I don’t usually post but this one stirred up something in me. My PIL have always been overly opinionated, I had a miscarriage before first born 13 years ago. Then went on to have our rainbow baby girl. They continued to over buy and over step throughout pregnancy but as DH is an only child we allowed the ‘excitement’. I didn’t want to be wasteful so as they bought so much clothes it was hard for us to chose some for our first baby that we actually liked (they continued to buy dark navy and deep red for a baby girl).
They did however buy us our first pram which was a god send as they let us choose.
Fast forward to my second born, a short year later. Our boy, when we announced to his mum she said ‘I don’t know how to break this to your dad’. I shruggged that off as weird. But after a week or so I said, how did he respond? She replied ‘ahh, well. I think he’s ok with it now and he’s just had to accept it’.
That sunk me and has stayed with me ever since. No excitement, nothing.
The week before he was born she said, it’s just dawned on us we’ve not bought anything for baby, here’s £30 go get him some baby grows.
The sheer contrast between both of my pregnancies and how they treated me was Heartbreaking, I had my kids at 19 and 21 with no family of my own to support. I let their opinions on me having kids hang over for too long. I would have loved a third but was scared of their reactions now I kick myself.
We did try for a third and had an ectopic and I can’t have children anymore, part of me wished I just done things my way and had them all steps and stairs like I wanted instead of waiting so long, it might not have mattered but I’ve never forgave them or myself for how I allowed them to make me feel about my pregnancies, and my reproductive system which is absolutely none of their business.