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

[JustBiscoff]

Currently 37 weeks pregnant with DC2, and really starting to feel the wear and tear of juggling opportunities to rest, with working part-time and looking after a very active two year old.

The birth of DC1 had been a fairly traumatic forceps delivery, in which I lost almost 2.5 litres of blood and the baby was quite badly jaundiced, therefore requiring a prolonged stay in hospital. DC was the first grandchild/great nephew for both sides of the family, so received a constant flow of visitors in the first fortnight at home. PIL visited on day 3, and expected to be waited on hand and foot. I was still bleeding, barely able to stand up, and having a nightmare establishing breastfeeding...cue MIL clicking her fingers at DH, to 'collect the baby from his wife' so she could have a turn holding him. FIL asked me to leave the room twice whenever I needed to breastfeed, and following an hour long photo shoot of MIL holding DC (it later transpired they hadn't taken a single photo of me holding him), she demanded to know when dinner would be ready, 'because we've had such a tiring car journey'. At that point, DH almost saw red, and firmly cut the visit short, sending PIL on their way. I hope they are more considerate this time round!

Shame? That's harsh what year was it?
💐

DF came to visit when DS was a week.old. I'd had a traumatic crash CS under general, been kept in hospital for 5 days, and was feeling utterly lousy from the operation and lack of sleep.
DCousin and wife (both lovely) had also popped into visit but could see I was wilting and were about to head off. DF decided now was the time to throw a party to celebrate newborn DGS and made a big song and dance about getting out a bottle of champagne. I was about to collapse with exhaustion. Luckily DCousin read the room better and declined, and stuck to plan to head off. Still cross at DF for being so utterly insensitive to my needs.

After having a very stressful high risk pregnancy during Covid which meant I was isolating from everyone my in laws refused to test ( I didn’t know this beforehand) visited and gave us the gift of covid. My dh caught it first and had to isolate from myself and our one week old baby. I had an infection after my c section and was told to be on bed rest but I had tk do all the feeds, nappy changes etc on my own as well as sort meals for my dh and I. Plus keeping the place sterilised. We tried our best to keep it from the baby but we both caught it and I was Incredibly unwell and terrified for out little one.
The in laws still don’t understand the big deal over it all.

Why did you meet at a cafe and not her home?

Close relative was extremely vocal and scathing about the babies name. Also a colleague kept talking about how the pregnancy was so difficult for her to witness due to her own experiences and talked about miscarriage/ stillborn extremely close to my due to date. Terribly terribly sad but slightly inconsiderate.

When I had ds prematurely my mother shocked me by saying she will look after dd who was 3 as we needed to be at the hospital a lot as I was kept in for 3 days after. My sister lived at home with my mother.
on day 4 I was discharged late (8pm) and went home with dh and cried leaving ds in nicu. I called my mum to tell her her and then 10 mins later she called back - my dd had gone to sleep as usual at 730 pm but my sister (who was 24 !) had a tantrum and said if I was home then she was going to wake dd and we had to pick her up as why were they babysitting when we were both home ?? She was hateful and dd was woken and confused and took ages to settle back
at home and I had to pump through the night and then the next day we couldn’t go to nicu together so dh had to drop the breastmilk off and we had to keep swapping over as it was during swine flu and children weren’t allowed on the unit

Jesus, just reading this almost gave me an anxiety attack! Absolutely outrageous of them, as was the comment about not "sharing" the baby like they are some commodity! Glad to hear they're now your Ex in-laws, hope life is more peaceful and less stressful without them.

This thread is bonkers - I’m so sorry for all of you who have these awful family members. It’s a really hard read to hear how badly you have been treated when you were so vulnerable.

I would feel like they'd disrespected me by sharing news that wasn't theirs, but mostly I hate getting lots of texts to reply to and would find that overwhelming.

Omg my in laws said the same thing! Told my dh that he should use his paternity leave to get the garden ready for spring and then started trying to plan a hill walk. He couldn’t understand when my dh said no that he wanted to spend all of his time with us. Regretfully they gave us covid and ruined his paternity leave meaning the grass wasnt cut for a long time!

@cadburyegg

You are still married?

Oh @Tropea. Those kind of things stay with you forever.

I hope you are living a happy life now.

I was in hospital for nearly a week with DC1.
Things my (thank fuck now ex) ILs did.
once i was finally allowed home (not sure if it was the same day, or the day after) they moaned that I hadn't made sure I has things in fir them to eat. The also bitched and moaned that i didn't make dinner for anyone and told DP that he'd made a mistake having a baby with me.

SIL Arranged with the family she nannied for to take my DC with her as "baby will be better off with someone with a childcare qualification. You can go to work"

Told DP they didn’t think DC was his as "no one in our family is blonde"

When DC2 was born they told me they knew I'd get PND this time around as I wouldn't cope with 2 DC, and they were amazed I hadn't had it before. I actually did end up with PND, and was so ashamed I didn't seek help until I was suicidal.

Lol yes. Love this.

I LOVE your username.
Honestly it used to drive me insane.

SIL and FIL sneaking into the delivery suite to visit newborn DS. I bumped into them in my hospital gown on my way to have a shower. SIL wanted to know why there was a big stain up the wall - it was my blood! Totally inappropriate and it felt like a huge invasion of my privacy.

I’m much happier than if I’d stayed with that sorry excuse for a man! Thank you.

FIL refused to put his massive new dog in the kitchen while we called round when DC was 2 weeks old. It kept coming over trying to lick his face. When me and DH tried to stop it from happening we were told to stop being mean to the dog😒 He (fil) wouldn’t listen so safe to say we left early

ExH & ex PILs
We lived in a 3 bed house
Expecting twins we turned bed 2 into the nursery. Bed 3 was an odd shape but fitted 2 single beds.
Babies born by CS & we were in hospital 10 days. Parents & friends visited. We were v clear with family that we would go home & spend ExHs paternity leave at home getting used to be a family.

Pull in to drive looking forward to being home with DTs & MIL opens the front door & welcomes me into my own home!!!
Babies are asleep so I v determinley state ggat they'll go straight into nursery to continue to sleep. Only to find that the nursery no longer existed because MIL had dismantled it because she couldn't possibly sleep in a single bed.

Babies were put down to sleep in cot in our bedroom.

I then went upstairs & totally lost it.
Told EXh & PIL they could go and reinstate the nursery & spare room then leave never to return unless invited OR I would call my parents & tell them what had happened & ask them to come & collect me & Babies to go & stay with them and I would ensure that they never saw their grandchildren again.

MIL (manipulative bitch) promptly cried and went on about only wanting to help & be there for us
Because I was so distraught that she had (yet again).ruined what should have been a lovely family time I brought up all our interactions where she had been rude, unwelcoming, nasty & mean to me ending with "if I wanted help why would she think I'd ask her & not my own mother, who loves me, supports me & doesn't judge me"

They put everything back & then she demanded lunch & to see the twins & I just laughed at her and made them leave.

Looking back this was the beginning of the end for my marriage - not once did exh stand up for me & his children. He even tri3d to convince me to let them see the babies before they left - I wouldn't because I felt it would reward her bad behaviour.
Exh was like FIL; weak willed & easily lead.

I never saw MIL again whilst we were married

There are some awful stories on here. I didn't realise this stuff was so common.

@Piffyca @Lostworlds yours especially.

I was waiting for the health visitor with 7 ish day old DD who had spent the first five days in NIcU and there was a discrepancy about some marks on her face (turned out to be stork bite birthmark) because the hospital hadn’t noted them and said they were ‘probably’ bruises and a friend popped round and told me this lengthy story from her cousin who had a neighbour who in a similar scenario the health visitor and turned up with social services and taken the baby! And social services and kept the baby until the marks had been checked (in real life I went to the gp that afternoon). She then messaged later and asked if that had been insensitive and she hoped she hadn’t upset me (!)

My sister didnt like the first name I had chosen for my daughter told me so and send a card saying congratulations on the birth of Katie (the name she liked) - she then got cross when she found out the second name because that was the name she would call any future daughter of her's with her then boyfriend as it was his grandmothers name - it was also the name of our mother - and they broke up after (never had children).

My mothers best friend also came to tell me that 'none of us like the name' including my mother.

Ex-friend, after I'd had to have a CS, DD was transverse breech, cord was compressed & her head jammed under my ribs meaning she wasn't breathing & I promptly crashed & had to be recussitated - " well of course you can't actually call yourself her mother as you didn't have a proper delivery, so of course you won't be able to bf'. I'd been home less than 72 hours after a week of both of us in NICU / me on the HDU for 24 hours & then ward for 5 days. Severe PPD later (which she said I couldn't possibky have because I'd not given birth!) . There's a reason she's an ex-friend.

Thankfully DH, PIL etc were amazing.

DSis came to visit when I was 4 weeks post c-section. Woke up DS by picking him up for a cuddle when I asked her to let him sleep, then told me we were going out shopping.
When I objected, she placed him in his pram and started getting ready to leave - all whilst telling me that she was taking him out regardless of whether I came or not.

I was young at the time (but married) and felt like I couldn't argue with her so I went along and opened up my c section scar during a difficult uphill walk.

Also had a neighbour point out that DS had lovely blonde hair. I thanked her, and she said "It's not a compliment. Strange that you and Dad both have such dark hair, isn't it?
We were both bright blonde as children. DS is now about to turn 14 and has dark brown hair.

So many awful stories. Solidarity! Nothing that bad here, just a health visitor who punched me, literally punched me, in the tit, and when I said "ow!" she said "breastfeeding's supposed to hurt".