Am i being insensitive or aiding and abetting?

[Charlielilu]

Content warning: abortion, birth defect, mentions still birth.

Am i being a cow? SiL had to have an abortion at 14 weeks because baby had a severe defect (not viable at all). The year since then she still talks about the baby being in the sky with her grandma and visiting my 18 month old to play. Every time my daughter points to something in the distance or looks at the sky its "oh, shes looking at her cousin!". She has made a family whatsapp group with updates she writes from the baby's perspective in heaven. She has an instagram account and a community of mums who are the same (but usually for viable baby loss or stillborn) on instagram. This sunday is a year since she lost the pregnancy and she is sad because she wanted to hold a birthday party for the baby but cant because of covid restrictions.
I honestly feel like im going mad with it all. Me and my husband arent religious and dont believe that the baby is sitting on a cloud waving at our daughter. I dont want to have a birthday party for the day she had to have an abortion, because i just think its a sad occasion. She gets angry if we dont mention the baby and always tells her parents that they shouldnt forget they have 2 grandchildren, not just 1. She gets angry and sad if we dont talk about the baby but what can we say at this point? Am i being an absolute knob? I am there for her and never say anything negative or to the contrary when she talks about the baby in the sky eating grandma's food. But I worry what the end game is here and how to explain it sensitively to my daughter when her auntie is talking to her about a 14 week old fetus playing with her.
My SiL is in therapy and seems to be doing well there, her husband sees no problem with it and even takes her staged photos for instagram (releasing a balloon to commemorate every month). Its making me uneasy now. Would love to know if I'm just being insensitive.

Oh that sounds so tricky. She's obv still really struggling and it sounds like a chat with her about it will either meet resistance or a falling out.

Has your husband checked in with how good brother is with the anniversary coming up? See whether he agrees with her or her humouring her?

I think it's probably one of those things the therapy will help with but ultimately it might be the only thing that works right now.

This is tough. I would feel the same as you but I am lucky enough not to have gone through what she has. So I guess until I could walk in her shoes I would just be nice and humour her when necessary.

Hmmmm. I don't think that you can dictate how someone else grieves. You can however set your own boundaries around what you are prepared to participate in and if this upsets her that's on her not you (so long as you are not going out of your way to be cruel or hurtful).

I lost a pregnancy at 12 weeks and although I think about it in terms of being a horrible experience, I don't really grieve for a child.

It doesn't appear that her therapy is going very well. She clearly needs a lot more help.

What she went through IS incredibly sad, but what she's doing now is not healthy.

Ah. Hmmm. That's an odd one.

I'd smile and nod. It sounds like she very much needs to continue with therapy.

You’re not being insensitive at all. I’d worry about the impact on your child as she gets old enough to understand and be incredibly confused.

What she went through is heartbreaking, I had 5 miscarriages at various stages before my daughter, and we all grieve and process these things differently, but she can’t force her approach onto you if it involves you having to do or say things you’re uncomfortable with.

Not a clue what the answer is but my sympathies to you. Are they ttc? That alone can make you a bit nutty never mind doing it after a loss.

Google complicated grief op, it sound like she is a bit stuck. My advice would be to continue as you are, and hope therapy helps.

I might consider having a word with her about how she talks about her lost child in front of your daughter as she gets older, though, as it may confuse or upset your daughter. But you can probably put that conversation off for a bit as it won't bother your daughter yet.

The birthday party doesn't sit right with me for some reason. I wonder if suggesting something else to honour the memory of the baby would be worth considering? Less celebratory and more of an acknowledgement? Sounds tough, all of it, so good luck to you all

A loss is still so raw after a year, therapy or not. (I lost my Dad at 19 , so I'm not talking out of my behind here ). I'd try to bear with it & accept she might have ideas you see as inappropriate, but she needs to grieve & her comments to her parents show she's still angry , which is part of the process of grieving. It's good her husband is supportive & even better that she has therapy & forums where she can vent & mourn. You don't have to explain the termination to your daughter, she's young, you can just say the baby is in heaven , then leave it at that & change the subject.

This is so hard. It's up to her to grieve however she wants. But I do think it's a bit off to try and make you participate in it with the same level of emotional investment that she has...so if she thinks of it as her baby, then fair enough, but she cant really demand that you consider it to have been your niece / nephew and that grandparents say they have one extra child. I am not sure what the answer is though m, as it seems cruel to say anything to her and I'm not sure it's worth the upset. Until it comes to your child then I think you might need to find a way of gently pulling away from the situation. Eg it's not fair that if you have no religious beliefs, to tell you that her cousin is in the sky watching her. I don't know how to do this sensitively though. I'd be hoping more counselling and time would get her through it and if she does have another child this may give her something else to focus on (I know it wont 'replace' the child she has lost)

@Crimblecrumble1990

This is tough. I would feel the same as you but I am lucky enough not to have gone through what she has. So I guess until I could walk in her shoes I would just be nice and humour her when necessary.

I agree with this. I’ve not been where she is, so really have no right to comment or judge, but it doesn’t seem very healthy to me. It seems like she’s not working through the grief at all.

Unlike PP, I do believe that losing your dad or a child is very different from losing a 14 week pregnancy. It just is. I've experienced both.

What your DSis is engaged in emotionally seems really unhealthy for her and she isn't growing through her grief. Grief has necessary stages and she is not working through them. I don't know what to suggest other than approach it via her husband. You also have every right to ask for a different way of her talking about it in front of your child. It's confusing and upsetting for a small child and in the future she'll think it weird and potentially unpleasant.

I lost a pregnancy between my two children. I often think that if it had been successful I wouldn't have had my second child. I can't imagine the world without her in it so in a way my pregnancy loss was meant to be.

And a 14 week pregnancy for most people wouldn't come with the same kind of grief as losing a father at 19. 1 in 8 known pregnancies end in miscarriages and many more occur without the woman even knowing she was pregnant. Many woman have multiple miscarriages. Very few of them will be insisting on marking the occasions.

She does seem to be in a bad place but it’s not appropriate that she is including your daughter in it. All the talk of her cousin in the sky is bonkers and must be so confusing for a young child. If she cannot stop speaking like that then I’d limit access to my child. If adults are prepared to indulge her that’s their choice but it’s not healthy for a young child to be caught up in it.

You’re being a bit insensitive but you also need to protect your daughter too.

You seem to think there’s a difference between tfmr because of incompatibility and viable loss and still birth. That but you are being unreasonable about. A loss is a loss and tfmr is one where a parent had to make the decision to end their wanted baby’s life (albeit for the right reasons) - there’s no hierarchy of loss and there’s no handbook on how to get over it. Some people never do.

You can and probably should ask your sister to stop talking about her angel baby playing with your child because that will creep a child out

I think it is different when you lose your first baby.
Her grief is her own to feel personally I'd say nothing this will pass your DD won't remember hopefully she'll have a healthy happy baby soon.
Support her a bit longer.

You see it as a termination, she sees it as the birth of her daughter who couldn't live. I don't think she's wrong to think as she does- if it had been a still birth or a later miscarriage, you probably wouldn't be as surprised.

People are complicated.

I won't repeat pp comments re grief and loss, but I can't help wondering whether the fact she had to make the conscious decision and deliberate act of ending a wanted pregnancy is amplifying her grief compared to if it had been a loss entirely out of her hands through miscarriage. Perhaps there is an element of her needing to prove and reinforce to herself - and the rest of you - that her decision wasn't the result of not wanting or loving the baby.

I haven't been there, it just strikes me that that would be very difficult to come to terms with.

I feel for her.

I think you gently need to broach the subject that maybe she needs support to work through her grief as she seems to be stuck.
Explain to her that your daughter is becoming more aware and you are concerned that the talk isn’t healthy for her. Acknowledge that she is grieving for her baby and she must finds healthy ways to do that but that it isn’t healthy to have a toddler involved. You don’t want your daughter to have an unhealthy mindset when she thinks of her aunt and uncle.

How is the OP being insensitive?

So far she’s going along with plenty of things that she’s uncomfortable with in order to support her grieving SIL. She’s now rightly concerned about whether this is helping her and also worried about the impact on her own child, which is perfectly valid.

If she was insensitive she’d insist none of this is discussed around her daughter and that no one tries to inflict beliefs on her that the parents don’t support.

My lost babies aren’t in heaven in my mind. Nor are my late grandparents, my aunt or my friend. And my friend was extremely religious.

I’d be very unhappy about someone trying to tell my child about heaven or people being in the sky watching her.

I think a quiet word with her husband about not including your daughter in this as it makes you uncomfortable and perhaps leaving the whatApp group might be best.

For her and her husband although they terminated it's a loss as their wasn't another choice;the baby wasn't viable.This would have been so traumatic and with this pandemic as well I imagine her mental health has taken a real battering.

Hopefully she'll become pregnant again when she's ready and that'll give her something else to focus on and bring some joy to her life.

It's not just a miscarriage though. She has had to actively end her pregnancy, or it could be her seeing it as "kill her own child". ( Even though the child could not live and she was reducing the child's future suffering) that is seriously going to fuck with your head more than a miscarriage.

Not “just a miscarriage”? Have you ever experienced “just” a miscarriage Susan?

Let’s not start the grief Olympics

You're not being insensitive, and this is not healthy.

Grrief is hard. Everyone wants to support someone however they're grieving. And gently challenging stuck grief is really difficult because you're unlikely to get much support from anyone.

But this 'any way of grieving is fine and mustn't be challenged' does the grieving person no favours. They could be heading into a mental illess that if it was caused by anything else, people would be able to be addressed.

Grief is shit. But when I was widowed, if I'd got stuck in grief in this unhealthy way (and was making other people very uncomfortable) I hope someone would have been brave enough to say 'hang on sara - I know your loss is really awful for you, but this isn't appropriate. Can I help in some way?'

Believing her baby is in the sky is fine but the rest is a bit alarming. I have huge sympathy for her because I lost five babies between DC2 and DC3 but it sounds as if she's really struggling.
As horrible as I'm going to sound I would limit contact between her and your child. It could freak your child out to think her dead cousin is visiting her and something about it just doesn't sound right ti me.
Do you think her husband is really on board with her? Or is he going along with it to avoid her blowing up?
The whole thing is just a bit too much. It's good she's getting therapy but it sounds like she needs more support. Is she actually willing to accept her child is gone? If she is you could direct her to bereavement help lines for parents who've lost children but I'm not sure she's ready for that.
No advice I'm afraid but don't feel bullied in to attending birthday parties or anything. And do keep an eye on what she says to your daughter.

She is not coping at all. just remember that.

I would be concerned if my own child was a bit older, but at 18 months they 're young enough not to be affected.

I would feel sorry for her, genuinely, but would distance my own kids because it's not healthy for them. It's tragic, but it's not their tragedy.

At least she is having therapy, so she is accepting some help.