Crazy!!
I would like to know what you would have done if you were in my shoes.
So, after I gave birth to my baby, I wasn’t allowed to go home because according to their tradition, I had to stay and sleep at my mother-in-law’s house.
Once we were there, my baby was passed around from arm to arm like a ball. Nobody even asked me if I was okay with visitors — the baby was simply shown to everyone. After about a week, there was constant criticism about my breastfeeding, and they kept telling me I should pump milk so my mother-in-law could feed the baby with a bottle.
I told my husband how I felt, and his response was, “I feel sorry for my mother.” That made me upset, and I finally said, “Enough is enough, I’m going home.”
When I went home, there was another argument — this time about the baby’s name. His family had already decided on a name they wanted, while I, as the mother, didn’t feel like it suited my child. I wanted us to choose a name together that felt right for both of us, but they were against that and refused to accept it.
I also want to add that my mother-in-law bathed my baby. I wasn’t even allowed to bathe my own child, even though the baby was less than a week old and honestly too young for that.
Then I started being exposed on social media. My face was posted publicly because I finally started standing up for myself.
When I finally got some peace at home and felt like I could enjoy my little baby bubble and bond with my child, my mother-in-law called a friend of hers who is a doctor and started claiming that I had postpartum psychosis.
She then came to my home and questioned whether I wanted to harm myself or my baby, simply because I asked people to respect my need for alone time with my child after being overwhelmed by constant visitors and people walking all over me.
My husband did not stand by my side through any of this because my mother-in-law had told him that a woman must follow the man.
What would you have done? How would you have reacted?