Would really appreciate your advice. My DF died about 9 months ago. I have a 4 month old baby conceived via and egg donor. He is beautiful but wakes about 7 or 8 times during the night and I am pretty exhausted and not sure I am seeing things clearly. DM doesn't know that my son is via an egg donor, and am not sure I should tell her. I also have a DD aged 8 who is gorgeous and strong willed (not naughty and I admire her strong will). I would describe myself as easy going and compliant. My DM lives about a 2 hour drive away and is hugely anxious (this has become understandably worse since my DF passed away). She cannot make the journey to come and visit us here due to her anxiety. So we always go to visit her. However I've just come home from a visit that was awful. DM gets anxious about everything - if my daughter exhibits any of her strong willed behaviour, if I try to help I end up breaking something in the kitchen or loading the dishwasher the wrong way. We went for a trip out to see animals (which my daughter loved) - DM said she was finding it too much and went to sit outside. About 40 mins later she came back to find me looking incredibly cross, saying there was only 20mins before the car park ticket was due to run out (she'd bought the ticket and told me we had between 4 to 6 hours. We'd been there for 4 hours). I rushed out, took us all home - and as I could see our visit was causing so much anxiety, I said we'd go home that evening. She told me not to be 'horrible'. I've come home thinking about my childhood. My DM has always been controlling - and I was remembering incident such as having my head held under the bath, or accusing my DF of 'looking at my legs' when I was a teenager. So what do I do? It just seems so unkind not to visit again. She is alone and anxious but my visits seem to make her worse. I definitely don't think I should tell her that her grandson is via an egg donor. I could book a hotel near her when I go and stay, but she wouldn't want this either. She hates me driving and gets incredibly anxious about this too (weather, road conditions etc).