What's the worst thing someone did when you had a new baby?

[Cuddlyrottweiler]

Another thread reminded me of this, it's probably tame compared to some of yours though!

MIL called my DH in from another room and told him to take my newborn, crying baby off me and give him to her. After I'd refused several times, because I knew what he needed and couldn't do it. Luckily for our marriage he saw the look and my face and told her no.

In laws turned up at the hospital 30 mins after catheter had been removed post c-section. MiL, FiL and BiL… and BiL’s 2 children who obviously couldn’t come into the ward. The only reason I had (reluctantly) said they could come then rather than wait until we were home was that DH had said he would deal with them, and he ended up babysitting his nieces instead.

We were asked to move to the lounge area in the ward because of the number of people round the bed. They let me push DS in the little bassinet and when we got there BiL picked up DS and handed him to his mother, saying There’s your baby, Mum’. Then they all sat down and said they fancied a cup of tea. Which I made, like a fool.

Same BiL decided he absolutely had to introduce us to his new girlfriend on the same weekend as the rest of the family were meeting her. No matter that DS was 4 weeks old, constantly feeding and generally unsettled. He wouldn’t be put off so we finally agreed to them coming over for a coffee for an hour. Cleaned / tidied house and ourselves. They turned up with a bottle of wine saying they were looking forward to dinner. DH cooked the chicken we just happened to have as I’d fancied something not defrosted / microwaveable. They left at 9pm, after arriving at 3. Future SiL announced she didn’t like babies on leaving. I think we were too shocked / tired to do anything but go along with it.

Nothing compared to some of the things on here and lack of consideration rather than malice but it did turn out to be a sign of things to come!

@LaBobkin they sound like absolute horrors, especially BIL. Please tell me you don't see them anymore!

@NothingEverChangesButTheShoes

"Will it have the same as you?" Work colleagues. "I hope it won't have a cleft lip" My mother. "Has it gota hare lip?" A very aged aunt who I am pleased to report has since died in agony. "I didn't think people like you had babies." Some random cow in the supermarket. "Are you the auntie or the nanny? You don't look like your baby." As above. "How are we going to address that baby may be bullied about your face when they're at school? My mother again. Who wonders why I am LC.

I didn't announce until over 20 week to anyone. Even my parents.

Wow, so sorry you had to put up with those remarks. I was born with a cleft lip. Luckily none made such nasty comments. Although , I was prepared for them and had some responses ready to give! ! People can ignorant jerks! X

@Jng1

I made it very clear to DH and his parents that I intended to breastfeed DS1. DH's father (FIL) made it very clear he disapproved, and always made rude and unhelpful comments when we visited:

• "DS must be hungry (whenever he cried), you can't see how much he's getting"
• "he's a big baby, needs a proper feed"
• "are you still at it (after 15 mins)? Give him a bottle and he'll be finished in no time."

MIL always claimed she "couldn't" breastfeed because her milk "never came in" but I suspect FIL wouldn't have let her anyway.

Once when we were staying at PILs I went for nap in the afternoon and woke a few hours later with my breasts painfully full of milk. I called downstairs for DH to bring DS up to me and FIL came up and said DH had taken DS out for a walk in the pram. When I said he needed a feed, I swear PIL smirked and he said "oh we gave him a bottle, seeing as you were asleep. He was very happy. He loved it." They had clearly planned it and bought formula and bottles in advance.
I WAS LIVID with them and with DH for being so spineless.
I then spent the next half hour in the bathroom with a hot flannel trying to express my milk down the sink to alleviate the pain .

@Jng1 oh my gosh, poor you. That would have been it for me, I wouldn’t have spoken to them again and DH would have been on thin ice. How dare they? Disgusting behaviour.

I'd just given birth for the first time (I have 3 now), and was in the hospital bed, probably looking awful but feeling very proud of myself.

DS1 was born with an unusual birthmark on his scalp, and we had a constant stream of doctors and students coming to see him. My DM was visiting when one of the doctors came to check him out, and she stood at the end of my bed, arms crossed, and, nodding in my direction asked the doctor "is this because she did something wrong in the pregnancy". The poor doctor looked embarrassed and looked at me then back at DM and said no, this was not caused by something I had done.

I don't think DM every worked out why she was told for my future babies she was not to visit the hospital 😳

I posted upthread but I do have another that was during labour rather than after having a baby. I was left in the birth centre room to labour because the midwife didn't believe I could labour so quickly with my first baby, I begged her to check me as I knew I needed to push, I'd gone from 3cm to 8cm in less than 3 hours, within 15 minutes of being checked, I was fully dilated and ready to push. She had me pushing for almost 2 hours before she decided DD wasn't actually moving down and she was stuck. Thank god I got moved to the labour ward where I had an amazing midwife.

I'd an infection and had to stay in longer after birth and I was really emotional. A really nice nurse asked if i wanted my baby to be used in the bath demo and I agreed. There was about 14 parents in the room, the midwife put water in the bath and everyone elbow tested to feel the heat (am only thinking now how disgusting that is, 15 elbows in the water) and i thought the water felt really hot. First baby, she was a midwife so i said nothing. She put my dd in and my dd screamed and screamed, it wasnt a bath hating scream, the water was too hot! The midwife looks at me and said "she's formula fed isn't she?", I said yes and she tells everyone how obvious it is cos the baby is full of wind hence the screams. She banged on about formula for ages and people just started leaving the room as I was sobbing and it was really uncomfortable. I **think she tried to be nice when i was leaving but i cant remember.

I cried for hours over not stopping her with the water and also thinking I was a crap formula mam. The girl next to me who I never spoke to kept shouting over the curtain not to mind her, she was a horrible bitch which I'm grateful to her for still.

@elliejjtiny I think the world has changed in the 40 years I've been in it for the better. Your DS will be fine. It is other people's problems and it took me a long time to work that out.

@gindreams Quite easily. That comment was the tip of the iceberg. Being a victim of hateful comments/actions has made me have zero empathy for them.

To the PP with a cleft. Yeah, it's getting better these days. I think they meant that they were suprised anyone found me attractive enough to have wanted to DTD! I got similar when I got married and moved in with BFs. Funny really, I still look like I am mid 20s when a lot of the people are looking very rough.

With DS we were discharged home late evening and had DHs grandparents on the doorstep first thing the following morning. We were scolded because they did come the day before as they wanted to be first to meet the baby but our discharge paperwork took longer than expected. An oncall haematologist had to be tracked down and certain blood tests done before we could go. Grandad complained that there was nothing wrong with the baby, only me, so dh should have taken the baby home and left me there. It was my fault their afternoon had been spoilt.

Friends who pretty much said “congratulations!” then 2 weeks later left me out of every party/activity/meal out/weekend away since (DS now 6) because “I have a child”. Made me very sad.

Ex-DH bought a business an 8 hour drive away and told me he'd be working away 6 days a week for at least a year. I had a 2 day old baby, an 18 month old non-sleeping toddler and no family or friends to help. It quite literally nearly killed me. I still hate him for that many many years later. He doesn't get why.

DS was a lockdown baby. We wouldn't let MIL come and hold the baby because it was the height of Covid and she was ignoring all of the rules, so she sent over some woman I barely knew who let herself into our house and proceeded to give me a verbal bashing on how this was all my fault and I was being cruel to MIL. This randomer didn't stop even when I broke down into tears (being just over a week post-birth and absolutely shattered), and literally curled into the foetal position. DH did nothing to stop her, and was actually agreeing with her. Needless to say I'm now very happily a single mother, and shan't be seeing any of them again

Oh gosh they're all flooding back now.

After 4 days of being on a drip induced and not getting anywhere (or sleeping) I was finally given a spinal and episiotomy with catheter. I've had a few surgeries in my time and tend to get UTIs with a catheter.

We were kept in for a week as DS had an infection. On day 3 I realised I had a pretty bad UTI that meant I was desperate to go every 5-10 mins for tiny amounts but due to my episiotomy couldn't get to the only loos at the end of the corridor very quickly.

I asked for a commode and was told by the night midwife that I should be up on my feet anyway and the exercise will do me good. I cried trying to hold it in and hobbling quickly down to the loo but kept starting to go before I got there. Said midwife then knocked violently on the door as I was trying to get a sample to prove I had an infection shouting that I had 'got piss everywhere' (not true as it was only trickles anyway).

She rushed me back to the bed and said if I was going to make a point of pissing myself then she'd guess she'd have to get me a commode - like I'd done it on purpose. But she refused to empty it through the night so I was either forced to sleep (with DS) in a cubicle smelling of wee or empty it myself.

Day 4 I mentioned that the bedsheets hadn't been changed since I was there and I was a bit concerned as there was a build up of blood and general grime on the sheets. Was helpfully given new sheets so I could change the bed myself!

Last day I felt that I had more pain than I should around my stitches and asked to be checked. It was the vile midwife from overnight who tutted and had a look. I had got an infection and she commented (in front of my in laws who had come back into the cubicle after my examination-I love them and didn't mind) "well, the infection will be a result of the piss running down your leg when you refused to go to the toilet down the hall like everyone else" then, looking at mother in law "honestly, I've never known a new mother make such a big fuss over everything, is she always like this?".

Luckily my MIL is just fantastic and without a beat said "I've only ever known her to make a fuss when faced with either utter incompetence or sheer stupidity...I'm still trying to work out which of the two you fit". Midwife's face was a picture and MIL requested the head midwife visit before we left to listen to me and my experience. Legend.

My DS birth ended in an emergency C-section with me coming close to death twice! Doing the obligatory visit to DH work and one of his colleagues found out that I had a section and uttered the words 'Oh so you couldn't do that one thing women are made to do'

The shock of him saying it blew me away that I stupidly never replied. I have replayed that moment over in my head for 5 years!!

The Bounty rep bounced cheerily into my room asking “where’s baby” I said “baby” was 3 months early and was in NNICU, I nodded towards the photo taped to the bedside cabinet. “Oh” she said, “you’ll want to wait until all those tubes and wires are out before we do the official photo.

On day three, the auxiliary bustled in to the room and announced they would be filling the other three beds with mums and newborn babies. This was supposed to be a ward for NNICU mums as I reminded her. “Well, we’re busy so it has to be done” when I got rather tearful she seemed surprised and said “I didn’t think it would be such a problem”

On day 5 when I was having my c-section checked by the senior midwife in triage, where women were labouring she asked whether I remembered all that and I said I never got to Labour as DD was born early. “You’re SO lucky she said, the third trimester and Labour are SO difficult” I said I didn’t feel lucky that my baby was fighting for her life in an incubator.

I heard quite a few insensitive comments about our situation from friends and family back then, but these, coming from people who’s job it is to look after women in natal wards were particularly difficult.

Told I looked tired by a family member after a night in hospital giving birth then straight back home the next day (no 3 and had no childcare)

Thought of another. DH has a family member die the same day as I gave birth. Funeral was arranged very quickly. DH went alone as it was the other end of the country.
I got grief for not going. BIL told he thought that his wife had been ‘all over the place with a newborn’. A lie. She was in hospital for a week with 2 of her children and then didn’t leave the house for ages, I know because we visited.
One of his friends wives really criticised me as I could have just ‘popped DD on the boob’ and come along rather than leaving poor DH on his own. It was more the 5 hour car trip when my fanjo was ripped to pieces and infections that was the issue. Her FIL died a few weeks later when she was on holiday and she refused to come back and made her DH come back and do it all alone as she didn’t want to spoil her trip.

My husband threw a strop because I wouldn't go to his cousins 18th birthday 5 days after giving birth to DD1. He then made it worse by saying I could leave her with mum because it 'wasn't like I was breastfeeding her. "
Luckily for him he realised it was a stupid thing to say and spent the rest of the day trying to make up for it or I might have told him to leave.

Enquiring why my baby has a sun tan...I'd not been putting her on the sun beds she's mixed race.

Oh and also being told 6 hours post section with my DD that my legs were fat

@Underneaththeash
this isn't a breast-feeding thread. Are you mansplaining?

My parents-in-law practically moved in after I gave birth. As soon as they heard the baby was born at midnight, they drove all the way to our house and let themselves in with the spare key (we were still in hospital at the time).

MIL announced I was selfish to breastfeed as it meant other people couldn’t get to feed my newborn
Still enrages me 22 years later!

The stories about entertaining family, putting them up for the night and guests who wouldn’t leave who had come down to see the baby after the birth that I heard through my NCT group made me quite happy that we didn’t have any family or friends and Dh was away working for a couple of weeks at a time.

DS, premature and on a ventilator. DP phoned his ex to explain and ask to have his eldest a different night so he could stay at the hospital. Ex went mental and accused him of putting his (new, hours old, extremely poorly) son above his eldest and that he would permanently damage his relationship with him if he didn't have him that night. DP felt so bad he ended up having him and leaving me and poorly DS in the hospital. Been 4 years and I'm still angry about it