Family announced my babies birth

[ruthkinlan]

Hi there ladies, am I overreacting? I recently gave birth to a beautiful healthy baby the birth itself was long and traumatic resulting in an emergency cesarian. Afterwards I was taking directly to recovery and had not had a chance to hold or even get a proper look at my baby.
When I finally got out of recovery hours later and baby was sleeping I picked up my phone to message friends with my happy news. I knew my hubby had informed just close family.
When I looked at my phone there was countless Facebook notifications. It turns our a family member had announced my babies birth on Facebook while I was in recovery having not even got to hold my baby yet. This announcement included gender, name, weight and even a picture of my child. To make matters worse I rarely share personal info on FB and had stated I did not want any info about the baby on FB. All family knew my feelings on this matter. I feel incredibly betrayed and cheated out of getting to personally share my wonderful news with closest friends. I've tried to gloss over the matter and not let it affect my happiness but I just can't look at the family member without feeling very angry with them.
Am I justified or overreacting?

It's just so self centred for someone to do this, not their baby not their news to share imo. It's just trying to get attention and likes, if it was genuine excitement she could have just called you or sent flowers or something in real life, not gone straight to attention seeking on social media. Your MILs sister is a bit pathetic to need the attention, I'd feel a bit sorry for her but still be livid. I have a relative who posts gushing updates about dd on her Facebook and it still pisses me off, I'm not on Facebook and it's just totally unnecessary for her to do it.

I had that happen. Posted by someone who doesn't even have her FB privacy set up well, so the post was public

I would be messaging both MIL and her sister and asking to delete the post, all the details, and to never post pictures of your child on public forums again.

Cite privacy concerns. Educate them about internet safety. Set up the tone now. Be polite but tell her she overstepped the mark.

I would include MIL in the message as she is your "link" to the person who did this, unless you have a close relationship with her sister.

Firstly congratulations on your new arrival
Funny enough it was MIL’s sister who announced “its a girl” on Facebook before we had a chance to speak to anyone ourselves
I get that it comes from a good place but these people need to engage their brains and realise it’s not about them and is not their news to tell!

Oh no! congrats on your baby!

I’m 37 weeks, and I just spent 2 hours explaining to my sister about why she would not be the first person I call after I give birth, how I won’t be immediately sending her photos or updating FB. I told her I’d need some time to recover, deal with the trauma of birth, deal with the baby doing its checks, etc. and that she would know in due time. I also told her that as soon as we do tell people that they shouldn’t post anything on social media as we’re not even sure we’re going to post ourselves.

When we found out we were pregnant, she kept asking me when I was going to update FB, tell everyone, etc. I kept asking her why she needed to know, and why this was so important to her?? She’s the type of person who MUST do a separate post, right after I post about something exciting in my life, that announces it to her friends that her sister is getting married, finishing her PhD, moving abroad, having a baby. I just don’t understand, usually I untag myself in the post and tell her to please respect our privacy. I have privacy settings on FB for a reason, I only want my immediate FB friends, not her friends and her friends friends to know such private things about me. I’ve stopped posting on FB because of it, and my other sister told her best friend to de friend my sister because she kept snooping about what my other sister was doing.

She just didn’t understand why she couldn’t share the news immediately, and why she wouldn’t be able to FaceTime us immediately after me giving birth. She said, well can I get a FT when they’re stitching you up? I said, absolutely not. Why would you?!?! I said you’ll probably get a photo or two once I’ve fed the baby for the first time, had a nap, ate, had some coffee, and feel ready to deal with all of the questions and notifications I’m going to get after telling just one person that the baby has arrived.

She was not pleased when I told her that my mom and my husbands mum will be the first to know, and that she’s going to have to wait until we tell her ourselves.

I understand she’s excited, but I find it oppressive, overwhelming, and intrusive. I also find the interest fake as well. I can be excited when my friends/siblings have babies, but not so interested that I must be this involved in what is a private and important time of their lives. Just leave us be for a few hours, let us rest/recover. The baby isn’t going to disappear if you don’t find out immediately. Ugh, some people.

I didn't have the traumatic birth but my sister announced the birth of DS1. He was born at midnight so I woke up to all these notifications before I'd had chance to do my own. I'd love to give it a few days before posting this time (due imminently) but I'd be afraid of someone beating us to it.

It's crap but let it go,don't let it spoil this nice time with your new baby

This happened to me too with baby number 3 and I was so cross to come out of recovery and get loads of messages from my friends who hadn't been told by me. It also really upset our 2 elder children as they were looking forward to going into school the next day to tell everyone. At least we didn't have a name at that point, so MIL couldn't broadcast that as well. Sorry you had to deal with that. People only think of themselves sometimes.

Report the FB post and say your photo was used without your permission. It will get taken down and that deals with the immediate issue without any actual confrontation. And in a few days when you feel up to, post your own status announcing the birth and how upset you are that it was done for you while you were recovering from surgery and hadn't even held your own baby.

My sister-in-law did this to me too. I decided that I wasn't going to let it bother me, because if I had dwelt on it too much it would have had such a negative impact on that special time. So I just sort of accepted that it had happened. Overall, she is a decent person, but just a bit thoughtless. If I didn't like her for some reason it would have been harder.
Bloomin' fb!!

I would be furious too! I hope you have resolve it in some way that does not snowball into long lasting resentment.
Congratulations!

We let our relatives tell everyone. But we didn't tell them until it was all done and dusted and DH was back at home with nothing else to do. except put together the baby's room which he wouldn't help with the day before because he wanted to watch rugby

Absolutely justified and this is why DP and I agreed the order people would be told. Parents and Grandparents followed by FB notification by DP. I txt those I wanted to know in addition - all at the same time

I don't understand the whole 'beating us to it' - its not a race its a celebration...

My MIL is guilty of this she done it with her brothers engagement and likes to put photos of my ds on things like first day of school birthdays like she was there.

I've started to say out right please do not tell anyone else this or put it on fb I want to tell people myself. I pretty much state at every announcement or occation she's still guilty of sharing anything 20 seconds after I do which is very annoying.

I am so sorry. That's such a selfish thing to do! I would be absolutely livid and would not be able to stop myself from saying something.

My mum did this to me on my engagement- first had a go that he proposed away from her house then when I hung up and went to call my sisters it was engaged because was calling them!!! So I was clear to the point of being rude about announcements of DD and posting pictures of her online (she's part of so many groups).

I do thing yoknow should say something as it's unfair that you're upset and she's oblivious. Some times people are so in their own head that if you don't say anything she'll never know how inappropriate and hurtful it was and might do something similar in the future!

I had this happen to me too. Dsis put regular updates on my fb wall along the lines of 'misty has been in labour for x hours, getting worried', 'just to let you know misty has been taken for a c-section', 'misty has had a baby x at x time, welcome to the world baby x'.

I was pissed off but I knew it came from concern and not really thinking it through. Luckily she didnt put a pic. That would have really upset me. The second time round everyone had strict instructions to remain quiet.

I think you should say something.

I'm annoyed on your behalf! You are completely justified in feeling cheated.
I hate seeing these sorts of posts on fb before the parents have announced their news. E.g. Posting on the parents' fb walls "congrats X and X on the birth of Baby X. Love the name. Can't wait to meet her". It's just them letting everyone else know that they heard the news first.
If you have been informed of a birth you should offer congratulations directly and privately until the parents themselves have announced publicly.

Congratulations on your new arrival
You're right to feel cross with your MILSis, it was a mean and thoughtless thing to do. But don't torture yourself thinking that other people saw your baby before you got to hold him/her. Don't take this the wrong way, but people will have looked at the pic, then immediately forgotten about it, and moved onto the next item on their feed.
Let it go and enjoy these precious first days as a family. You'll be able to introduce the baby in person to everyone as they come to visit.

My mum did this to me with my second daughter then refused to come and meet baby until I apologised after I called her out on it.

iamapixiebutnotaniceone oh I'd be beyond furious at that! I (being the petty person I seem to have turned into) would bloody dig my heels in and refuse to apologise- her loss not yours! x

I'd be cross and I think you're fine to ask her to take the post down, however, don't let it spoil things for you. Remember, you're the one that gets to snuggle your lovely baby everyday and smell that lovely new baby smell, and you'll be the one to get a mountain of exciting 'firsts'.

I would be incandescent with rage. I would have half a mind to go nuclear all over her. She had absolutely no right to do this. She knows what she did. I expect she wanted to get one over MIL. Sister rivalry at its finest.

When we told MIL I was pregnant, she phoned family and told them before we had a chance. She also posted on Facebook: including the sex and exact due date (details we were keen not to share).

I'm 35 weeks pregnant now. At least we learned ahead of time that we need to delay giving her the birth news (it's a shame, but brought upon herself) and to tell her not to broadcast ALL the details on Facebook.

I don't think you're overreacting at all, I had the same sort of thing, my dad lives overseas so I had asked family not to put anything on Facebook until I spoke to my dad, my aunt was there when I gave birth (his sister) she took a photo and sent it to my Grandma, who put the picture on Facebook with name and weight and everything. This time round (34weeks pregnant) we aren't telling anyone until we are home 😂😂
Oh apart from my mum who will be having DD when I go to hospital 😁