u/bakersmt

I'm so conflicted at the moment. This is my second trimester, in my second pregnancy. Our first was a homebirth for many, many reasons. However it was also 3 years ago, I'll be 41 when I deliver this one.

My last birth didn't go badly. I didn't really realize I was in labor until I was really far along as I have a high pain tolerance. My husband annoyed the crap out of me the entire time and wasn't the least but helpful so at a minimum I'm hiring a doula no matter where I deliver. We have also moved states so it would be new midwives. The issues that arise last time were that my daughter got stuck so we had to do some tricks to unstick her and in that process I became severely dehydrated because I couldn't keep anything down. We almost hospital transferred as a result so I could get a saline IV. Literally everything else about the experience was lovely. I wouldn't change it except an IV and a doula.

I also met an OB to to confirm and date the pregnancy and OMG she was horrible. Tried doing a pap smear without even telling me and I'm not due, started generally bossing me around and fear mongering instantly before we even confirmed the pregnancy. The same thing happened last time with OBs and I don't really want to do this even 2 more times to find an OB that isn't pushing everything that's completely unnecessary. Like we had the genetic testing done with #1 and she said we should do it again. Ugh.

Should I try a midwife run birth center? Is it similar? I basically want the availability of saline IV and not being stressed about my house being messy when the midwives arrive.

Hi all. I’m the one that was proposing a visit to MIL and other family/friends for thanksgiving.

I provided the olive branch to my husband and he readily accepted with all of my terms and conditions. Our reasoning was that this type of visit (staying in an air bnb and scheduling with MIL while sharing our time with other family and friends that she can’t self invite herself along \*aka boundaries\*) worked with my guilt trippy, manipulative sister so it is worth a shot with MIL. I also have the benefit of escaping to the air bnb if MIL annoys me. My therapist gave me the go ahead as long as my reasoning isn’t sacrificing myself for MIL but trying to find something I can live with for myself, daughter and DH. Couples therapist thinks it’s a great middle ground to see if it is possible to mend the relationship, and that it is on my husband to learn to manage his mother for this visit, the way I manage my family.

My husband then threw in that he would like to address the elephant in the room of MIL‘s poor behavior and what we need for a good relationship going forward. Ok, cool, because we can always leave if she gets too manipulative, defensive or toxic in other ways.

The new development is that while we are technically married, we didn’t have a wedding. MIL is unaware that DH and I are planning one abroad. The wedding planning has also been delayed to next October because we just found out we are pregnant with #2. So there’s a lot coming at her all at once. Around thanksgiving should be 2nd trimester and I’m small so it will be very obvious. We would prefer to tell her in person. Thankfully the pregnancy will also allow me to escape because I’m “tired” or whatever if I just don’t want to be around her.

That being said, we were thinking of starting the conversation about expectations moving forward as a “since so many things are changing so quickly, we would like to move forward with clearer expectations than we did with baby # 1.” type conversation. this is instead of a shit sandwich (good behavior, behavior that needs improvement, good behavior) because her behavior has not actually improved per my DH and my very limited communication with her. MIL also complained that her grandparent reality didn’t match her expectations when she was complaining about me behind my back. This is probably true but she also didn’t communicate her expectations to us at all outside of the passive aggressive “in my culture the grandparents raise the kids, see”. This is one of the things we are planning on addressing, her piss poor communication, entitlement, enmeshment and generally assuming she gets a vote in our family choices. She also prefers to lie to save her skin so we will be having this conversation together as a team.

Should we give her a day in between to process the baby and wedding situation before we address the elephant? What is the best way to move forward with a conversation of this magnitude? In public, at her home where she is comfortable? Should we with until her long term boyfriend is around (20+ years)? One of the things we need to address is how she harps on FIL constantly so this could get weird. But also she is much better behaved when he is around so IDK. If it is clear we should end the conversation, how should we do that? Just get up and leave? Please keep in mind our 3 yo will be present as the last time she saw anyone except MIL she was 6 months old and remembers no one, also, I’m pregnant.

As a closing consideration, I would prefer to do this before the baby arrives. I feel now that this is my last ditch effort to give her a chance to step up before I wash my hands of her and would prefer that is done before an infant complicates things again. Not looking for “don’t do this” I’m looking for more of a “this is how you should handle this poor situation while not losing your pregnancy hormones all over someone that you have years of resentment towards.” Additionally, I’m also unbelievably nice when I’m pregnant, not so much post partum. Like, not like myself nice, sassy but nice, it’s really weird.

Thanks in advance and thanks for reading!

Hi all. I’m the one that was proposing a visit to MIL and other family/friends for thanksgiving.

I provided the olive branch to my husband and he readily accepted with all of my terms and conditions. Our reasoning was that this type of visit (staying in an air bnb and scheduling with MIL while sharing our time with other family and friends that she can’t self invite herself along *aka boundaries*) worked with my guilt trippy, manipulative sister so it is worth a shot with MIL. I also have the benefit of escaping to the air bnb if MIL annoys me. My therapist gave me the go ahead as long as my reasoning isn’t sacrificing myself for MIL but trying to find something I can live with for myself, daughter and DH. Couples therapist thinks it’s a great middle ground to see if it is possible to mend the relationship, and that it is on my husband to learn to manage his mother for this visit, the way I manage my family.

My husband then threw in that he would like to address the elephant in the room of MIL‘s poor behavior and what we need for a good relationship going forward. Ok, cool, because we can always leave if she gets too manipulative, defensive or toxic in other ways.

The new development is that while we are technically married, we didn’t have a wedding. MIL is unaware that DH and I are planning one abroad. The wedding planning has also been delayed to next October because we just found out we are pregnant with #2. So there’s a lot coming at her all at once. Around thanksgiving should be 2nd trimester and I’m small so it will be very obvious. We would prefer to tell her in person. Thankfully the pregnancy will also allow me to escape because I’m “tired” or whatever if I just don’t want to be around her.

That being said, we were thinking of starting the conversation about expectations moving forward as a “since so many things are changing so quickly, we would like to move forward with clearer expectations than we did with baby # 1.” type conversation. this is instead of a shit sandwich (good behavior, behavior that needs improvement, good behavior) because her behavior has not actually improved per my DH and my very limited communication with her. MIL also complained that her grandparent reality didn’t match her expectations when she was complaining about me behind my back. This is probably true but she also didn’t communicate her expectations to us at all outside of the passive aggressive “in my culture the grandparents raise the kids, see”. This is one of the things we are planning on addressing, her piss poor communication, entitlement, enmeshment and generally assuming she gets a vote in our family choices. She also prefers to lie to save her skin so we will be having this conversation together as a team.

Should we give her a day in between to process the baby and wedding situation before we address the elephant? What is the best way to move forward with a conversation of this magnitude? In public, at her home where she is comfortable? Should we with until her long term boyfriend is around (20+ years)? One of the things we need to address is how she harps on FIL constantly so this could get weird. But also she is much better behaved when he is around so IDK. If it is clear we should end the conversation, how should we do that? Just get up and leave? Please keep in mind our 3 yo will be present as the last time she saw anyone except MIL she was 6 months old and remembers no one, also, I’m pregnant.

As a closing consideration, I would prefer to do this before the baby arrives. I feel now that this is my last ditch effort to give her a chance to step up before I wash my hands of her and would prefer that is done before an infant complicates things again. Not looking for “don’t do this” I’m looking for more of a “this is how you should handle this poor situation while not losing your pregnancy hormones all over someone that you have years of resentment towards.” Additionally, I’m also unbelievably nice when I’m pregnant, not so much post partum. Like, not like myself nice, sassy but nice, it’s really weird.

Thanks in advance and thanks for reading!

This would be baby #2. We didn't find out the gender with #1 and are taking that route again. We have a couple of girls names chosen. They are so easy for us. The boys names not so much. We settled on a boy name I wouldn't choose this time around with our first pregnancy. And at the end we scrapped it so we literally didn't have a boys name even while giving birth.

The name he chose last time: Maximo, so that's husband's flavor.

I prefer names like Vincent, Zachary, Bradley, Sven, Kent, and would consider the honorific of Jens. My issue with Jens is the pronunciation in the US where we live. It was one of the few names we both considered last time though.

Heritage we are (I'm pretty dead set on not choosing a name outside of our heritage), British, Danish, Norwegian, German, Polish, Chinese and Vietnamese.

Names that are a no: place names and names with "son" at the end.

Please help. We didn't get this done in the 8 months we had last time and idk if we will agree this time around.

Please see my post history for the in depth details of MIL.

MIL and I are not the type of personalities that mesh, even before my baby arrived. After birth, obviously things got worse even though I had assumed they would improve (stupid I know). She's the type that will take 10 miles when you give her an inch, bulldozes her way, enmeshed with son (he's getting better), self invites, never apologizes but expects to rug sweep boundary stomping etc...

To start, I tried forgiving everything from the pre baby years and spent my baby's first Christmas with MIL. She took over my child and basically shoved me aside, walked in on me naked breastfeeding and didn't apologize, stole firsts etc. So I said never again on Christmas. We tried hosting her for my daughter's first 4th of July. It wasn't great but I was really out of it. Just standard MIL behaviors. It came out later that she was mad at me for how I treated her because I was "distant". I put all hosting on my husband because my daughter didn't sleep for well over a year and I EBF so I was ded. So we tried the following mother's day. Allowed her to come on vacation with us. She was so obnoxious, I told her off a couple of times and my husband said never ever again would she join us on vacation. I had also changed my plans from seeing my mom and grandma to vacationing with MIL. After this, MIL was caught talking behind my back about how awful I was on that trip. Glad I changed my plans and sacrificed and actual vacation for her to hate me anyway.

On to the current situation, I was sent receipts of all the things she's been saying about me behind my back. These things were said while she was demanding dates for us to host her. I told my husband that she wouldn't be hosted until an apology was made and she openly discussed with me wtf her problem is. He agreed. She half apologized and then went radio silent after dictating to me how my marriage should be managed and that things my husband and I have decided amongst ourselves. She very obviously thinks she's a 3rd person in our marriage. I told my husband she can visit but we will not host given her immaturity around the entire situation.

That being said, my husband sees me planning a trip with my daughter to spend time with my side of the family and sees my daughter making plans with FIL. He is sad his mom isn't involved in our lives how he wants her to be. He's asking how we can move past this and plan anything with her.

I'm the type of person that will try every iteration or variable I can think of to make it work (hence allowing her to join our vacation). So I thought of us traveling to her over Thanksgiving week. We would get an Airbnb and there's many family members there we could visit so she doesn't monopolize the entire trip. It's literally exactly how I visit my family. I would also have firm boundaries around her constantly inviting herself to every get together and take a day or two to myself. Additionally, I think of thanksgiving as a throw away holiday as it wasn't heavily emphasized in my upbringing outside of the food aspect.

Am I crazy for thinking this variation couldn't possibly be that bad? Has anyone tried something similar? Can anyone help me figure out how this could go wrong? I haven't suggested it to my husband yet, I want to consider everything carefully first.

My MIL is very much a JN on most days. This is just a minor annoyance in comparison to her usual stuff.

It’s my daughter’s B-Day and DH facetimes MIL so my daughter can open the presents she sent. IDC about that, it keeps my daughter busy while I’m finishing up getting ready for her party and I enjoy doing it. However, MIL makes the same inane comments every single time she sends my daughter gifts. It is a passive aggressive dig at me because I have refused to kin keep her relationship with DH. She says every single time “I just don’t know what to get her because I don’t know what she’s into these days.“ Then she gets passive aggressive with my daughter and guilts her about the infrequent facetimes, like my daughter knows how to dial a phone, she’s a toddler.

Cue me fuming over a petty annoyance that’s been going on for years. I have sent her the link to my daughter’s PUBLIC AMAZON WISHLIST for the first 2 years of my child’s life on every flipping holiday. Literally every one. I update it constantly for family because they all live far away. MIL doesn’t even have to buy it on there, she can just look at it and buy it somewhere else. She has literally never looked at it because she always makes this dumb comment. She’s also the queen of buying duplicates of what we already have. Which is literally why I have the list, to avoid that. Every single holiday without fail she buys my kid something she already has and is then super disappointed that my daughter isn’t excited about the duplicate…

I wouldn’t even take the comment that way from anyone else but she has repeatedly told me that I “should” (yes she tells me what I should do constantly) be taking responsibility for including her more than I do. Like lady, this is why I don’t. This is why your son doesn’t. Maybe try to be a pleasant human and we would make more of an effort.

I thought we could all vent about the ways they are impacting our Mother’s Day. Alternatively, we can brag about boundaries we have set that keep our Mother’s Day for us. Or even both!

I’ll go first.

We are on the boundary train, toot toot. I stopped managing my husbands relationship with MIL well before the baby. However, recently we had to put firm boundaries in place with her that she doesn’t like. DH and I are in therapy, both couples and individual. So he has been working on his backbone. We found out MIL was badmouthing me behind my back while inviting herself for us to host her for a visit in “May or June” haha no. We decided that she could only visit if she apologizes and she and I clear the air. She has apologized but has swept everything else under the rug blaming a work colleague for stressing her out. Since mature behavior hasn’t been demonstrated, we aren’t allowing a visit to be planned. DH also is notoriously bad at gifts and never remembers to send them, so for the second holiday in a row, MIL has nothing to open on the day of. She’s going to be big mad. I am enjoying my Mother’s Day with a spa package and a steak and lobster dinner SOLO. Side note OMFG I’m excited. SO DH will be dealing with her wrath about her mistreatment on Mother’s Day and I don’t have to deal with it. Enforcing boundaries is exhausting with MIL’s. It’s been a huge issue planning for their conversation. I’ve talked about it way too much with my husband. On the plus side he took notes as he panics in confrontation and suddenly offers up the sun, moon and stars so our therapist offered this tool. So hopefully he can stick to the agreed plan and requests that we mapped out in therapy.

How about everyone else? I’m so interested in how people are dealing with their MIL’s (or mom’s) this Mother’s Day. Better yet, how is your spouse handling them?! I hope for improvement for everyone but thought we could all also advise those that need help!