People are announcing my baby’s birth

[Gotthekeeys]

Would this annoy you?

I had a difficult birth and we told our parents they baby was here safely. Before I was even compos mentis MIL had announced it on the wider family WhatsApp group that I am in and included it ended in a c section.

AIBU to be very pissed off?

I can understand your annoyance but your mother probably didn't mean anything by it.

Women can be sensitive about sections though.

She had no need to mention the edical procedure.

Depends on your relationship really.

If your mother is an interfering PITA then you can't be surprised.

If you are close then perhaps gently say that it was YOUR news to announce and that medical details are your private business.

You are entitled to be a bit miffed about this.

Does she generally lack self awareness?

Might she have thought she was doing you a favour and forgot the etiquette that people like to advertise their own good news?

Clearly not in this case @JenniferBarkley , that's why people should check
It's common courtesy

OP It was up to you to discuss with your partner before hand how you wanted to announce the birth so he could tell his parents and whoever what they should and shouldn't do.

You now need to urgently discuss with your partner whether you want pictures of your LO on social media e.g. Facebook If not you need to tell people then if they do post both take action to remove the pictures/blank out your LO face.

@saraclara not sure what the nhs is like where you live but where I am, unless anything goes wrong, you are expected to leave the hospital the day after your CS.

OP i completely agree with you, no one should be going around telling anyone how you gave birth. If you were happy for news of the birth to be shared then 'op has had baby xxx both doing well' etc should be as far as it goes. If you want to share more info then so be it but why anyone else would be sharing your medical information is beyond me. As you say, you don't here about people sharing baby born through a third degree tear which will take time to recover from too.

I find the whole pregnancy thing quite odd in this respect. People you barely speak to seem to think they have some right to quite personal information.

Unbelievable.

How awful.

How did things work out?

I think there is a type of person that is casual with other people's business.

The section is her private medical business and had no business being advertised.

Firstly congratulations on your baby 💐When GS was born (also by emergency c-section) I was also super excited...BUT...I waited until my DD had announced the birth and asked her permission to post pics on SM and to spread the news throughout the wider family. I think it's so selfish of your MIL and I'd be getting your DH to have a quiet word with his mother about boundaries and over stepping.

This is a weird response, is there something wrong with a c section? Should I be ashamed of the ones I had?

Of course not, but sadly so many women feel a sense of failure.

Like they failed at the task of a natural delivery.

I have had this with many friends over the years.

Each time I have said there is no failure.

The single most important thing is the safe delivery of the baby.

Of course C-Section is a huge surgery and recovery is often very hard and very sore, so I can understand the disappointment of it happening and having to deal with the recovery part for many weeks.

I totally get that.

Unfortunately some women feel it is a personal womanly failure.

Most get over it thankfully, but it can make the early weeks harder for sure.

My first got stuck in the birth canal and my OB was stressed as I was awake 28 hours at this stage and exhausted and asking for a c section and I felt done.

Hairy stuff. Thank god it ended well, but very stressful stuff.

So many assumptions here. We don’t live in the same country as the wider family so it was not so that they could drop off food?!

I don’t think I’m a celebrity but I also don’t think everyone needs to know the minute the baby is born. They could have at least waited for me to lucid.

If my news is so irrelevant that no one cares anyway then there was no need to rush to do it.

It's also a bit personal about the mum, isn't it? In a group text context. Whereas simply saying "baby X is here" is letting the family know about a new family member, who exists in their own right.

I’m reading between the lines a little bit.
But it sounds like your MIL didn’t seem very bothered that you’d just had quite a difficult experience, and was more bothered about telling everyone your news. That would upset me personally.

Very weird and depressing post about the news being "irrelevant", by the way! Not sure what world that poster lives in, but I don't want to live in it.

People will know you’ve had a c section. Why hide it? What does it matter? It’s relevant because your recovery will be longer aside from anything.

You need to unpick why you don’t want people to know. If this was because you wanted to announce birth I would totally understand but the fact that your concern is the c section bit suggests you’ve got some feelings that need work.

congratulations.

@JenWillsiam how will they ‘know’?

YANBU. She should have asked if she was Ok to share this information more widely.

She sounds like the kind of MIL who will post pictures on social media unless you say now what you're comfortable with (I don't post pictures of my children online and so our family know that they should not do the same).

This is for your DH to enforce with her.

It's the family group. Of course shea excitingly told everyone in it. She's probably trying to save you the task of telling everyone

Why? You've just had quite a operation it's so everyone knows you won't be bouncing back by tomorrow

Totally agree, all this 'announcement' nonsense, you simply tell people, unless you're in the top ten in line of succession! We were abroad so a telegram to new grandparents and that was it, it was akin to a BBC newsflash the speed at which it spread.

She won’t be driving for 6 weeks. She won’t be completely mobile and walking around within normal timeframe. She will stay in hospital for longer than expected. She will have a scar. People will ask.

I don’t know why people make such a big deal. It’s a c section. She didn’t kill anyone.

This was true of me (apart from the scar) and I didn't have a C-section 💁

I was told that my SIL had a C-section, and otherwise I would not have realised (I'm not especially close to her or live nearby... Which made it weirder for my MIL to share this info).

I think it's quite normal to share the news onwards in the family if you've been told...unless you've been told not to. I mean, I'd be annoyed at it being splashed all over social media by someone, yes. But I think telling others in the family through normal communication channels is fine. Unless like I said, you've requested they not do so.

Again, about the birth, I think people do share about how it went. I mean, I had home births. I'm sure people talked about that. But I think it's more to let others know about how you are doing - and a c-section does mean you need more care and might be feeling more fragile. Even if people aren't nearby to help in any practical way, it's not unusual to give an update on how much is doing too.

That said, we didn't tell anyone that our babies were born until we were happy for the wider family and friends to know. And even when we let our mums know I was in labour, we specifically requested that they not tell anyone else until baby had arrived, as didn't want a million messages asking how it was going.

Then you also clearly didn’t have a straightforward vaginal delivery.

My section scars are in my pubic hair, I’m fairly certain they are not going to be seen by or crop up in conversation with my in-laws, they wouldn’t know unless I chose to tell them.

I didn't care who announced any of my births, it didn't change anything.

I suppose if you are someone this does matter to, it is important beforehand to tell people that you don't want them to share any news about it unless you have given permission to do so.