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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

My Mums gone batshit now I'm pregnant

72 replies

AliceAbsolum · 01/08/2022 13:19

One example of many - We had our 20 week scan today. Everything was fine and we were thrilled to see the baby and get good news, find out the sex etc.

Called my mum and as usual she just made it all about her. She told me that she wanted a special gender reveal balloon (just for her) as she's coming round on Sunday. No previous mention of this at all. When I said I'd rather just tell her now and not have to go and spend money on a balloon she told me I was heartless "you only have half a heart don't you".

Then she said "The baby will have 2 mummies now". This child is donor egg so I asked her what she meant and she said "your her mummy and I'm her mummy"... What?! I quickly and firmly said "no. The baby has one mummy and one grandma, let's not go down this road". I literally had no idea what she was talking about, just desperate to get that boundary in there. She just dismissed it "oh right it's like that is it".

Honestly, I have no idea if she is just speaking thoughts without thinking and being a bit dodery and elderly, or whether this is some weird controlling thing.

We had a good morning and she had to be all weird about it. I'm dreading what she's going to be like when the baby is born.

Thanks for listening. I just don't understand her. At all.

OP posts:
Original poster
AliceAbsolum · 01/08/2022 17:58

Good idea about boundaries. She has none. One of her more insane moments was when we were having duck spring rolls, she had sticky fingers and she said "oh excuse me" and DIPPED THEM IN MY WATER GLASS to clean them off.
I mean. What planet.

OP posts:
Original poster
AliceAbsolum · 01/08/2022 17:59

As in my drinking water, not any kind of special hand cleaning water!

OP posts:
Laiste · 01/08/2022 17:59

Greenginghamdress · 01/08/2022 14:01

My mum went nuts when I was pregnant but the opposite way. She told me I wasn't ready for a baby (at 32) and shouted down the phone that her and my father didn't want their retirement ruined by looking after grandchildren 😐
Good on you for setting boundaries, repeat what you said if necessary until it gets through.
Look after yourself and your needs. Congratulations Flowers

Similar here. No actual shouting but she went weird and prickly and kept saying things like ''just so you know your father and i won't be babysitting it every other night!'' and suddenly signed up for loads of random evening clubs ect (which she gave up again when DD1 was about 6 months old). Dad was Confused by her and just took the whole lot in his stride!

I held her to her word. I've got 4 kids (3 are adults now) and i can count on one hand the number of times she babysat. And 2 of them would have been while i was in hos. having DD2 and DD3!

Hotenoughtoburnasausage · 01/08/2022 18:02

My mil was relatively average until we announced I was pregnant..
She dumped all of us.
Even her own ds.
Nowt as odd as when a pregnancy hits a family ime!!

tempester28 · 01/08/2022 18:07

How old is she? possibly the start of dementia

blackgreywhite · 01/08/2022 18:10

She didn't help you financially with IVF?
That's why she feels so entitled?

saraclara · 01/08/2022 18:11

Sometimes I hope my adult kids read mumsnet* so they appreciate that I'm not actually that bad a mum!

*but that they don't recognise me 😬

Sweatymess2022 · 01/08/2022 18:12

I feel your pain!

I'm 31 weeks pregnant and my mum has referred to My baby as Her baby several times.
It infuriates me, and I tell her each time that no, she's had her babies, this is My baby.

She has also said she thinks that because I'm not married to my dp of 2 years, that me and the baby (not dp) should move back home!! This is not a religious thing FYI, my mums been married twice and had me out of wedlock.
Thankfully dp was not around to hear this and I have no intention of telling him.

I love my mum but she's always been on another planet when it comes to boundaries, I'm not looking forward to feeling more stressed out by her when the baby arrives!

Aquamarine1029 · 01/08/2022 18:13

Please be smart enough to not but her one of those daft balloons. You can't give her an inch. You'll regret it if you do.

RaininSummer · 01/08/2022 18:16

Haven't read whole thread but that behaviour really is just so insane. Does she behave like a person a few sandwiches short if a picnic in other areas of life?

SammySammySammytheBetterfly · 01/08/2022 18:26

Maybe she was just kidding around and being itt on purpose - many are. But people need some sense of humour to appreciate or recognise that.

SammySammySammytheBetterfly · 01/08/2022 18:27

What would have been so bad about one ballon? It’s a one time thing?

DirectionToPerfection · 01/08/2022 18:32

SammySammySammytheBetterfly · 01/08/2022 18:27

What would have been so bad about one ballon? It’s a one time thing?

Are you OP's mum? 🤔

Demanding a balloon is bloody weird. So is referring to your daughter's unborn baby as your own.

Heatherjayne1972 · 01/08/2022 18:41

Nope
I’d just say ‘oh by the way mum baby is a boy/ girl- now do you want tea or coffee?’ Just drop it into the conversation
unless you want to do the gender reveal thing that Is

In your shoes op id be less available for a while. Just vague information ’yes baby due x month’.
Yes we have everything we need
baby going to childminder / nursery
yes I’m fine etc

and don’t tell her you’re in labour / home from hospital etc until you’re ready
Has she got a door key? - because if so she will let herself in ( bitter experience there with mil)

myyellowcar · 01/08/2022 18:43

Dont give her an inch but don’t engage with arguing either, if she’s anything like my mum you will always come out as the bad guy anyway.

I think pregnancy and new babies do bring out the worst in certain types of grandparent. My mother seems to think she should still have authority over my life and therefore by extension she has authority over my child and how he is parented. She oversteps and it’s insidious and passive aggressive so you can’t tackle it without ‘after all I do for you’ hysterics. I disengage and avoid visits, when he’s a bit older I’ll step back further.

BlueWhat · 01/08/2022 18:49

MissConductUS · 01/08/2022 16:50

I have never, ever, in all my nearly 70 years on this planet, come across this anywhere other than on here!

Me neither. I've never run into this in the US. My MIL told us not to assume she was available for childcare, which we were fine with.

Me neither! It's completely batshit crazy!

Why would anyone say this! Madness!

Not disbelieving OP btw. Just dumbfounded.

Original poster
AliceAbsolum · 01/08/2022 18:57

Maybe she does have a weird mothering thing. I'll never forget overhearing her say to my FIL that she always thought she would "adopt a little deaf and dumb boy, and I'd be the one that made him talk" 😳

I'm absolutely not doing her her own gender reveal balloon. Grim

OP posts:
Original poster
AliceAbsolum · 01/08/2022 18:57

Maybe she does have a weird mothering thing. I'll never forget overhearing her say to my FIL that she always thought she would "adopt a little deaf and dumb boy, and I'd be the one that made him talk" 😳

I'm absolutely not doing her her own gender reveal balloon. Grim

OP posts:
SoverNow · 01/08/2022 19:12

I'd not share the sex of the baby with your dm, just tell your that you're not telling anyone until baby is born.

Dipsy12 · 01/08/2022 20:08

Oh god, she sounds exactly like my mum OP. Didn't get any better after DC was born, in fact it got so bad it nearly broke me. Nearly 4 years on am now v low contact and have kept her away from DC2 almost entirely. I just couldn't face the thought of a crying newborn and a self indulgent hyper critical mother screaming "will you shut that baby up, I can't take it anymore" down the stairs at me in my own house. She walked out of my house on boxing Day when I had a 6 week old because she couldn't handle it and I didn't hear from her for 3 months.

Put boundaries in place now and don't let her make you feel like shit when you've got a newborn x

thegreylady · 01/08/2022 20:23

I think these grandma/mums know that every woman is born with all the eggs she will ever have. In a sense a daughter’s eggs develop in her inside her mother.
But… you are using a donor egg so this couldn’t apply.
I am grandma to 9 I don’t want to be their mum, grandma is much more fun 🙂

NotMyDayJob · 01/08/2022 20:42

thegreylady · 01/08/2022 20:23

I think these grandma/mums know that every woman is born with all the eggs she will ever have. In a sense a daughter’s eggs develop in her inside her mother.
But… you are using a donor egg so this couldn’t apply.
I am grandma to 9 I don’t want to be their mum, grandma is much more fun 🙂

Thanks for pointing that out, just what someone pregnant with donor eggs wants to hear...

I have no advice OP just wanted to say congratulations. My DE baby is five months old.

Although I guess the only thing I would say is, you definitely need to shut down that two mummies thing. At some point you need to think about how you tell your baby about their genetic parenthood and if you've got your mum banging on about being another mummy that is really going to confuse things

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