway for going for a few short walks around an empty pond. She has told me her kids have been locked in for seven weeks because of me. I have never asked her to self isolate and have encouraged her to take her children for walks. She has made me feel really bad, saying how she thought she’d be seeing her grandson so it was all for nothing and now her children have suffered because of it.
She’s since texted me being really blunt and rude, and so I have told her it’s best we don’t speak for a while if she is going to continue being like this. She just replied ok. It’s the first time I’ve ever stood up to her and I don’t know how to feel about it but I don’t want my son to grow up with a complex like I have. I’m in therapy for issues with my mum, and my therapist is really proud of me for making this progress. But I know my mum is going to end up using all of this against me and tell others that I am keeping her grandson away from her to make me seem awful. So what do I do? Do I keep my distance from her? Contact her in a few weeks to FaceTime my son? I just don’t know where to go from here.