Baby announcement gone wrong

[GAZ0188]

We have just had our 1st scan and told the inlaws last night. To say this was a disaster, was an understatement.

We live in a very small town where childcare places with child minders are few and far between. At 5 weeks approx. I asked a child minder at a baby group (very quietly, explained no one knew) if I could have a space in which she agreed. 2 days later she seen MIL at another group and said how nice it was she was going to be a granny again (fuming was an understatement) anyway, partner shrugged it off, said it was someone else in town with the same name.

My cleaner came in a few weeks ago and found me over the toilet, spewing my load, and my ginger nuts and maternity documents on the table that I hadn't had time to move. Also doesn't take a genius to work this out.

Yesterday we got home, told them we had a present for FILs bday and put a t-shirt on our little boy announcing is. He walked into the livingroom and we got absolutely no reaction whatsoever. All we got was "well we already knew as the chuldminder and cleaner told us" from the MIL, all whilst she was sitting on my sofa, with a face like a smacked a...e... looking like she'd just stopped crying before walking into my house. To say I was fuming, was an understatement. Instead of "how have you been keeping" i got a full on interigation of how both the child minder and cleaner knew and then they proceeded to tell us how sad they were that they weren't the first to know and they thought more of us basically.

I grabbed my son, went to the bathroom and run him a bath and bathed him in there until they left. I could not bare to look at them. When they left, my partner messaged them explaining how they both knew and saying thanks for asking how she was. They've looked but still no reply.

Iv woke up this morning and I am STILL fuming. What is meant to be a happy moment has been taken away by their "poor me" reaction and now I never want to see their faces again for a very long time. Growing up in my family, I was pushed aside by my own mother and got completely rejected when my sister came along and this was my biggest fear of this happening with a 2nd child and now this has completely conveyed my fears of this happening again, albeit it won't be by its parents this time..

I have no idea how to navigate from this. I feel like cutting them off for a long time. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated...

@Paradoes - you'd sack the cleaner with no explanation? She heard the OP be sick and saw papers that weren't hidden away!

FGS - You all need to get over yourselves.

It is the childminder and cleaner who are your issue. I don’t think I would have asked the childminder at such an early stage before you had told anyone else. Grandparents feel you told everyone but them I expect. I think you need to leave it a few days and calm down.

I'd be looking for a new childminder and cleaner to be honest. Both clearly cannot be trusted with client confidentiality.

Do you usually over react to things this much? Fuming? Bathing your child till they left? How horrid is that? They are upset because you couldn't be bothered telling them and the cleaner and childminder knew. If you didn't want anyone to know you wouldn't have asked the childminder and would have put your pregnancy documents away, did you ask both parties to say nothing? If you didn't then it's completely your fault.

Social media has really pushed this announcement culture where marriage proposals, baby announcements, gender reveals etc all have to be orchestrated and stage managed and everyone has to react in a certain way. Just have a normal conversation with them? No drama, no flouncing off, no husband texting afterwards. Just "we're having a baby" "that's great but yes we knew already" "oh yeah that was because I need to get childcare sorted asap but she shouldn't have told you". Done.

All very dramatic and silly.

Your anger should be directed at the child minder and cleaner.

Everything after that, from both yourself and PIL’s, is equally childish and pathetic (probably more so you, actually.)

The cleaner and childminder shouldn't have said anything, it doesn't make it okay but they probably assumed if they knew then you probably did (childminder more than cleaner). I'd be angry at them however I would also initially have said to them that no one else knows so keep it quiet please.

You're angry at the wrong people, of course your PIL are upset. It probably looks like everyone else knows apart from them and it's understandable that you're upset too. Your reaction to that though is OTT.

OP, from your other posts, you’ve long been avoiding your IL’s anyway, seems there’s no love lost there. What made you think your fanfare baby announcement would be any different? Strange to make someone’s birthday into a baby announcement if you don’t get on…

Growing up in my family, I was pushed aside by my own mother and got completely rejected when my sister came along and this was my biggest fear of this happening with a 2nd child and now this has completely conveyed my fears of this happening again, albeit it won't be by its parents this time.

Seek therapy to help you process this. You're making a MASSIVE leap here.

Absolutely this. You sound massively unpleasant and hugely controlling.

No, no one is picking up on MIL gossiping about her DIL, because she wasn’t!

Im sure as an ADULT woman OP could’ve not started childminding provision conversations for a five week fetus!

Drama!

Would you honestly feel ok finding out your son is expecting through their cleaner?!

People can only manipulate you if you let them. She wanted a drama and you gave her one.
you will take all the wind out of her sails if you act like this never happened and don't provide the fuel for her fire. Saying you will cut them off is silly and will just add more grist to her mill.
are you very young because you come over like a stroppy 15 year old.

The only poor soul in any of this, is the child, for their manipulative mother used them as a pawn against their grandparents.

You're being very dramatic.

Not read all comments, but I’d not be using that childminder now as you explicitly told her on the quiet and I’d part ways with the cleaner too! And I say that as a cleaner myself, I see loads of personal stuff in peoples houses, they trust me to not go blabbing to all and sundry, you just don’t do that.

Sounds like they were massively unreasonable. That said, I wouldn’t necessarily give this one incident too much weighting and would care more about how they are generally.

Your childminder shouldn’t have said anything. Your cleaner shouldn’t have said anything - but they did so instead of dealing with the situation you were in, your dh LIED to his mother’s face when asked the question. You both continued the lie by omission for several weeks allowing them to get more and more pissed off/hurt. Then you invite someone round to give them a birthday present and instead of giving them a birthday present you try to make them act suprised at a toddler in a t-shirt even though you know full well they aren’t suprised because they were told weeks ago and know they have been lied to. You built up the insta-moment in your head despite knowing it had been fucked up weeks earlier and that is all on you. Instead of being a grown up about it and saying “I know there were rumours and we lied by saying they weren’t true, but we wanted to do a dramatic reveal and pushed on ahead in the hope this would be a special moment. That hasn’t worked but the important thing is we are having another child which is very exciting. Sorry we didn’t get you a birthday present” you stomped off and are now denying a grandparent relationship but you definitely aren’t manipulative or a drama llama.

lessons to be learned

Your cleaner and childminder are unprofessional so you can’t glide through life as if they are.
Telling your mum an obvious lie and then cutely revealing the truth she always knew is more likely to result in hurt and annoyance than any genuine surprise.
Baby announcements are not birthday presents.
Locking yourself in a room until people leave does not resolve issues with blood relatives. Especially those who do childcare for you (assuming the “group” mil met cm at was a toddler group where mil takes the toddler on her “day” despite being a manipulative narcissist)
People don’t gaf about your ideas of a moment that are entirely in your head. They didn’t know you had a mental image of how this was going to go that was so powerful that you tried to push it through despite knowing the childminder and cleaner had already shot it down. They just think you’ve been acting weird for weeks and really don’t get why you wanted or expected a delighted surprise reaction to something they had already asked you straight to your face weeks earlier.
Social media has given people an unrealistic expectation of complex human behaviour. Your dh lied to his mum, and you both still expected this to be heartwarming. It was never going to be.

You obviously don’t like your MIL, why not be honest, it’s your mistake.
I really don’t understand why so many people have to be so confrontational and get so upset over things that in the great scheme of things really don’t matter. You might find life much less stressful if you let these minor irritations just pass you by.
You’ve created a horrible atmosphere, now why not just get over it, stop making mountains out of molehills!
Grow up …and stop being such a misery.

I’d sack the cleaner and look for a new childminder. You need people you can trust.

She DIDN'T KNOW they had already found out!!!

Placing this level of expectation on other people's reactions is generally doomed to fail, to be honest- I always think staged announcements and reveals (and proposals) are quite stressful for the people on the receiving end!

On top of that, you did know they suspected already, OP.

I understand it's been disappointing- either because the cleaner and childminder straightforwardly blabbed or, as others have said, because they assumed the ILs would already know. Even so, you've got to keep it in proportion- what part of adult life goes exactly the way we expect?

And of course you must not cut your children off feom their grandparents over something so minor- will they forgive you? Would you?

Really agree with PPs who've noted that the real issue seems to be what's going on under the surface- both your relationship with MiL and your own childhood trauma. I think you'd be very well-advised to focus on addressing those things, so that you break the cycle and create a more emotionally stable family than you had.

Maybe this thread could be the start of something very positive for you all.

She’s not the only one.