I apologies if this post is upsetting to those who have suffered similar. My DS has suffered various miscarriages and losses when she was in her twenties, maybe thirties. I was too young to realise or understand at the time as there is a big age gap between us and she lived in her own house when she got married; later I went to boarding school. Many years have passed and I have 2 children of my own, my brothers and their families also have children. Even one of my nieces has children by now. My sister is 53 now and still whenever she gets upset about something she gets “angry/upset” “because she doesn’t have children”. I am not even sure if that’s the right way to describe it.
I will give some examples. I am sure there are more incidents but these are some of the more recent I can remember:
My brother married late, meet his wife when he was in his late fourties, second marriage for his wife and she brought 3 children into the marriage. Apparently she had some treatment reversed so they could have a child together. By that time my brother was 50. When the baby was born my sister came to the christening but was very angry at SIL. Always avoiding them even they live practically next door to each other. When the little girl was around 3 and they coincided at my mums on mothers day; my mum said to the little girls. “Look that’s your aunty” to which my sister said; ”I am no aunt to her” and stormed off.
Whenever my mum says anything about me half complementary DS will have a fit accusing me of being the favourite “because I have children”.
At Easter my kids (they were 8 and 10 at that time) and my second brothers children (who are in their twenties already) played cards again at my mums house. My sister walks in to wish happy Easter. My kids didn’t immediately jump up and run to her (they were in the middle of a game) and sees my brother, wife and baby daughter sitting around the table with us. She immediately leaves and says on the way out, I had a long day at work and need to see my InLaws. She then sends me a message saying “Tell DD (my daughter) that I can’t come to her upcoming communion as I am not important anyway. Others are more important to them”.
Sorry for being so long winded; what I essentially want to get to: Will it ever stop hurting? She doesn’t talk about any losses. My mum probably wasn’t very helpful when she went through the pregnancy losses. Maybe she never talked about it then. It is difficult to navigate around her, always having to be careful what to say (for example about other babies in the family).
I definitely understand that she must hurt. But is it really normal to keep reacting to other (usually family members) women having children in this way?