I recently had a miscarriage, my SIL just gave birth. AIBU to leave the family whatsapp?

[rainraingoaway91]

I wrote a couple months ago about how I have been TTC for around a year. My SIL who is younger than us and much more recently married announced she was pregnant very soon after we started trying. She asked me to hold her baby shower. I then got pregnant but had a miscarriage a few months ago which was obviously devastating. She still expected me to host her shower, which I ended up organising but actually couldn't go because I happened to get covid that week (probably for the best!).

She had her baby a couple weeks ago, and it has set me back so much. I made her some food and brought it round the day after, I really didn't want to hold him but they were very insistent. They got their photo, we did our bit, and I was in tears all the way home and the next couple days. She texted me saying she appreciated it might have been difficult but she wants me involved "as humanly possible". I had to tell her that I would love to be but I need some time.

The constant barrage of photos, and family comments in the family whatsapp is so unbelievably painful and triggering. I feel like I cannot cope. My bil and DH's brother sends photos every single day. AIBU to exit the whatsapp group for a while?

Yes, you wouldn't say that to a woman that just lost her mum, but you also would think a woman odd if she refused to see her spouses mum because is taking space from all mums because she just lost her mum.

If OP needs space then she can take the space she needs. OP does need to grieve. But being so distraught at meeting her nephew she cries for days months after her miscarriage shows OP is still really struggling and maybe she needs to look at getting professional help with processing it before it starts doing irreparable damage to her relationships. There is no time limit on grief, but there is a point when it's becoming limiting on your life.

What others have said. Set it so it doesn't download the photos into media storage for that chat, then mute it, then archive it. And tell your Brother why you're doing it.

My SiL set up a specific group just for them posing baby photos, and I explained, and left. They understood. Well my brother did, I don't know about my SiL! There was a LOT of tears and snot bubbles involved on my part in explaining so I don't think he'd have dared NOT understand!

You're very definitely not more robust, you're still crapping on about yourself and what you went through years later.

I’m sorry for your loss OP
Leaving the group chat would be a statement and would tarnish a really exciting and special time for your SIL. I understand your position, but also consider that your SIL is also hormonal, vulnerable and exhausted. Even though it’s a happy time, it is also very overwrought.
I would mute the chat as others have suggested and take the time you need

...

I’m so sorry to hear about your loss. I know how devastating it is and how hurt you must feel.
My SIL and I were pregnant at the same time. I miscarried and she had her baby two weeks after mine would have been due. I was happy for her but I was grieving.

Having had a miscarriage herself previously, she was very mindful of how I felt but the family What’s App Group was pretty horrendous.
I would lock the chat so that you physically have to go in it to see any new posts.
Then maybe ask your OH to go in to it every now and then and like the odd photo and make all the right noises without you having to put yourself through it.
It will get better, OP, but you have to do what you have to do.
All the very best on your TTC journey and sending you lots of virtual hugs.

All these cruel, thoughtless people trying to compare seeing other people's brothers or mothers to a dead baby.

Which is how the OP thinks of her loss. A whole future with the baby she thought she would have wiped out.

You're either incredibly poorly educated on grief, loss and bereavement or so self centred you can't see past how YOU feel to care about another grieving person.

Clownish attempts to blackmail her " they'll hate you if you try to protect yourself while you're grieving just put up with it" aren't the gotcha you think they are.

If you think a grieving woman can't leave a chat group give your head a wobble. Anyone upset by that is a huge red flag and to be avoided.

A dead baby & fertility issues are like NO OTHER GRIEF. And cannot and should not be compared to any other grief.

In fact, comparing any form of grief is a HUGE no no if you've got even the tiniest bit of self awareness.

Things to NEVER do if you actually want to help a grieving person:

1.Say you know how they feel. You very definitely don't. Even if you were the same age with a similar loss in the same place you haven't a clue how they feel.
2.Lecture.
3.Try to put a time limit on their feelings.
4.Instruct them that their grief is inconvenient and they should do something different.

I'm sorry that these women are more interested in lecturing you about how superb their own coping skills are than in helping you find a way through it that works for you.

@honestyISkind characterising a first trimester miscarriage as a dead baby is not healthy, not helpful to OP and doubtless offensive to bereaved parents.

Twatting on to try to score points is not helpful.

Was necessary to use shocking language to cut though the self absorbed babble.

Good that one of you finally heard something over the sound of your own gums flapping.

PS OP didn't use the words dead baby. I did. It's precisely what I've heard other women who miscarried say. Yes, shocking. That was the point. To cut through the vile complacent self centred babbling.

So don't start screeching at the OP about that too FFS.

I wouldn’t leave as it will create drama and you could do without then, just archive it for now until you feel able to deal with it.

Why would anyone be trying to score points with such a sensitive subject?

Here’s a shocker for you - people have different perspectives.

I'm not scoring points. I'm taking exception to your grossly offensive phrasing, all yours and not OP's.

I and other people on the thread have already made these points without resorting to such aggression and rudeness @honestyISkind.

It’s all well and good to take your bat home and decide that YOUR GRIEF is more important than good relations with your in laws, and if they don’t like it then that just proves they are awful people….

…but where does it leave you? It’s not bringing your baby back or making you pregnant. It’s putting your DH in a really horrible position. It’s cutting off your future child from half its family before it’s even born. And to what end?

To be quite frank - the only horror that has been on this thread are your posts. They have been aggressive, name calling and full of hysteria.

It’s beginning to sound as if you are not actually thinking of the OP - but just grandstanding.

I am currently mourning my husband, died end of January, and my mother, died beginning of March. This coming Sunday is six months to the day DH died. I am not going on about a miscarriage that nearly killed me; I had not thought about it in thirty years until the matter of obstetric violence became a feminist topic just lately - and the ending of that miscarriage was violent, but I am alive who might have bled to death. I suppose, because I am in mourning, other sorrows become closer, the death of my dad, the suicide of my brother, the end of my first marriage...Not things I angst over all the time. Worse things happen at sea. I don't expect people to walk on eggshells around me, either.

Desperately sad for you OP and you are dealing with a rollercoaster of raw emotions. Wishing you hope and strength. I agree 'mute and archive'.
My niece had a rainbow baby after baby loss and sought comfort from a baby loss group. Moment by moment, you are allowed to cry as much as you need to

If they know about your miscarriage, just write something like 'I need to leave for a while as the baby photos are making me feel a bit sad at the moment'. Then leave before anyone can reply. I mute and archive chats but still can't help checking them as the number bubble bugs me.

You are not the grief police.

If someone wants to think of a 4 week, 14 weeks or 40 week as a dead baby then they are allowed too.

I lost a baby at 8 weeks, and twins at nearly 12 weeks. I call them my babies, because they were. You don’t have the right to tell me I can’t grieve as much as anyone else or call them my baby.

You seem really nasty…

I'm not nasty, I promise you. I'm very sorry for your losses, miscarriage is a shitty thing. But I wouldn't for a second compare my 10 week loss to the loss of a baby at 40 weeks. There's a reason our grandmothers weren't considered pregnant until they'd missed two periods.

It's right that we give miscarriage more consideration these days, but I also don't think it's helpful to consider something most of us will go through as being on the same scale as a stillbirth.

Look, you’re the only one that’s comparing it here. I didn’t say my miscarriages are comparable to a stillbirth. It’s a completely different loss. But it’s people like you saying “it’s not comparable” well no it’s not! No one said it’s the same scale. Can’t we all grieve and call our babies, babies?

Another example,

18 months of infertility before baby vs 12 years of infertility.

They are totally incomparable but both infertility and the couple who took 18 months are ALLOWED to feel sad and grieve infertility. They shouldn’t be told it’s not infertility as someone had it harder.

Hey OP, I’m so sorry for your losses 💐 I thought I would jump on and comment as someone in your situation (albeit with infertility versus miscarriages- we have been trying for a year with no positive tests, recently received a diagnosis, and are probably looking to start IVF early next year). My husband’s brother and his wife have a child already and are now expecting their second.

I had been finding their family WhatsApp group really triggering anyway even prior to their pregnancy announcement, because of the plethora of lovely photos of their child enjoying all the types of things I dream of doing with our own child one day, and constantly worry I will never be able to. So I have already had the group muted/archived for some time, as other posters have suggested. Even with the group muted though, I found myself going back on there way more than I intended, because of a) Other logistical things, news about other relatives, funny memes etc. , all totally unrelated to them or their child, which I’d want to see- I’d enter the group to read that and then see a cute photo upthread which I wasn’t expecting, and it would be like a gut punch every time, and b) A kind of morbid curiosity about their lives and what they’re up to- this is hard to explain but I crave that life of having young kids so much, and feel it is so out of reach for me, that I then feel drawn to seeing what they’re doing as a kind of fantasy life shopping exercise. But, as you can imagine, this is definitely really bad for me and doesn’t help my state of mind.

In the end, I felt that the only sustainable option for me was to leave the group altogether, and I do think it was the right choice for me. As far as I know, everyone has been really understanding and supportive. I have also explained to BIL and SIL that we are truly happy for them and want to continue to support them and build memories with their children in real life- but that leaving the group is just something I have had to do mentally to try and survive what is becoming a horrific time for us. I do think there’s an important distinction here between social media, which can be a really painful day-to-day reminder for people going through infertility and/or baby loss, and carving out quality time to spend with friends & family with children…. which can be compartmentalised more easily and saved for times that you are feeling stronger. And it is definitely getting to see his auntie and uncle in real life (not through social media likes/comments !) which will mean most to your nephew, which I think would be your SIL and BIL’s real priority here 💕

I do see other posters’ points about whether you would want the family to be happy and excited for you when you do hopefully go on to have your own baby. However, my personal viewpoint on that is that I am so worried that we will never get to be parents, that quite frankly it wouldn’t matter to me whether other people were celebrating for us or not, I would just feel so incredibly lucky and relieved to be bringing a baby home at all!

You may agree with me on that last point, in which case I would honestly go ahead and leave the group if you feel it’s something which will bring you a bit more peace for now 💛 It doesn’t have to be forever (and I’m sure it won’t need to be!), and if you are still making the effort to be part of your nephew’s life in whatever way you can, I think your BIL and SIL will still see and appreciate that.

Ultimately, very few people who haven’t directly experienced infertility and/or baby loss really understand what utterly devastating experiences they are. Of course, there’s every chance things will be okay in the end, but until you know when/if they will be (which you don’t while you’re still in this waiting period), it leaves a hole in your heart that nothing can fill, which is just there constantly no matter what you do. Seeing other people have their own children, and move forward with their lives, is one of the hardest parts of it, because you feel so stuck in your own situation. So, from someone who does (somewhat!) get it- it’s absolutely okay to do what you need to do to survive this very difficult time, especially when it comes to something as inconsequential as social media/WhatsApp. It doesn’t make you a bad auntie or a bad person! I wish you all the best going forwards and really hope it will be your time soon ❤️

You are going against the sentimentalist grain here. I agree with you. My loss of a pregnancy at 12 weeks was nothing like as devastating as my friend's loss of her 12 week old son to SIDS. She had three children and one was dead. I had two children and had had 2/3 miscarriages, not the same thing at all.
NB At 4 weeks you don't really know you are pregnant - many pregnancies 'abort' at this point. (I know people say they're five weeks pregnant, but as you say there was a reason why missing two periods = definite pregnancy.)