'AITA for telling my MIL she’s lost her privileges to be at any further of my children’s births?' UPDATED 2X
"AITA for telling my MIL she’s lost her privileges to be at any further of my children’s births?"
Throwaway account because some of my family knows about my other accounts. Also, super sorry for the long story. It’s all pretty important. My wife (24F) and I (27M) have been together for about 3 years now and we have one child together (5 months old).
Further important context: I am an experienced paramedic. My MIL and I have always seemed to have a strained relationship, mostly due to political/religious views, but I’ve always attempted to keep it cordial because my wife is very close with her mother.
Like call her most days, sometimes multiple times. Due to this, regardless of how much she frustrates me because of her relentless need to push her beliefs onto me, I keep the peace the best I can.
Prior to my son’s birth, I was never entirely sure why she disliked me. The only real confirmations I had was that I strongly pushed for my wife to pursue her independence in her senior year of college (get her drivers license, own her own car, get whatever job she wanted) and prior to that she HEAVILY depended on her mothers support.
My wife and I then mutually decided to pack up and move across the country to a more outdoorsy and opportunity rich state. To my MIL, I essentially stole her daughter away to a “dirty liberal state” and took any opportunity for her to have a close relationship with her (according to texts she sent my wife).
Anyway, fast forward a bit and we’re figuring out birth plans with my wife. The original boundary I set was her mom could stay with us for 2 weeks following the birth to assist around the house.
Since we moved, our support system obviously was drastically less, and the help would be useful. Unfortunately, my wife’s pregnancy was incredibly difficult to plan, so her mom ended up showing up about 2 weeks early, before the birth. It was mostly fine (other than it being literally right during the election and her mom would absolutely not stop talking about it), until we got to the delivery day.
Incident #1 My wife was in labor, but no water broken. I decided it was a good time to catch a cat nap as I’d been awake for about 28 hours at this point. My wife had gotten an epidural and was comfortable, all was well.
I asked my MIL to keep an eye on things, and I dozed off. Shortly after falling asleep, I hear the sound of a blood pressure alarm going off. Before I even fully understand what I’m doing, I am on my feet and out the door yelling for our nurse.
They brought in medication and my wife did much better after that, but she required adjustments to her medication to make it so her BP wouldn’t tank again. My MIL was furious that I reacted how I did, that I apparently “gave her an opportunity to take care of her daughter and then ripped it away”. Whatever, we moved on eventually.
Incident #2 The time had come for my wife to be induced and she’s actively pushing. I am right next to her, holding her leg back and holding her hand, trying to be as supportive as I could. My MIL is standing behind the bed, supporting her neck.
During one of the breaks between pushing sessions, my MIL steps back, and I slide my hand behind my wife’s neck to support her head until my MIL is back to take her position again. For whatever reason, my MIL does not retake her position, and instead steps back and sits on the couch where she remains until the baby is finally born.
I wasn’t paying attention to her at the time but she was apparently crying. I originally chalked it up to “my only daughter is having a baby and this is emotional for me”, no big deal. Until she was still crying an hour later, through the entire golden hour.
Then for another hour after that, to the point where the nurse asked if she was okay. I’m not talking about quiet sniffles her, I’m talking snot nosed sobs. Come to find out later, her words and not mine, I had “stolen her moment” during the birth. What the EFF. Every time I look back on the first two hours with my first son, her tantrum taints the memory. It freaking sucks.
Incident #3 When we finally get home, she spends the first 2 days being helpful, no real issues. Then she starts to attack my wife because the baby is having latching issues.
Mind you, she NEVER breastfed her kids. My wife is struggling from her post partum issues as well as the latching issues, and her mom never missed a moment to tell her all the things she is doing wrong.
She also would get upset anytime we put the baby down for a nap because “she’s missing time she won’t have” with him because we live too far away. At one point, my wife and MIL were in the nursery and they were having trouble setting up our Owlet monitor (which is a pulse oximeter at its basic level, something I have a metric ton of experience with).
I walk in and say something along the lines of “Oh I can help with that” and my MIL looks me up and down and snaps “Oh because you know SOOO much about this”. My wife snapped at her that I quite literally use them daily, and my MIL stormed out of the room.
Anyway, that’s just a taste of the essentially daily and nightly torment we went through for a month with her MIL during the first kid. We haven’t told her this yet, but we plan on having INCREDIBLY strict guidelines for the next two kids we plan on having.
She’s only allowed to visit us for the first 3 days following the birth, she cannot stay at our house, and any sideways comments or “woe-is-me” moments will result in her being kicked out.
My parents took a backseat to MIL during the first birth (even though MIL has two other grandchildren and this was my parents first) so I plan on asking my own mother to stay with us for the first adjustment period instead. Does this seem harsh? Or is there a better way to go about this?
Edit 1: Poor wording on my part, but I meant my wife and I talked about who we should have instead for the next birth as direct support and my moms name came up, it’s just my responsibility to ask her, which is why I said “I” instead of “we”.
Edit 2: My wife is and has always had the upmost authority when it comes to the birth of our past and future kids; she just values my opinion. We had a lot of discussions after her mom left about her behavior, but my wife does not want to cut off communication or ruin that relationship, and I love my wife much more than I hate my MIL, so I will continue to support that decision.
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP’s post:
NTA. STOP letting this horrible woman hijack your family's happy moments & taint your otherwise wonderful memories!!! She's an emotional terrorist! DO NOT NEGOTIATE WITH TERRORISTS!!!!! I myself refuse to, and my life is soooo much more peaceful now!!!
You are NTA. You are being absolutely reasonable. I’m glad you and your wife see eye to eye on this. This is your life event and your home and your special time with a newborn!
As long as your wife is on board (which sounds like the case) NTA, but if she isn't and you're unilaterally declaring she can't have her mother there when she gives birth YTA.
Let me jump to the end here and save you time and hassle. Hard, firm boundaries and grey rocking. You’ve got the benefit of distance which is good. Personally I’d have tossed her out on her ass a long time ago, but it was an intense time and people like her LOVED to grab the reins when everyone’s preoccupied elsewhere. And at your age I wasn’t as attuned to it.
I mean really consider her behavior. Her daughter, presumably a piece of her own heart living outside her chest, was attempting one of the most stressful, painful, emotional experiences of her entire life. Your wife’s life, mind, and body will forever be demarcated by this experience. What was her mother thinking about? Where was her consideration? Who needed tending to?
Not your wife, her daughter. Kind of messed up, isn’t it? You’re a dad now. Imagine yourself plopping down to weep as your new child becomes a parent and makes you a grandparent. I wouldn’t let her set eyes on my kid ever again unless it was through plate glass. NTA.
NTA. She acted like a spoiled child during ur son’s birth. ‘Stole her moment’? Seriously? It’s not her moment, it’s ur wife’s and ur son’s. She’s trying to make everything about her, and it’s exhausting. The pulse ox comment? That’s just her being petty and insecure. And the constant crying and ‘woe is me’ act? That’s manipulative. U’re not responsible for her feelings, especially when she’s acting like a toddler.
U have every right to set strict boundaries. Three days is actually pretty generous. If she can’t act like an adult, she doesn’t deserve to be there at all. Ur wife and kids deserve peace and a drama-free environment. U’re doing the right thing. And don’t feel bad about having ur mom there. She deserves it after being pushed aside.