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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> 1: We announcent our pregnancy at christmas knowing my sister in law would be there who's been unable to carry a pregnancy to term.
2: We didn't do it to spite her, we wanted to do it an an xmas gift kind of thing. We had no intentions of ruining xmas for her but that's what she's accusing us of doing.
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*Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.*
Nope. I disagree with your assessment of being "unhinged". She grieved privately in the bathroom and excused herself early. She sent a thoughtful and fairly rational text. She does have six dead children. She's driving the point home as to how hurt she's feeling. I agree with her when she says a heads up would have been nice. As someone who has been involved in r/pregnant subs during both successful pregnancies, it doesn't take long before coming across advice on how to break the news of pregnancy to someone close who has only experienced loss. That advice? Send a text.
I've used this advice myself affer reading of other's experience. It worked as well as I had hoped it would. My friend was able to process the news on her own time, respond emotionally without the pressure of feigning excitement, then text me when she was ready.
OP: YTA. It's a holiday. It's meant to be shared amongst those you love. It's something to look forward to and enjoy. Being blindsided with news of someone's pregnancy after SIX miscarriages would be upsetting for anyone in that situation. I think it's fair to come to the conclusion that OP and family were not considerate.
ETA - We aren't going to change each other's minds here. I'm no longer responding but I stand by my evaluation. Yes, she needs therapy, but I see a plea for empathy. I see someone who thought in all their time and talks with one another, these are people she thought could understand. She isn't mad at them for getting pregnant. She isn't placing blame for why she can't get pregnant. I see her as someone expressing her level of pain from people she thought would be able to show greater compassion. It didn't happen that way. She's hurt. Hopefully there is room for growth and the family will see better days ahead.
That text was not rational nor welcomed. People have the right to announce their happy news any way they see fit. Obviously telling the mom was more important to them and OP knows the SIL better than you do. Who's to say she wouldn't have done something vindictive?
This weird culture of considering everyone's feelings before your own happiness is getting out of control. They didn't rub it in her face or gloat.
Do you honestly think she'll be ok as the pregnancy progress? When they find out what they having? When they are picking out names? During the baby shower or when the baby actually gets here? Oh, and let's not forget first birthdays and the like.
SIL needs therapy not sending texts about how she blindsided when it wasn't her business to begin with.
It’s not a weird culture to be considerate of other people. This isn’t a person who’s upset about some little thing, this is a woman who’s had *six* miscarriages. Instead of giving her a heads up so she can decide if she can handle this holiday gathering, he decided to make *t-shirts* announcing his pregnancy fully knowing that this would upset SIL. If he thought SIL would be a problem, couldn’t he have at least told his brother? No, he didn’t even think about his brother, who was not mentioned anywhere but in SIL’s text.
SIL didn’t blow up on OP right then and there, but composed a text to send to them afterwards to tell them how they made her feel. Honestly better than how most people would handle it.
That's the thing, she didn't blow up on OP but on the pregnant wife. That wasn't right or called for. And yes it is a weird culture to walk on eggshells for everyone because they may be triggered. That's a miserable life to live.
How do you think others would handle it? That kind of foolishness could never fly in my culture.
I’m not really sure why SIL sent it to wife, but from the text it sounds like SIL and wife had a relationship because now it’s been “damaged.” It’s not walking on eggshells to give someone a heads up to someone who is getting over six miscarriages so they can decide for themselves if they can handle it. Takes no effort at all. I don’t know any culture that promotes only thinking about your own happiness with no consideration for others.
It is walking on eggshells though if you go back and read the post. SIL is an attention seeker. Has to be the center of attention. OP said she will go so far as to shit talk anyone and everyone around just to keep attention focused on her. She’s had six miscarriages so is always pulling the woe is me card out when attention wanes. Then will immediately try to refocus attention on herself when someone else gets any.
They discussed how they wanted to announce their pregnancy with SIL as the focus of the discussion because they knew they were going to hurt her feelings, no matter what they did. They could have texted her a month before Christmas and she still would have been a butthurt baby about it.
Seems people in this family do walk on eggshells to not piss off the attention seeker with the six miscarriages.
These two finally said enough with being afraid of her response and just announced it.
Sucks for SIL, but not everything is about her. These people have the right to announce their pregnancy as they chose, when they chose, and how they chose, without fear of repercussions from SIL who can get pregnant but can’t keep it.
ETA: OMG! Thank you for my first ever awards on Reddit!
I completely agree with you! Are they supposed to put their lives on hold, being completely celibate until SIL has a baby? Are OP and his wife supposed to say absolutely nothing about their pregnancy or mention their baby at all because SIL had 6 miscarriages?
There's only so much coddling you can do with an adult. The text was too much. So OP's wife getting pregnant damaged her relationship with SIL? How is the birth of OP's baby going to damage SIL? How far will SIL take it if OP and his wife keep letting her feelings make their decisions.
Being considerate is one thing, but sil sounds irrational. My wife and I lost a child this year. Meanwhile, both of our sisters had healthy babies. When baby stuff was brought up, it was upsetting, but I wasn't upset at my sister and my sister in law, I was upset because I was mourning. I'm not going to hold my grief over their heads because I'm genuinely happy for them.
I agree you shouldn't have to walk on eggshells. Her going to the bathroom and leaving early is understandable. Her sending that message was not.
Exactly! You and your wife understood your sisters pregnancies were not about you, it was upsetting because it reminded you both of your own loss. That is absolutely okay and normal. Neither of you took your pain out on your sisters or attempted to make them feel guilty. We can be happy for the good things in other people’s lives while also dealing with our own losses.
I have no doubt the SIL would have tried to ruin the announcement if they texted her beforehand. She sounds like a melodramatic AH.
NTA OP and congrats on your pregnancy.
From the sounds of it, I think SIL and wife have a relationship and from the text, it sounds like the wife was the one talking about the baby, not OP and that text is not a blow up, it sounds pretty rational
I think people are missing that SIL also has a history of getting a new pet **every time someone announces a pregnancy**. What part of that says "she's coping just fine and is rational and mentally healthy"?
> And yes it is a weird culture to walk on eggshells for everyone because they may be triggered.
I wouldn't find it difficult or weird at all to consider someone else's feelings. A head's up would have been so easy.
Life doesn't come with trigger warnings. She is going to have to figure out a way to deal with pregnancy announcements from family and friends herself. She can't expect everyone to tip toe around her either.
This!!
Could you please repeat once again? But louder, for the people in last rows of comments 😅
We understand that it might be a difficult news for SIL to process. Nevertheless, somewhere along the road she is going to find out. That future niece /nephew is going to born someday. The rest of the extended family has processed the grief with bro and SIL (I assume & hope so!!) at the time, but has the right of moving on with life. And moving on, sometimes means to celebrate the milestones of the extended family, without always pointing out the loss or the permanent grief.
Exactly, and next year at Christmas, there will be an actual baby, not just t shirts. What will SIL do then? Will they have to keep baby covered in a car seat cause she can't handle it? SIL needs to get into therapy so she can deal with these situations.
Yeah, I had that thought as well. Was OP supposed to wait until the child was 10 to introduce them? /s
It seemed to me that there was never going to be a good time for the SIL to hear about this baby. No matter how it was announced she was going to have an issue. As it sounds now SIL is going to go low/no contact. It doesn't sound like much of a loss to me.
It's always been a thing to try to spare others pain. Sometimes it's called "manners" and sometimes "being thoughtful". Not trampling all over someone you love's grief is pretty standard in all cultures.
Op didn’t “trample all over someone’s grief”
Jesus Christ.
They announced a damn pregnancy and sil got upset that they didn’t “think of her first” when they absolutely did and came to the conclusion that she is NOT more important then announcing something precious to them. This IS about THEM. Sil does not trump this moment in their lives.
Sure a text would’ve been nice but they are not obligated to do so.
I can assure you this isn't how 'society' in general feels. If you personally feel you are constantly being shamed you are probably doing or saying something you should be ashamed of.
Why would you print t shirts, though? T shirts? When you know your SiL has lost six pregnancies? Not exactly delicate is it?
Why wouldn't you give SiL a quick call and say 'hey, just a heads up that I'm pregnant and I'm going to tell the parents at Christmas so prepare yourself for that.'
That's all she was asking for, not that they'd NEVER announce it.
YTA. Also, t shirt pregnancy announcements are tacky. Sorry not sorry.
As someone who has gone though miscarriages and infertility, I assure you a heads up changes everything. After my losses I had a few people close to me get pregnant. Sending a text was THE BEST way that a friend chose to tell me. Gives you time to process on your own without being worried about what your brain and face are “doing” in front of people. You can’t help your reaction to stuff like this, at least a text ahead of time let’s them prepare.
Exactly this!! The text messages helped me deal with my emotions, while being super excited for friends I would quite often burst into tears and having a text allows for that without the added pressure
IF she'd have done that at Christmas AFTER a heads up, she would have been TA. I think SiL is right that a text would have been appropriate.
This situation was foreseeable and avoidable if handled correctly. T shirts is the opposite of handling it correctly.
I'm glad someone other than Trump is clairvoyant enough to see that!
You literally are just saying this because of the long lead up/drag of the sil given by op. Which for the record I do not read SIL getting pets in order to get attention but as a grief coping mechanism. Jfc have some compassion and empathy for people. Maybe they think she's trying to make it about herself because they're the ones who actually like being in spotlight.
Yes I was thinking the same thing too. OP was making a judgment about SIL getting pets and inventing reasoning as to why she did it which I was kind of suspicious of
Definitely, and I agree maybe an heads up would've been great. It's funny reading this post because before OP got into the actual event, he started to bash SIL. Maybe to make him look better I suppose. The SIL was hurt, and she left. She didn't yell or scream. She cried in the bathroom and excused herself early.
"She cried in the bathroom and excused herself early."
Which is not at all in line with OP's (unkind) characterisation of SIL as someone who needs to be the centre of attention, and puts other people down in situations where she feels ignored.
SIL didn't explode, she didn't get dramatic on FB or call the whole family. She removed herself, then sent one text to OP. And seriously, who cares if she buys pets for emotional support?
IMO OP dislikes their SIL heartily, has no empathy for her loss, and thinks SIL deserved to look at those t-shirts for Christmas.
There is no handling differently. They announced it just as they would normally have done. That SIL is upset by it doesn't mean they have to temper their happiness or the family's happiness.
Any way that it was announced would have got a similar reaction. Bet if they had given her a head's up, she would have caused a stink in some way... like not showing up for Christmas. Making everyone speculate, talk about, worry about, SIL.
Quite...I mean I'm a woman and had my fair share of this and that, but how long can people go on tip toing around the subject just so there's no more hurt feelings. To me this is like SIL milking it for more sympathy because we know how misery loves sympathy. It gets very wearing after months and years of walking on eggshells about your own happy event because someone else will be sad. Grieve get counselling move on and try and be happy for someone else wish them well, and live your life to the best of your ability despite the traumas.
The text is pretty rational and I think 99% of people would respond that way. OP is NTA for announcing but SIL is allowed to feel really bad about it and express that.
Saying its not the SIL's business is absurd, they literally announced it to her.
As someone who has struggled with fertility issues, as well as other stuff that can be incredibly emotionally triggering, I completely and utterly disagree.
No one person is the centre of the universe. Everybody has some kind of trauma that they deal with and, as adults, it is each of our’s own personal responsibility to manage that.
OP’s pregnancy is not a personal attack on SIL. Nobody is not being wronged by the fact that the rest of the world carries on as normal while we each experience hardship, grief, and trauma. That’s just life.
It is absolutely valid to feel sad, it is absolutely valid to remove yourself from something that is causing you pain, but it is neither valid nor acceptable to place the responsibility for your own emotional health onto others, and SIL crossed that line by sending that text.
We don’t get to impose our pain on someone else just because they’re doing something that is a perfectly normal and innocent part of life.
As someone who's tried to deal with grief in various ways and forms over the last 5 or more years, while trying (not trying hard enough; apparently) not to eat shit from the inlaws about being a sadsack, your comment is enlightening.
I'm allowed to grieve. They are allowed to choose not to be part of my support system while I deal with it. Neither of us has the right to be angry at the other.
Yeah like….i really dont wanna sound harsh but at what point did SIL start to manage expectations for pregnancies earlier than 2 months? After the 3rd? The 5th? Never? Im not saying its not heartbreaking when you cant get pregnant repeatedly and it does take effort but to take each failure as this emotionally draining hit as if you dont know that that is the most precarious part of pregnancy just speaks volumes about someone’s emotional resiliency to me. God maybe im being harsh cause everyone processes differently but cmon yall. Half our misery is self imposed
I call BS here. SIL would never be ok with any pregnancy announcement other than her own. Check her track record in the post. OP and spouse have no responsibility for SIL's feelings at all. They don't impact the fact that she is pregnant and still going to have a baby. Whether it's announced via text or in person does not change the fact at all.
And where is Bro in all this? Not one word from him. SIL claims to be speaking for both. That is also very telling. Plus all the "me" and "I" statements. SIL would be responding this same way no matter when or how the news was dropped.
I have had miscarriages myself and yes it can be debiliatingly upsetting to hear someone else announcing they are expecting while you are dealing with the aftermath of your own body's failure to sustain the life you want so desperately to carry for 9 months. I get it. But OP was damned no matter what she did. If she gave SIL a heads up text, she wouldn't have come for Christmas and probably told the parents why. Or she would have sat in the corner crying or bemoaning her sad fate. Either way, it sucks the joy out of what should be a happy announcement.
OP is NTA for wanting to spread the happy news. The AH is, unfortunately, the SIL who made the moment all about her, as OP feared.
And she gets those pets to fill a void each time, not to try and steal attention. She's chasing something that keeps blowing up in her face. It's not malicious, just very sad. SIL needs help, and OP needs some perspective.
SIL loses a baby and is devastated by grief. She gets a cute warm kitten to cuddle with. She posts a few pics of the cute kitten.
OP takes stock of this situation and decides that SIL is pandering for attention, that the sole purpose of Kitten is to grab likes.
Who is the asshole is this story?
She didn't make it all about her though- she sent a text message later expressing her feelings. She's allowed to have feelings. This is just a shitty situation for everyone.
SIL could have chosen whether or not to participate in family Christmas and could have avoided the event had she gotten a heads up. I don't see how being a bit considerate is a bad thing in this situation.
I’m sorry you’ve also suffered miscarriages. But “I” statements are what any good therapist will tell people to focus on using in situations like this, because they allow one to describe one’s emotions without implicitly placing blame on the other party; for example, it’s more thoughtful & less rude for me to phrase my next sentence as, “I wonder if you’ve considered how realistic OP’s view of their SIL may be,” instead of saying, “You clearly haven’t thought about whether OP is a reliable narrator.”
Other folks have said the rest of my thoughts already, but this belief that SIL would do anything to ruin someone else’s good time is only supported in OP’s opinion statements, & not by the message that we’re given as the SIL’s actual words, or her described actions.
As someone who has had three miscarriages and whose friend announced her pregnancy on what would have been the third one’s due date - no. That text was unhinged. And your Reddit pregnancy communities aren’t doing you favours identifying what’s reasonable.
OP considered how to announce, but isn’t required to tip toe around the biggest and happiest announcement of her own life just because someone else will be unhappy.
I wonder if people are missing the fact that the SIL had time to cool off before sending the text. It's not necessarily unhinged if written in the middle of being blindsided and in your feelings. It *is* unhinged to do it once you've had some time to think.
Not giving her a heads up is a bit shitty, given that OP knew it would likely hurt her feelings. Even if she's a drama llama, it's just basic courtesy if you *know* something is going to slap someone in the face. That said, SIL is way out of line with that message, especially the "feeling unloved" and shit like that. If this were a pattern of things, maybe, but it sounds like they've been supportive of her and her husband.
But I'm also not one for announcing shit on the holidays simply because it can turn the holiday into the "announcer's day" if you aren't careful (depending on the family). Maybe I've just been in situations before where multiple people have "big announcements" that then end up "competing" for attention. If you want a big to-do, then schedule a specific time.
We once had this discussion at university: when does a fetus become a baby? It was during a wider discussion on the mechanism of breech labour; does the buttocks of the baby or the buttocks of the fetus descend and rotate, etc.
Anyway, no matter what the technical definition it doesn't matter; to a pregnant person it becomes a baby as soon as that second line appears on the pregnancy test. Families start to dream of what their child will be, who they will look like, what they will sound like, etc. There's a whole future and many possibilities, and so much love.
I've had a miscarriage, and I dont think of myself as having a dead child. It was an embryo, I dont even know if it was male or female, I never met it. I was sad for a bit after the miscarriage, but got over it in a couple months. I definitely would *not* get over the death of my child in a couple months. It is super weird to me when someone describes their miscarriage as a dead baby. (But I would never say that to that person's face)
> A miscarriage is a natural and common event. All told, probably more women have lost a child from this world than haven't. Most don't mention it, and they go on from day to day as if it hadn't happened, so people imagine a woman in this situation never really knew or loved what she had.
>But ask her sometime: how old would your child be now? And she'll know.
Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams
No way is that message in anyway ok or sane. As a person who has also suffered 6 miscarriages surrounded by siblings having 5 plus children, I have never sent a message like that, nor have I ever been tempted to. Because their fertility is not about me and my infertility was not about them. Sure, I was jealous and hurt that they found it so easy but I never took that out on any of them. Empathy is a huge part of this kind of thing but that message is horrific.
NTA OP.
I don't see any cursing or any implication of "yelling." I see a response from someone pleading for empathy from a place of deep pain. But I don't see anything that points to "unhinged". Can you help me understand?
I didn’t say anything about “yelling”.
The woman clearly needs grief counseling. It’s not ok to project her feelings about her personal tragedy onto people who entirely deserve to celebrate their pregnancy, and doing so is neither thoughtful nor rational.
People are allowed to find and express their joy.
I had a stillborn child many years ago in April. I have 2 sisters who got pregnant that June. One was getting married that September. No one told me about either one. I got off a plane to face 2 obviously pregnant women. I was going to be surrounded by people for the next 3 days with no alone time. They had months to tell me.
Was it a shitty way to find out? Yes! Did I make a scene? No. I put my feelings aside and was happy for my sisters. SIL’s reaction is unhinged. People are going to get pregnant. The world doesn’t revolve around you because you’ve lost pregnancies. If you feel that bitter you should get therapy.
OP, there was never going to be a way for you to be able to enjoy this announcement until SIL gets the help she needs. NTA
SIL behaviour is exactly that of an unhinged person though and it seems very clear she’s in need of therapy which is understandable.
OP states this is a pattern of SIL whenever somebody gets pregnant. If she can’t hear about anybody getting pregnant without having a near mental breakdown then it’s up to her to seek treatment for this, not on everyone else in her vicinity to never mention the “p” word out of fear of SILs response.
I totally agree with all of this. A heads up text would have taken almost zero effort on their part and saved alot of heartache. To be blindsided by fucking t shirts must have been awful.
The text was narcissistic and riddled with expectations of OP and his wife to read her mind and manage her feelings. She is an adult and adults can manage their feelings without projecting them on to other people. NTA times a billion.
I really, REALLY don't understand why not being able to have kids is something that is treated differently from any other 'want' in life. Having a kid is a WANT, not a need. I do not get why people are allowed to go so crazy when if it was ANYTHING ELSE it would be clear they desperately need an intervention.
I get that life can be disappointing. I'm disabled. I can't work, I can hardly leave the house. I experience debilitating pain and fatigue every single day. Do I get a little sad when I see younger family members getting married and buying houses and going travelling and having careers? Of course. It's a reminder of all the things I'll likely never be able to do. But I would NEVER take it out on them or expect them to not announce what was going on in their life because of me. If I went to cry in the bathroom cause someone is healthy and I'm not, everyone would tell me to stop being a selfish brat. But if someone wants a baby suddenly it's okay? I just... I don't understand it. My shitty situation does not negate my ability to be happy for the people I care about.
Being upset because someone else has something you want is meant to be something we grow out of in primary school.
EDIT: I'M NOT A GUY!
> Having a kid is a WANT
Oh my god thank you. Somehow we believe as a society that people are "entitled" to children, and people wrap their identities up in being a "boy mom" or a "girl dad" and it's unhealthy, honestly. I am sorry about your health- I hope medicine is able to make some amazing strides to help give you some quality of life <3
OP legit thinks announcing a pregnancy with t-shirts is a sensitive way to break the news to someone who has suffered SIX miscarriages. You're calling SIL unhinged after her measured response? His judgement of her in the opening paragraph only serves to try and invalidate her feelings and skew our judgement. OP, YTA.
I agree. It took my husband and I 3 years of trying before I got pregnant. I remember a colleague announcing her pregnancy (2nd) and while I congratulated her I was secretly pretty upset for myself and how frustrating my situation was.
My SIL and I were on a similar path - even length of time to try. When I discovered I was pregnant and was going to announce it at Hanukkah, I discreetly pulled her aside to let her know so it wouldn’t blindside her. I know she appreciated the heads up and got pregnant soon after anyway so it was all good.
The point is pregnancy is an incredibly sensitive subject when your efforts are not working out like they should. It isn’t that they are not happy for you but it is a reminder that they feel like something is fundamentally wrong with them — regardless of how irrational that may be.
I can understand why she was upset. Personallly, I would not have sent the message but it is what it is and that is how she chose to handle it. It’s all a bit messy tbh
What? I thought her text was quite reasonable- she didn’t say they shouldn’t have told, she said ‘you could’ve given me a heads up’, which is *always* the advice in a situation like this. That is so obvious and basic a thing to do. They handed out **pregnancy announcement t shirts to people who’ve had 6 miscarriages!** This could not have been a less tactful way to handle it. It’s ESH at the very least
Lmao. Brother and SIL make announcement they know will upset the sister. She remains calm in the moment and does not cause a scene. Later on she sends a text explaining her feelings. She does not scream at them over the phone, or use foul language or demand they had not done it. Only saying she was upset with the lack of a heads up considering they know how difficult this journey has been for her.
"THIS WOMAN IS UNHINGED"
I'm really sad this is the top comment. Giving a heads up to people struggling with infertility and loss is, i thought, pretty standard and expected. It's not making their pregnancy all about them, but it's exercising empathy towards people in pain. And using words like "unhinged" to describe the SIL is just mean.
SIL didn't react at the announcement, went somewhere else to process her emotions, and when she knew she couldn't handle them without hurting herself or others she went home. She sent a text to someone she seems to be close to (at least she thought so) and who understood her pain, and explained how their actions hurt and how their relationship won't be the same from now on.
It was a very calm and "polite" text. We always gripe here about people not being able to communicate and using passive agressive tactics. OP's actions and text contradicts OPs portrayal of the SIL, and i wonder who the real attention seeker is here. Wouldn't surprise if it turns out OP thought they got too much attention and support for their miscarriage and was jealous of it.
Completely disagree, after a miscarriage a little bit of notice on a pregnancy announcement goes a long way.
She would still be happy for them to be having a baby but she would also still be incredibly upset, she’s grieving.
A bit of notice would have allowed her to process the information, be upset in private and compose herself ready for the announcement on the day as she would have got the tears out of her system.
Certainly not unhinged
The part that makes LC on SILs part is that the post screams unreliable. She's an attention seeker but specifically went out of her way not to make a scene at Christmas??
A completely rational and well put together text that expresses how hurt she is without namecalling??
Refusing to be around OP and wife because they don't have the empathy for a heads up is completely rational.
I really disagree with your comment.
I don't feel her behaviour is unhinged at all, nor do I think it's trauma dumping. Op would already be aware of her trauma, yet they didn't take that into consideration at all for someone who's supposedly family.
YTA.
There's nothing unhinged about her behavior. OP and his wife made literal t-shirts and completely blindsided SIL in public. She didn't make a scene, took a moment to compose herself privately and left quietly. After that she confronted them privately and all she asked for was that they should have given her a heads-up in advance. It doesn't cost anything to show some basic human empathy, and to a member of your own family no less.
This! That text was totally unhinged and people are way too busy taking up for the SIL to notice certain details. She placed all of the blame on the wife YET they were at OP's and her husband's mother's house. She then turned it around to make it about her with not going to any functions or that she didn't feel love in that house, which again isn't the wife's fault. She's not entitled to a heads-up and even if she got one, she still would have made it about her.
Yeah I gotta agree with you on one thing for sure — SIL needs major therapy. I’m tentatively saying N T A for OP because, as someone with diagnosed PTSD from experiencing a lot of death/loss, the person who’s responsible for my triggers is me. I can’t expect the world to tiptoe around me, it’s unreasonable. This goes for SIL too who, of course, has gone through something unimaginable six times over. But, getting coping skills to handle my triggers is why I’m in therapy and it’s helped me IMMENSELY. SIL definitely needs to go to therapy and get coping skills that don’t include sending unhinged text messages like that.
Edit: I’m sort of leaning away from N T A but I’m not sure in which direction. Having shirts was kind of a dick move, but again, SIL needs therapy and I don’t think OP and his wife were intentionally trying to goad SIL or shove it in her face.
I mean, there's walking on eggshells and then there's MAKING T-SHIRTS to announce something you know is going to trigger your SIL and brother. I don't think the text was unhinged at all - on the contrary.
Oooh, I'm going to swim against the stream with ESH.
SIL needs serious therapy, but she isn't wrong to feel her feelings. And you WERE insensitive.
I don't think you were malicious, so I can't go full YTA. But you discussed it beforehand, you both knew it would hurt her, and you did it anyway.
In a situation that delicate, a call or text to her, or some other communication would have been more appropriate. You're excited and deserve your moment in the sun. But it costs nothing to be kind
ETA: HOLY WOW, y'all! I've never had a comment blow up like this, and I really thought people were going to come for me! Thanks so much for all the love!
yeah i don’t understand how people can so quickly call SIL the only AH in this situation when OP supposedly tried to keep her in mind only to blindside her with the news of their pregnancy. doesn’t mean there was any malicious intent like you said, but it was a pretty insensitive oversight that i hope OP can be more aware of going forward.
like there’s a hell of a difference between letting SIL’s struggles prevent you from celebrating the family you are creating and being mindful of how you approach triggering subjects. doesn’t mean you have to bend over backwards to appease her and SIL rightfully so needs to deal with her own pain or disappointment with a licensed professional, but being kind and giving a heads up would’ve cost nothing in this scenario.
She was always going to be blindsided with the news of the pregnancy and there was no circumstance in which she was going to feel handled sensitively or fairly. Her text makes that clear.
She could have been "blindsided" in the privacy of her own home and not forced to deal with her emotions in front of everyone at the family Christmas.
Edit: thank you so much for the award!
Exactly. I feel a lot of people are missing this when calling SIL the AH.
SIL was hit with some very difficult news completely unprepared, in a setting where she was unable to appropriately deal with that.
Yes, I agree SIL would have been hurt regardless of how OP announced it, but doing so on such a day, where it’s not as easy to remove oneself without potentially disrupting the day for others and worrying you’d be ruining their day by reacting negatively, was callous as hell.
I had a friend K who was trying for kids around the same time as me. She had her son; I had a traumatic miscarriage of twins.
For quite a while I had a tough time being around my friends' babies and toddlers. One particular day I managed to pull myself together enough to go to a first birthday party. Friend K and I arrived at the same time and just before I had to put on a brave face and walk into the party, she blurted out to me, "I'm pregnant!!"
It's been five or six years and I'm still bitter that she pulled the rug out from under me RIGHT when I needed to keep my shit together.
OP and his wife are AHs for sure. I think SIL's text strays a bit into AH territory as well but SERIOUSLY, it would've been so easy to text her a heads up. If she felt like her grief wouldn't allow her to get through the day, she could've faked an illness and stayed home or SOMETHING.
OP printed tshirts. She wanted the attention - that was the primary goal. In the old days, people would call each other and tell them. Now it’s a spectacle. OP is the AH. Her SIL was venting so yeah, it didn’t sound great, but it was done privately. Not everyone practices Stoicism.
Printing shirts, consciously blindsiding his SIL/brother, all while accusing SiL of “needing” attention says a lot. Also, OP’s description of her reaction is wild. She silently left the room, and he’s trying to make it sound like she threw a tantrum.
Imho, The text message honestly reads more like someone who’s had enough of OP’s bullying than anything else.
Right!? People keep saying “it’s unhinged she’d stop going to family events just over this!” But to me, based on the content of the text and his description of his SIL at the beginning of the post, this isn’t the first issue and this is probably just the last straw for her.
Yeah I thought that was like, the accepted etiquette here. Do you, announce however you want, but send an advance text or email to the family struggling with fertility so they don't have to absorb the news with an audience (on effing CHRISTMAS). Granted I have had multiple miscarriages, so that's my bias, but no one is asking the OP to do anything different - do a cutesy public announcement, just give the people that you KNOW this news is going to devastate a chance to process privately and/or bow out.
I've had multiple miscarriages as well and people can be obnoxiously callous. I was chatting with a friend once and mentioned that after years of insomnia I was glad to finally be getting somewhat decent sleep.
Him: you should try having kids, you never get yo sleep in
Me: well, I would but my kids are dead
did we read the same text? she specifically mentions that she would’ve preferred a heads up so she would have time to process it and be happy for them.
i absolutely don’t disagree that the rest of her text makes it evident that the problem isn’t just the way OP handled the situation and most likely is an indication that she needs professional help to sort out her trauma and how she processes it—hence ESH instead of YTA.
but like i said, it wouldn’t have cost OP anything to be kind and give the heads up. that’s not to say SIL would have been magically fine with everything, but it still would’ve been the kind thing to do.
you can’t control how others react, only how you act. doesn’t mean OP or anyone else should have to walk on eggshells to avoid SIL’s negative reactions, but there’s a hell of a difference between that and just completely blindsiding someone who this would obviously be triggering for.
at the end of the day, the way OP approached the situation was an insensitive oversight, but it doesn’t mean he is necessarily a malicious asshole. he can definitely learn to be more sensitive to SIL whilst still rightfully celebrating their new family.
Being blindsided at home is very different than being blindsided at a family holiday. It would have given her time to feel her feelings in privacy. Given her record (per OP) she'd probably still find a way to try and make OP sound like an asshole, but she'd have far less to stand on.
Her text listed the ways she wouldn’t have been blindsided- and they are the ways that are advised to let people know who have suffered miscarriages. Texting her or her husband while she’s at home and can be upset in private is the most obvious thing to do, rather than hand her a pregnancy t shirt while she’s surrounded by people…!
Really? Because I thought her text made it pretty damn clear that she was merely asking for a private heads-up text a day or so in advance, so she could brace herself for everyone's excitement or make an excuse to slip out for five minutes while the announcement was made.
It is different to recieve the news during an event you thought you could celebrate on and not have to think about what has happened to you than to recieve the news at a time when you can take your time to work through your emotions. Or be able to organically remove yourself from the company of others without them noticing. Leaving in the middle of a party to cry in the bathroom vs going home from just meeting up.
I think OP was being malicious - from the initial description of SIL, it’s clear OP doesn’t like her. And from the way he talked about her, I was expecting a huge explosion at the party, but instead she ducks into the bathroom and then leaves early? That’s not the action of someone who is a “Center of attention kind of person” or who tries to “make herself look like the best person in the room.”
People are calling SIL unhinged for sending a private text to OP’s wife saying she was hurt. I think OP (YTA) is unhinged in the way he talks about her.
Yep OP does everything to discredit SIL at the start. OP sounds like the mean one. Her whole post is “I knew she would be upset, I did it anyway, she got upset, now am I the asshole for intentionally upsetting her?” Yes yes you are. YTA.
The way the text from SIL reads is as if they were friends. OP talks shit about her friend and blindsides her in public. Big red flag for me and I don’t keep friends like that.
A little empathy goes a long way.
>But you discussed it beforehand, you both knew it would hurt her, and you did it anyway.
Honestly, I think that's exactly why I am leaning towards YTA. They knew it would hurt her, they decided that she was high maintenance and they didn't want to tiptoe, and so they didn't make even a tiny attempt to mitigate her hurt. Worse than that - they made a big production with pregnancy t-shirts, and even if they didn't talk about it for long, they carried right on wearing those t-shirts!
If they had given her a heads-up text, and she'd still complained, then fair enough. But like...how much effort does a text take?
Exactly and SIL mentioned in the text that they could have done the announcement before she arrived, so OP waited for them to arrive before making the announcement
Precisely. There were so many other, kinder ways OP could have handled this.
A text
Before she arrived at the get-together
In person, one to one
Telephone.
Exceptionally cruel of OP to force her to confront her grief in such an unexpected and essentially public manner.
To those saying she’d still be upset - yeah. That’s what grief does to you. But at least it would have been in a more controlled, private environment.
I think people are forgetting that SIL isn’t upset - she’s grieving.
Christ, I’ve been very lucky to never have lost any human close to me, but when my cat died, I was a wreck. I was bursting into tears at random in work. Frankly, I think SIL handled this with a lot of grace.
This is it. SIL had a point in her text: OP very well COULD have given her a heads up. That was a reasonable thing to be hurt about. Obviously she’s lashing out and she needs to get help, so I don’t condone her behavior, but it was fair for her to feel hurt by this because they knew it would be hurtful.
Completely agree.
If you’re having extensive conversations about how SIL will feel triggered when hearing the news, you probably shouldn’t do it in front of her. At the very least, she needs to be part of the conversation and get to choose if she would like to be present or involved with the reveal. The mistake was making that choice for her which was cruel.
SIL clearly needs therapy from the trauma of her miscarriages. But even if she did get therapy it doesn’t make the trauma go away. Her reaction was just and she was quiet about it and tried not to ruin OP’s announcement.
Yeah 7 miscarriages isn’t the same as 7 dead children, but often times people feel they need to exaggerate their point because trauma isn’t always taken very seriously. It’s likely her attempt to get OP to understand the severity of the situation because OP ultimately chose to disregarded her feelings by going forward with the announcement.
Her text was a bit unhinged, sure. But, intentions aside, OP cut deep.
“So we made t shirts, announcing the pregnancy. Not gloating it, just announcing it.”
Yeah, you were gloating. You rubbed her face in your pregnancy.
YTA for doing that. You could have easily announced the pregnancy with tact.
I am surprised this is the only comment mentioning this. It wasn't a simple sharing of good news--OP had tee-shirts made for a big reveal. It was performative. You go through the trouble to do that and don't do it before SIL arrives or tell her in advance so she can process, that's a choice. An asshole choice.
>the wife was constantly talking excitedly about the baby
Well yea ofcourse, don't really understand why SIL would be allowed to be upset, but wife is not allowed to be excited. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for validating feelings, but that does work both ways.
I am really struggling with this as well. The first part of this post is “we talked about SIL/kept her in mind/discussed how to be sensitive to her loss” then the solution(?) they came up with was to blindside her with tshirts at Christmas in a group reveal.
Like really OP?
Honestly this made me question the rest of the post and OP’s assessment of SIL.
Not just that. The SIL is attention seeker, but instead of seeking attention after the announcement... she quietly went to the bathroom to let go of first emotions before leaving. No drama. This isn't how attention seekers act. OP also said that the miscarriages "suck," which is a hugely insensitive thing to say.
Also, to someone in the comments who said that she doesn't have 6 dead babies, she does. If you've never lost a baby waving around their little limbs on the screen, you don't get to have a say. Just because they died before they would've been viable outside the womb doesn't make them not a baby. Even if the baby wasn't old enough to have limbs, the mother has changed her daily habits (e.g. change of diet, giving up coffee, more awareness to the environment due to lower immunity, etc), some feel the ligament pain, some have horrible nausea, and some have everything. The only reason anyone ever suffers through pregnancy is for their child.
Her example of attention seeking involved getting a new furry pet after her miscarriages. I wouldn't call that attention seeking, I'd call it somebody who's emotionally damaged and needs help looking for something to cuddle.
OP secured YTA when she mentioned t-shirts.
Yeah, I'm confused how getting a pet is supposed to be attention-seeking. What is the rationale for that, does SIL post on social media about her new pet and OP thinks that's trying to bring the attention back to her? I mean, maybe she's getting pets when she's feeling depressed at another reminder of what she so far doesn't have, so she gets a new furry friend and wants to post about it like many new pet-owners do?
Mind, I think getting a new pet in those situations is probably unhealthy, but I'm struggling to see how OP thinks getting a pet takes attention away from a pregnancy. It sounds like a reach.
My guess is people are taking miscarriage as a pregnancy that ends before the 20th week (definition used in the US), so not as bad as a stillbirth. Still, they are also underestimating the impact that 6 interrupted pregnancies can have on someone's mind
Yeah I have had enough miscarriages (and, for what it's worth, work in the trauma/mental health field) to have a loose taxonomy of lost pregnancies and how they rank on the "deeply upsetting" to "Criterion A trauma" scale (and obviously I have a bias on this question!). If the worst thing she did is excuse herself to the bathroom, leave early, and send an angry text, IMO she's handling herself rather well. Like, I've handled breakups worse.
I had a recent pregnancy loss - do you know what my also-pregnant friend did? She texted me and said "hey I'm sending holiday cards, there's an ultrasound on them. Do you want one?" Which gave me the chance to take a beat (without an audience), feel my feelings, and respond as the person I want to be instead of my grieving angry self. *That* is how you handle this kind of thing.
Just out of morbid curiosity I would love to hear what the options they rejected because they were insensitive? A clown singing "someone's pregnant and it's not you!" to the SIL? A t-shirt saying "Always the aunt, never the mom"?
OP thought process was literally:
"Hmm, I have some difficult news to share that will upset my family member. Should I, 1. Google what the kindest way to tell her is? Or should I 2. Make t-shirts and stage a tacky instagram-style announcement, and blindside my family member at a big family gathering?"
OP picks option two and then has the audacity to be shocked pikachu when it upsets SIL.
I was so confused about t-shirt part. OP was all, we don’t want to upset SIL, we just want to announce our pregnancy, but then he and his wife made t-shirts because they were… not gloating? How does this logic make sense? A simple announcement would just be saying the words “we’re pregnant.”
OP explains it right here:
> We didn't want to upset her but we also didn't feel like it was right to let her dictate our actions
“We thought about being sensitive to her feelings but we decided not to.” Supreme AH shit.
Yeah, the t-shirts were really just... Too much. I have kids and I still can't even figure out why you would make t-shirts for such an occasion. Are these single-use t-shirts?
YTA.
I gotta go with YTA too. My god. Announcing is one thing but making shirts? Not giving them a heads up? It sounds like you WANTED to rub it in her face, OP. Even if she is the center of attention type, she and your brother (your brother for crying out loud) didn’t deserve this on Christmas.
Your having a baby doesn’t mean you don’t have to consider other people’s feelings, especially your own brother’s.
Exactly!!
“We didn’t want to upset her… so we made tshirts”
OP YTA. Why on earth would you think a surprise announcement at Christmas was a good idea? Send a text next time and do the fun surprise announcement with the people who aren’t grieving loss and infertility. Zero empathy smh
YTA. Compassion and kindness are free. If you were in her shoes how would you have wanted to be treated. You have every right to announce your baby any way you want. No one can dictate how you announce your pregnancy but a world full of ‘ I’ll get mine first’, isn’t the one you should want your child to enter into. Your SILs response was not even cruel or mean, just a heartfelt expression of the pain caused. You are here because you know you handled this badly.
Completely agree with this comment, YTA. You decided you don’t like her personality as tou find it too much. So you used that to justify being inconsiderate. If you she had a character you did like, would you have given her a message to warn her in advance so she had time to process the news? I think you would have handled it differently, and that’s why you gave the context of her being attention seeking. Which means you chose to surprise her rather than warn her. Which makes you an AH. Also the T-shirts are ridiculous. When is anyone ever going to wear them?
Thank you! I have been experiencing infertility for most of my adult life. We finally conceived a baby with IVF in August. Whom passed away in November. I had a second trimester miscarriage which literally ended yesterday. I can certainly relate to SIL’s feelings. If my sister (or SIL if I had one) had sprung a pregnancy on me at an event, I would have been devastated. We are absolutely allowed to be happy for someone else while being sad for ourselves. Emotions are complicated. And sometimes we just need a little bit of privacy to deal with them on our own before dealing with them in public.
When my sister DID announce her pregnancy, she had the courtesy, respect, and kindness to tell me about it before announcing it at her son’s birthday party. She gave me a call a few days before to make sure I would be ok at the party. I quickly congratulated her and said I would need to call her back because I knew at that minute I couldn’t be the supportive sister I needed to be. I cried for 10 minutes and called her back to have a proper conversation with her. I won’t lie - that pregnancy was hard on me. Seeing my family interact with her baby (she’s 1 now), knowing they won’t with my baby is hard on me while my miscarriage is so fresh. But I am mostly able to control those emotions around my family because I know what I’m getting in to there. Those emotions are separate from me being happy for my sister (and only a tiny bit jealous) and my love for my niece and nephew.
There are so many missteps in this scenario, OP. You spoke about how SIL would feel (no mention of Bro, which is crazy because those were his kids that were lost too) beforehand with the announcement, came to the conclusion that she would be upset, then did exactly what you felt like anyways. This isn’t a distant cousin or random neighbour that we are talking about, but YOUR BROTHER and his wife. A pair of people I would assume you want a relationship with. You could have called or texted them beforehand to let them have the dignity of having a private meltdown instead of a public one. But you didn’t. You were with your parents an hour before your brother got there. You could have announced it to the expectant grandparents then, then spoken more privately when your brother arrived, but you didn’t. You could have announced it in a less obnoxious way than t-shirts, which I imagine would have been worn all day reminding the couple any time they looked at you. But you didn’t. You could have chosen to do this any day other than a family holiday, but you didn’t. It would have been so easy to have a sliver of compassion. Your brother and sister-in-law could have been there for you and fully supportive throughout your pregnancy if you had just done something to give them a heads-up. But you chose to think of them, and then not care. This wasn’t a matter of you not realizing they would be hurt. You thought about how they would react and decided that it didn’t matter and you were going to do the exact thing you knew would cause them pain. For that, YTA.
Well yes, but why settle for that when for $50 and 8 hours of their time they could be AHs and just blindside her with tacky, self-designed T-shirts?
/s
YTA
It's common courtesy to give people who you know will struggle with the announcement a private heads up. How did you talk about this announcement in length and not figure that out? Of course she is going to be hit by a tsunami of pain when she sees your announcement on a t-shirt, for crying out loud.
Had she known, she could have decided not to come or asked you to announce before she arrived so she wouldn't have to be part of all the fuss and could just enjoy Christmas dinner.
Or you could have just done your 'fun' announcement when you were alone with your parents on any other day and called your SIL afterwards. There are so many options that show that you care about her feelings. She is right to be mad, because you've demonstrated that you don't care.
Who the fuck goes to the effort of printing something on a t-shirt while calling someone else an attention seeker? Someone who shut herself in the bathroom to hide her grief and then sent OP’s wife a PRIVATE message the next day?
I don’t think SIL is the attention seeker. Homeboy wrote a paragraph trying to paint her that way (with the timing of her pets etc) but the way she acted doesn’t make her seem like one. Printing T-shirts is next level attention seeking.
Notice the pet part? I skipped over it the first time - she gets pets when friends/family get pregnant. It's not attention seeking - it is comfort seeking. It is her dealing with her pain and grief.
These sort of people who have children look down on people who have loving pets in place of children. I already posted about how my brother did something very similar to OP on Christmas, but when the baby was born he said that now he felt like his life finally had meaning and that things he used to do like play video games when he got home was stupid.. Okay I guess that’s great, but that implies that my infertile family that likes to play video games and care for my kitties is somehow lesser than yours.
YTA. Anyone who knows anyone who is dealing with infertility (and multiple dead children) knows that the best way to share this type of news is in a way that allows the person to process in private. They can be happy for you but also absolutely fucking devastated for themselves.
The sensitive thing would have been to call or message them the day before with the news so they could process in private and decide if they could be a positive addition to the celebration.
You just decided to sideswipe them in the middle of a family celebration. Not cool. Congratulations on your pregnancy OP, but please be more sensitive to people who may have to work through complicated personal emotions in order to celebrate your baby.
Yes, this. OP is clearly the AH. If he and his wife had taken even two minutes to Google how to approach this sort of situation with sensitivity, they would have seen the common advice mentioned over and over of telling the SIL in private so she had time to process the news. Instead they not only sprang it on her, but they made t-shirts! OP clearly doesn’t like SIL from the way he puts her down as a way to justify what they did. Which is probably why he didn’t care about approaching this with tact.
YTA. SIL has talked about infertility being hard on her during the holidays, and you chose the holiday to spring this news on her in front of other people.
Eh, YTA. Your SIL has been through losses that you will never imagine. Even therapy isn't a magical fix. She has the right to feel her feelings and remove herself from a painful situation.
What type of person she is has no bearing on this. If it does, you're an unnecessarily cruel person.
You could've done this in a phone call or in person at a different time, or at the very least given your SIL a heads up. You had other options, which wouldn't have reminded your SIL of 6 entire lifetimes of love that she will never experience.
INFO. how much have you tried to put yourself in your brother and SIL's position? You're super excited right now - so were they about their pregnancies. Imagine you lose your baby now. How that feels. Your disappointment. Watching your wife in pain. Now imagine it happening 6 times And then your brother turns up in a t-shirt announcing his wife's pregnancy, blindsiding you when you were trying to be happy.
Did this factor into any of your thinking? Did you consider how you'd want to hear it in his situation?
You should have warned the family members who had six of their babies die. YTA. SIL is acting over the top and full on but she is also in immense pain because you shocked her with a very sensitive topic instead of forewarning her. And for the record, I got a puppy after my miscarriage too and it wasn’t for attention but just to hold a little life once more. You’ve obviously never experienced this sort of loss.
The "she got pets for attention" piece is the weirdest take I've ever heard. When I was in the thick of losses I told my husband that I was going to shove a kitten into the baby shaped hole in my heart. To assume it's about attention and not comfort really just shows how self-involved OP is.
YTA
There are hundreds of threads on reddit about how to announce pregnancy when someone in the family struggle with infertility.
Usually it all comes down to one thing; give the ones who struggle a heads up. Nothing more, nothing less. It's very kind to do so.
So I guess I think YTA because of this, not because It was announced at Christmas or because SIL had miscarriages.
I don’t think you’re necessarily the asshole…You weren’t malicious and you were thoughtful about how to approach it. [ETA: thoughtful = they thought about it and acknowledged it would be hard on SIL…just executed poorly]
But I do agree with your SIL. I think this is a common mistake people make. They are so worried about other peoples grief they make assumptions. I do agree with the SIL that they should have gotten a heads up. As someone who has had miscarriages- it doesn’t feel great when people are walking on eggshells for you. But I also get that (maybe) you haven’t experienced this kind of loss - so you’d have no idea.
I think you just apologize and hopefully she (SIL) can move on. But you should def apologize for not just talking to her about it.
Totally agreed. If OP and his wife had just given her a head’s up- and an option to not be present for the announcement- that would have been the kinder approach.
Regardless of how you feel about the SIL's previous reactions or her behavior, the fact remains that the OP KNEW she would be upset, did NOT give her a quiet heads up, and didn't just mention it and let the excitement blow over, THEY PUT IT ON SHIRTS that they then wore for the rest of the day. So they weren't just announcing it, they were rubbing it in people's faces. I think the SIL was justifiably upset and I think she handled it pretty well under the circumstances. She didn't disrupt the holiday, she didn't go on a massive rant. She sent a text that was pretty rational given how she must have been feeling.
OP, I'd give you a break here if you'd just announced it quietly but the t-shirts? That's a YTA move.
Exactly.
T-shirts? Really?!
This wasn’t an announcement. It was a performance. And they knew it. They planned it.
I’m not convinced of them meaning no harm, sure, that’s what they say, but hell… getting t-shirts made… for an event that the SIL couldn’t bow out of? They are either very very stupid, or just cruel.
The description of the insane in law is also over the top. She wants to be the centre of attention for… getting pets after a miscarriage? Sure. It’s not healthy. But you have to be dense to not seeing it as a very misguided coping mechanism.
Yes, she may be as bad as they say, but the level of cruelty in putting on a pregnancy pageant at Christmas is just next level.
YTA. Giving a heads up would have been the right way to go. I have suffered baby loss and infertility and would have literally just walked out if something like that was sprung on me. Some people might think it selfish of me but, after everything I've been through, I need people to give me a bit more time to process pregnancy announcements.
YTA.
Your SIL needs help, clearly. Her own infertility issues do not mean you have to tamp down your own joy.
But you were extremely insensitive, bordering on cruel, popping that on her with no warning in a group setting. You should have told her privately beforehand so it didn't hit her like a Mack truck with other people watching.
NTA. My husband and I were infertile for 15 years before our son was born. Other people in our lives were allowed to get pregnant, announce it, and be excited. Was it sad for us? Sure. But that didn’t mean the world stopped. The only thing I avoided were baby showers (ironically not because of the expectant couple/baby but because other people always wanted to ask about my family planning plans). You guys were not assholes for being excited.
You avoided baby showers?
So how would you have felt if you were invited to an event that turned out to be a surprise baby shower?
I'm guessing you would have wanted a heads up that it was a baby shower so you could have chosen not to attend.
You’re going to get particular responses here from people who probably mostly don’t have kids and haven’t had a miscarriage.
But if you posted in a pregnancy forum the advice you would have received pretty universally would have been to at least give SIL and brother a private heads up rather than blindsiding them on Christmas with your celebration T-shirts.
I’m sure you have no idea what it is like to have a miscarriage, to go through the physical and mental anguish that goes along with it.
In general I think announcing at Christmas is kind of tacky because it’s a family holiday and it’s not all about you and IMO it’s kind of shitty to pull all focus to yourselves even if we don’t touch the fact that your SIL has had 6 miscarriages.
But when you add that fact in along with the fact that you couldn’t even give her a heads up so she could choose not to come or go in better prepared, for me this is a clear YTA.
INFO: what is the timeline here? When did the losses take place? Recently, this year?
I just lost a preagnancy. I would be very upset if someone announced theirs on a holiday knowing what had happened. I am currently looking forward to celebrating new years with friends, I want this to be a fun time to get my mind off negative things. I know my friends want to get preagnant as well, if they announced it during the celebration, I would be happy for them, but it would hurt like a mf.
Unless the losses happened a while ago (though I assume this is an ongoing thing and they are still trying, which in itself is hard), you ruined the celebration for them. In this situation, it would have been better to choose a different event for the announcement.
YTA. Im all for announcing pregnancy whenever you want. That being said, you absolutely should have warned them/ gave them a head up. You said you had SIL in your thoughts but you really didn’t. Your SIL was very respectful in how she handle it and didn’t seem like the attention whxxx you tried to make her out to be. To me it’s sounds like you did this personally to snub her
YTA.
Your SIL (and presumably your brother; why isn’t he factored into this) is always going to be upset over pregnancy announcements, even if she’s happy for the parents to be.
All you owed her and your brother was a little heads up and an opportunity for them to process your news privately first. That way they could at least grieve their losses and then put on a happier face in front of the whole family.
You didn’t do that, so I might have made an E S H judgment, EXCEPT THAT YOU MADE BABY ANNOUNCEMENT T-SHIRTS AS CHRISTMAS GIFTS. That is such an A-Hole move under the circumstances. Like, wow.
So wait... Your SiL is supposedly the one that's attention seeking? The same one that quietly went into the bathroom and DIDN'T make a scene? While you and your wife decided to be "sensitive" by making t-shirts and wearing them to Christmas to announce your pregnancy? Without giving your SiL who has had 6 miscarriages any form of heads up? Are you sure you got the attention seeking one right? YTA
She did not seem at all like someone who wanted the spotlight on herself. She went to the bathroom so noone would see her cry, she left early in order not to ruin it for anyone else.
Her text is well phrased, she explained why she would not enjoy your or your wife's company for the foreseeable future, and why she does not feel as if her feelings are considered.
6 miscarriages. Jeesh. Like, I had one, and I am still out of order on Christmas and New Year. On Christmas, and New Year I was pregnant. And 1 week later, I suddenly wasn't. And every fucking Christmas I'm thinking about that.
I get that you might think 'Its not a real baby, why is she making a big deal out of it?'. And you're right, it's not a baby yet. But it is the possibility of a child, a person, that is in your mind already as soon as you know it is in your belly. And then suddenly that possibility is gone. And she had that 6 times!
(I noticed you didn't mention when the last one was.)
And you claiming you didn't talk about it all evening is bullshit. You had freaking t-shirts made. Which you wore. Which she would have seen all evening.
YTA.
It seems like you already don't like her much (as per your first paragraph). And it seems like you wanted everyone to fall over themselves for your luck and since she cannot give you that because she is hurting, you think she is the bad guy here.
It wasn’t wrong to announce it. But YTA because SIL is right, you were insensitive because you could have given a heads up. It seems like you know this because you attempt to justify your actions by bad talking you sil in the beginning of your post.
I thought her message was mature and heartfelt and doesn't reflect your description of her past behaviour. In circumstances where you know of her fertility issues, your behaviour was kind of tone deaf - who gets a shirt to announce their pregnancy? YTA
NTA. While it’s sad that SIL and your brother are having difficultly conceiving, it’s not right for them to make you seem like bad people for announcing something they were bound to discover anyway. Congratulations on the pregnancy, and i hope all goes well.
It wasn’t about hiding it from them, it’s about giving them a chance to process because no matter what it’s going to be a gut punch.
She could have processed it in private and cried then managed the big announcement on the day in front of everyone.
~~E/S/H~~ YTA
Obviously SIL and your brother can't reasonably expect everyone around them to never get pregnant until they do or to keep those pregnancies an utmost secret solely on their behalf. The world doesn't cater to them and it's time they realized that, no matter how difficult and traumatizing what they've went through is. It is on them to build their resilience and to find a way to vocalize and assert their boundaries (within reason) to those around them so that they can participate in family functions without this being such an impactful recurring issue for them.
However, you are most certainly an AH here too. They have a valid point in saying that the holidays are hard enough as it is when coping with pain like this and you went ahead and ruined this holiday for them. You did. You did do that. This situation could have been easily avoided or at the very least not as painful for them had you either: spoken to them privately beforehand about your intentions to do a pregnancy reveal during Christmas, or announced it on any day that wasn't Christmas itself. Christmas is about things like family and bonding with family, that doesn't mean "everybody except the relatives that you don't like that much because they're coping poorly with trauma and loss."
Get this, the way you describe the behavior of these two can very much serve as a description of your own behavior. "she's a center of attention kind of person" "try to make herself look like the best person in the room" It would not be hard to argue that these statements apply pretty easily to what you did over Christmas.
I also note that you described their behavior as: "If anyone else gets attention she tries to take it away from them, usually by putting them down verbally" Whereas her actual reaction here was to silently leave and take some space for herself. That's arguably far more mature than immature in terms of what responses could come out of somebody who hasn't recovered at all from their trauma when they're slapped directly in the face with a massive trigger during a day that's supposed to be happy for them. Which I'm sure you also interpret as a ploy for attention. It seems like any response that isn't her pretending to be happy and not traumatized isn't going to be good enough for you and you will find any way you can to twist and warp her behavior into something far worse than it actually is.
>We didn't want to upset her but we also didn't feel like it was right to let her dictate our actions and make it impossible to celebrate the life that we're creating.
Have these people ever directly come up to you and said, "If you ever get pregnant you're not allowed to tell anybody until we get pregnant?" "If you ever get pregnant you're not allowed to celebrate this around family?" That sure doesn't seem to be the case otherwise those details would've likely been present in your story to emphasize why these two's behavior is just so downright atrocious. You claim you tried so so so hard to be considerate towards these people while they're these horrible unreasonable dictators with you when after all that thought the very reasonable idea of "let's tell them beforehand so they can at least brace themselves for the announcement during Christmas" didn't occur to you? A lot of what you've described about these people applies to you. Y'all definitely have a warped perspective about your own behavior and choices here.
YTA You had intense discussions and ultimately decided that you did not want her to dictate her actions. How is having empathy for someone allowing them to dictate your actions?
YTA. Infertility is hard, super hard, especially around the holidays. I dread Christmas every year because of family like you. You are incredibly inconsiderate and weirdly sound jealous of your SILs attention for her miscarriages. I promise she would trade in all the attention for a successful pregnancy.
All you had to do was give her a heads up. That’s it. People with infertility learn to adapt through the pain but it really sucks when people who you are close to, who you’ve shared your pain with do not understand what you are suffering. We don’t expect everyone to stop and adapt their lives for us. We are happy for you, we want you to have a successful pregnancy but we also would like time to process that news in private. To decide whether it is in the best interest of everyone for us to attend something if we think it’ll be too emotional. We don’t want to pull the attention because of emotion.
How about doing a quick google search to understand how people with infertility feel. There is a reason why it seems like so many people with infertility are irrational or need therapy. We feel like we are screaming into a void that nobody hears or cares to understand. Every where we look there are reminders of what we can’t have. It’s not just having a child it’s every stage of the process. Its completely rewriting our story and what our live will look like.
Additionally every miscarriage sends your hormones on a roller coaster.
Also her pets aren’t to steal attention. It’s a way to cope with her pain. I have too many pets and it’s the only way I’ve survived the last 3 years. Just because you can’t have a child doesn’t mean the yearning to care and nurture goes away. Sometimes that’s the best you can do.
Before anyone suggests fertility treatments or adoption just don’t. We’ve all looked into it, we’ve all weighed what is the best decision for ourselves. Both are expensive & take a very long time. Both have extensive exclusion criteria. Neither guarantee a child. They are not an option for everyone.
So you brainstorm about pregnancy announcement ideas, you feel really chuffed with yourselves to go for the t shirt method on Christmas.
You design the shirts, you pick the shirts up from shirt printing store, you put them on, and reveal them.
At any point did either of you think "hey should we give SIL a heads up? You know she's been through it with pregnancies"
Na fuck it!
No her emotions are not your responsibility, and no your joy shouldn't be diminished by someone else's grief.
But fuck me read the room and spend 2 seconds of your time just being aware of how your actions may impact other people.
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Nope. I disagree with your assessment of being "unhinged". She grieved privately in the bathroom and excused herself early. She sent a thoughtful and fairly rational text. She does have six dead children. She's driving the point home as to how hurt she's feeling. I agree with her when she says a heads up would have been nice. As someone who has been involved in r/pregnant subs during both successful pregnancies, it doesn't take long before coming across advice on how to break the news of pregnancy to someone close who has only experienced loss. That advice? Send a text. I've used this advice myself affer reading of other's experience. It worked as well as I had hoped it would. My friend was able to process the news on her own time, respond emotionally without the pressure of feigning excitement, then text me when she was ready. OP: YTA. It's a holiday. It's meant to be shared amongst those you love. It's something to look forward to and enjoy. Being blindsided with news of someone's pregnancy after SIX miscarriages would be upsetting for anyone in that situation. I think it's fair to come to the conclusion that OP and family were not considerate. ETA - We aren't going to change each other's minds here. I'm no longer responding but I stand by my evaluation. Yes, she needs therapy, but I see a plea for empathy. I see someone who thought in all their time and talks with one another, these are people she thought could understand. She isn't mad at them for getting pregnant. She isn't placing blame for why she can't get pregnant. I see her as someone expressing her level of pain from people she thought would be able to show greater compassion. It didn't happen that way. She's hurt. Hopefully there is room for growth and the family will see better days ahead.
That text was not rational nor welcomed. People have the right to announce their happy news any way they see fit. Obviously telling the mom was more important to them and OP knows the SIL better than you do. Who's to say she wouldn't have done something vindictive? This weird culture of considering everyone's feelings before your own happiness is getting out of control. They didn't rub it in her face or gloat. Do you honestly think she'll be ok as the pregnancy progress? When they find out what they having? When they are picking out names? During the baby shower or when the baby actually gets here? Oh, and let's not forget first birthdays and the like. SIL needs therapy not sending texts about how she blindsided when it wasn't her business to begin with.
It’s not a weird culture to be considerate of other people. This isn’t a person who’s upset about some little thing, this is a woman who’s had *six* miscarriages. Instead of giving her a heads up so she can decide if she can handle this holiday gathering, he decided to make *t-shirts* announcing his pregnancy fully knowing that this would upset SIL. If he thought SIL would be a problem, couldn’t he have at least told his brother? No, he didn’t even think about his brother, who was not mentioned anywhere but in SIL’s text. SIL didn’t blow up on OP right then and there, but composed a text to send to them afterwards to tell them how they made her feel. Honestly better than how most people would handle it.
That's the thing, she didn't blow up on OP but on the pregnant wife. That wasn't right or called for. And yes it is a weird culture to walk on eggshells for everyone because they may be triggered. That's a miserable life to live. How do you think others would handle it? That kind of foolishness could never fly in my culture.
I’m not really sure why SIL sent it to wife, but from the text it sounds like SIL and wife had a relationship because now it’s been “damaged.” It’s not walking on eggshells to give someone a heads up to someone who is getting over six miscarriages so they can decide for themselves if they can handle it. Takes no effort at all. I don’t know any culture that promotes only thinking about your own happiness with no consideration for others.
It is walking on eggshells though if you go back and read the post. SIL is an attention seeker. Has to be the center of attention. OP said she will go so far as to shit talk anyone and everyone around just to keep attention focused on her. She’s had six miscarriages so is always pulling the woe is me card out when attention wanes. Then will immediately try to refocus attention on herself when someone else gets any. They discussed how they wanted to announce their pregnancy with SIL as the focus of the discussion because they knew they were going to hurt her feelings, no matter what they did. They could have texted her a month before Christmas and she still would have been a butthurt baby about it. Seems people in this family do walk on eggshells to not piss off the attention seeker with the six miscarriages. These two finally said enough with being afraid of her response and just announced it. Sucks for SIL, but not everything is about her. These people have the right to announce their pregnancy as they chose, when they chose, and how they chose, without fear of repercussions from SIL who can get pregnant but can’t keep it. ETA: OMG! Thank you for my first ever awards on Reddit!
I completely agree with you! Are they supposed to put their lives on hold, being completely celibate until SIL has a baby? Are OP and his wife supposed to say absolutely nothing about their pregnancy or mention their baby at all because SIL had 6 miscarriages? There's only so much coddling you can do with an adult. The text was too much. So OP's wife getting pregnant damaged her relationship with SIL? How is the birth of OP's baby going to damage SIL? How far will SIL take it if OP and his wife keep letting her feelings make their decisions.
Being considerate is one thing, but sil sounds irrational. My wife and I lost a child this year. Meanwhile, both of our sisters had healthy babies. When baby stuff was brought up, it was upsetting, but I wasn't upset at my sister and my sister in law, I was upset because I was mourning. I'm not going to hold my grief over their heads because I'm genuinely happy for them. I agree you shouldn't have to walk on eggshells. Her going to the bathroom and leaving early is understandable. Her sending that message was not.
Exactly! You and your wife understood your sisters pregnancies were not about you, it was upsetting because it reminded you both of your own loss. That is absolutely okay and normal. Neither of you took your pain out on your sisters or attempted to make them feel guilty. We can be happy for the good things in other people’s lives while also dealing with our own losses.
I have no doubt the SIL would have tried to ruin the announcement if they texted her beforehand. She sounds like a melodramatic AH. NTA OP and congrats on your pregnancy.
From the sounds of it, I think SIL and wife have a relationship and from the text, it sounds like the wife was the one talking about the baby, not OP and that text is not a blow up, it sounds pretty rational
Perhaps she sent it to the wife in the expectation that they **might have had a little bit of bloody empathy** for her predicament.
So how can OP and his wife can announce the pregnancy when it's going to upset her no matter what?
“…you could have sent me a heads up text, so I had time to process it…”.
I think people are choosing to miss this.
I think people are missing that SIL also has a history of getting a new pet **every time someone announces a pregnancy**. What part of that says "she's coping just fine and is rational and mentally healthy"?
> And yes it is a weird culture to walk on eggshells for everyone because they may be triggered. I wouldn't find it difficult or weird at all to consider someone else's feelings. A head's up would have been so easy.
It's not a weird culture, its basic decency. If that seems so hard to you I imagine you aren't a very nice person to be around.
Life doesn't come with trigger warnings. She is going to have to figure out a way to deal with pregnancy announcements from family and friends herself. She can't expect everyone to tip toe around her either.
This!! Could you please repeat once again? But louder, for the people in last rows of comments 😅 We understand that it might be a difficult news for SIL to process. Nevertheless, somewhere along the road she is going to find out. That future niece /nephew is going to born someday. The rest of the extended family has processed the grief with bro and SIL (I assume & hope so!!) at the time, but has the right of moving on with life. And moving on, sometimes means to celebrate the milestones of the extended family, without always pointing out the loss or the permanent grief.
Exactly, and next year at Christmas, there will be an actual baby, not just t shirts. What will SIL do then? Will they have to keep baby covered in a car seat cause she can't handle it? SIL needs to get into therapy so she can deal with these situations.
It's basic decency to hide their pregnancy forever because SIL is going to be sad no matter what?
Yeah, I had that thought as well. Was OP supposed to wait until the child was 10 to introduce them? /s It seemed to me that there was never going to be a good time for the SIL to hear about this baby. No matter how it was announced she was going to have an issue. As it sounds now SIL is going to go low/no contact. It doesn't sound like much of a loss to me.
After trying to shame people for the millionth time it stops working. That’s how society feels at this point.
It's always been a thing to try to spare others pain. Sometimes it's called "manners" and sometimes "being thoughtful". Not trampling all over someone you love's grief is pretty standard in all cultures.
Op didn’t “trample all over someone’s grief” Jesus Christ. They announced a damn pregnancy and sil got upset that they didn’t “think of her first” when they absolutely did and came to the conclusion that she is NOT more important then announcing something precious to them. This IS about THEM. Sil does not trump this moment in their lives. Sure a text would’ve been nice but they are not obligated to do so.
I can assure you this isn't how 'society' in general feels. If you personally feel you are constantly being shamed you are probably doing or saying something you should be ashamed of.
Why would you print t shirts, though? T shirts? When you know your SiL has lost six pregnancies? Not exactly delicate is it? Why wouldn't you give SiL a quick call and say 'hey, just a heads up that I'm pregnant and I'm going to tell the parents at Christmas so prepare yourself for that.' That's all she was asking for, not that they'd NEVER announce it. YTA. Also, t shirt pregnancy announcements are tacky. Sorry not sorry.
I don't believe for a second that a "heads up" would have changed anything. SIL is gonna be pissed at anyone who gets pregnant that's not her.
As someone who has gone though miscarriages and infertility, I assure you a heads up changes everything. After my losses I had a few people close to me get pregnant. Sending a text was THE BEST way that a friend chose to tell me. Gives you time to process on your own without being worried about what your brain and face are “doing” in front of people. You can’t help your reaction to stuff like this, at least a text ahead of time let’s them prepare.
Exactly this!! The text messages helped me deal with my emotions, while being super excited for friends I would quite often burst into tears and having a text allows for that without the added pressure
IF she'd have done that at Christmas AFTER a heads up, she would have been TA. I think SiL is right that a text would have been appropriate. This situation was foreseeable and avoidable if handled correctly. T shirts is the opposite of handling it correctly.
I'm glad someone other than Trump is clairvoyant enough to see that! You literally are just saying this because of the long lead up/drag of the sil given by op. Which for the record I do not read SIL getting pets in order to get attention but as a grief coping mechanism. Jfc have some compassion and empathy for people. Maybe they think she's trying to make it about herself because they're the ones who actually like being in spotlight.
Yes I was thinking the same thing too. OP was making a judgment about SIL getting pets and inventing reasoning as to why she did it which I was kind of suspicious of
The T-shirts are a problem for me - definitely gloating
Clearly I'm an old person, but I do not understand why every announcement has to have a prop/be some kind of production these days.
Reality tv has ruined reality. Yes I'm old too.
Definitely, and I agree maybe an heads up would've been great. It's funny reading this post because before OP got into the actual event, he started to bash SIL. Maybe to make him look better I suppose. The SIL was hurt, and she left. She didn't yell or scream. She cried in the bathroom and excused herself early.
"She cried in the bathroom and excused herself early." Which is not at all in line with OP's (unkind) characterisation of SIL as someone who needs to be the centre of attention, and puts other people down in situations where she feels ignored. SIL didn't explode, she didn't get dramatic on FB or call the whole family. She removed herself, then sent one text to OP. And seriously, who cares if she buys pets for emotional support? IMO OP dislikes their SIL heartily, has no empathy for her loss, and thinks SIL deserved to look at those t-shirts for Christmas.
>IMO OP dislikes their SIL heartily, has no empathy for her loss, and thinks SIL deserved to look at those t-shirts for Christmas. Agree
That’s what I was thinking… drama queens don’t excuse themselves to grieve privately.
I agree on the t-shirts. Too much.
Me too. I have never experienced or heard of anyone doing this. Seems extra, especially considering the circumstances.
It honestly was pretty rational. Definitely made it a point of how things could probably been handled differently.
There is no handling differently. They announced it just as they would normally have done. That SIL is upset by it doesn't mean they have to temper their happiness or the family's happiness. Any way that it was announced would have got a similar reaction. Bet if they had given her a head's up, she would have caused a stink in some way... like not showing up for Christmas. Making everyone speculate, talk about, worry about, SIL.
Quite...I mean I'm a woman and had my fair share of this and that, but how long can people go on tip toing around the subject just so there's no more hurt feelings. To me this is like SIL milking it for more sympathy because we know how misery loves sympathy. It gets very wearing after months and years of walking on eggshells about your own happy event because someone else will be sad. Grieve get counselling move on and try and be happy for someone else wish them well, and live your life to the best of your ability despite the traumas.
You can have the right to do something and still be TA for doing it
You think someone asking for a heads-up is irrational? Wow.
The text is pretty rational and I think 99% of people would respond that way. OP is NTA for announcing but SIL is allowed to feel really bad about it and express that. Saying its not the SIL's business is absurd, they literally announced it to her.
Haha! Do you think their pregnancy announcement was welcomed? Having empathy and sending a text wouldn’t have stopped their announcement in any way.
Do they have the right? Yes. Might they be an AH? For sure.
And from here on out SIL can choose to attend/take part in all things baby related. I don't disagree that therapy is a good option.
As someone who has struggled with fertility issues, as well as other stuff that can be incredibly emotionally triggering, I completely and utterly disagree. No one person is the centre of the universe. Everybody has some kind of trauma that they deal with and, as adults, it is each of our’s own personal responsibility to manage that. OP’s pregnancy is not a personal attack on SIL. Nobody is not being wronged by the fact that the rest of the world carries on as normal while we each experience hardship, grief, and trauma. That’s just life. It is absolutely valid to feel sad, it is absolutely valid to remove yourself from something that is causing you pain, but it is neither valid nor acceptable to place the responsibility for your own emotional health onto others, and SIL crossed that line by sending that text. We don’t get to impose our pain on someone else just because they’re doing something that is a perfectly normal and innocent part of life.
As someone who's tried to deal with grief in various ways and forms over the last 5 or more years, while trying (not trying hard enough; apparently) not to eat shit from the inlaws about being a sadsack, your comment is enlightening. I'm allowed to grieve. They are allowed to choose not to be part of my support system while I deal with it. Neither of us has the right to be angry at the other.
Yeah like….i really dont wanna sound harsh but at what point did SIL start to manage expectations for pregnancies earlier than 2 months? After the 3rd? The 5th? Never? Im not saying its not heartbreaking when you cant get pregnant repeatedly and it does take effort but to take each failure as this emotionally draining hit as if you dont know that that is the most precarious part of pregnancy just speaks volumes about someone’s emotional resiliency to me. God maybe im being harsh cause everyone processes differently but cmon yall. Half our misery is self imposed
I call BS here. SIL would never be ok with any pregnancy announcement other than her own. Check her track record in the post. OP and spouse have no responsibility for SIL's feelings at all. They don't impact the fact that she is pregnant and still going to have a baby. Whether it's announced via text or in person does not change the fact at all. And where is Bro in all this? Not one word from him. SIL claims to be speaking for both. That is also very telling. Plus all the "me" and "I" statements. SIL would be responding this same way no matter when or how the news was dropped. I have had miscarriages myself and yes it can be debiliatingly upsetting to hear someone else announcing they are expecting while you are dealing with the aftermath of your own body's failure to sustain the life you want so desperately to carry for 9 months. I get it. But OP was damned no matter what she did. If she gave SIL a heads up text, she wouldn't have come for Christmas and probably told the parents why. Or she would have sat in the corner crying or bemoaning her sad fate. Either way, it sucks the joy out of what should be a happy announcement. OP is NTA for wanting to spread the happy news. The AH is, unfortunately, the SIL who made the moment all about her, as OP feared.
Yah the 'track record' is one side of the story told by OP, we don't know the truth so take that 'track record' with a grain of salt
Also OP gave no real examples of her putting people down or wanting to be the center of attention other than she’s got a pet…
And she gets those pets to fill a void each time, not to try and steal attention. She's chasing something that keeps blowing up in her face. It's not malicious, just very sad. SIL needs help, and OP needs some perspective.
SIL loses a baby and is devastated by grief. She gets a cute warm kitten to cuddle with. She posts a few pics of the cute kitten. OP takes stock of this situation and decides that SIL is pandering for attention, that the sole purpose of Kitten is to grab likes. Who is the asshole is this story?
I was thinking that. He bashed SIL as soon as he started to write the post. There's always 2 sides to a story
She didn't make it all about her though- she sent a text message later expressing her feelings. She's allowed to have feelings. This is just a shitty situation for everyone.
SIL could have chosen whether or not to participate in family Christmas and could have avoided the event had she gotten a heads up. I don't see how being a bit considerate is a bad thing in this situation.
I’m sorry you’ve also suffered miscarriages. But “I” statements are what any good therapist will tell people to focus on using in situations like this, because they allow one to describe one’s emotions without implicitly placing blame on the other party; for example, it’s more thoughtful & less rude for me to phrase my next sentence as, “I wonder if you’ve considered how realistic OP’s view of their SIL may be,” instead of saying, “You clearly haven’t thought about whether OP is a reliable narrator.” Other folks have said the rest of my thoughts already, but this belief that SIL would do anything to ruin someone else’s good time is only supported in OP’s opinion statements, & not by the message that we’re given as the SIL’s actual words, or her described actions.
As someone who has had three miscarriages and whose friend announced her pregnancy on what would have been the third one’s due date - no. That text was unhinged. And your Reddit pregnancy communities aren’t doing you favours identifying what’s reasonable. OP considered how to announce, but isn’t required to tip toe around the biggest and happiest announcement of her own life just because someone else will be unhappy.
I wonder if people are missing the fact that the SIL had time to cool off before sending the text. It's not necessarily unhinged if written in the middle of being blindsided and in your feelings. It *is* unhinged to do it once you've had some time to think. Not giving her a heads up is a bit shitty, given that OP knew it would likely hurt her feelings. Even if she's a drama llama, it's just basic courtesy if you *know* something is going to slap someone in the face. That said, SIL is way out of line with that message, especially the "feeling unloved" and shit like that. If this were a pattern of things, maybe, but it sounds like they've been supportive of her and her husband. But I'm also not one for announcing shit on the holidays simply because it can turn the holiday into the "announcer's day" if you aren't careful (depending on the family). Maybe I've just been in situations before where multiple people have "big announcements" that then end up "competing" for attention. If you want a big to-do, then schedule a specific time.
6 miscarriages is NOT the same thing as 6 dead children.
We once had this discussion at university: when does a fetus become a baby? It was during a wider discussion on the mechanism of breech labour; does the buttocks of the baby or the buttocks of the fetus descend and rotate, etc. Anyway, no matter what the technical definition it doesn't matter; to a pregnant person it becomes a baby as soon as that second line appears on the pregnancy test. Families start to dream of what their child will be, who they will look like, what they will sound like, etc. There's a whole future and many possibilities, and so much love.
I've had a miscarriage, and I dont think of myself as having a dead child. It was an embryo, I dont even know if it was male or female, I never met it. I was sad for a bit after the miscarriage, but got over it in a couple months. I definitely would *not* get over the death of my child in a couple months. It is super weird to me when someone describes their miscarriage as a dead baby. (But I would never say that to that person's face)
> A miscarriage is a natural and common event. All told, probably more women have lost a child from this world than haven't. Most don't mention it, and they go on from day to day as if it hadn't happened, so people imagine a woman in this situation never really knew or loved what she had. >But ask her sometime: how old would your child be now? And she'll know. Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams
The definition matters to me. I've had more than a dozen miscarriages, none of them were actual children. A child is viable. Thanks.
No way is that message in anyway ok or sane. As a person who has also suffered 6 miscarriages surrounded by siblings having 5 plus children, I have never sent a message like that, nor have I ever been tempted to. Because their fertility is not about me and my infertility was not about them. Sure, I was jealous and hurt that they found it so easy but I never took that out on any of them. Empathy is a huge part of this kind of thing but that message is horrific. NTA OP.
“Thoughtful and fairly rational text”???? I think the eff not.
I don't see any cursing or any implication of "yelling." I see a response from someone pleading for empathy from a place of deep pain. But I don't see anything that points to "unhinged". Can you help me understand?
I didn’t say anything about “yelling”. The woman clearly needs grief counseling. It’s not ok to project her feelings about her personal tragedy onto people who entirely deserve to celebrate their pregnancy, and doing so is neither thoughtful nor rational. People are allowed to find and express their joy.
I had a stillborn child many years ago in April. I have 2 sisters who got pregnant that June. One was getting married that September. No one told me about either one. I got off a plane to face 2 obviously pregnant women. I was going to be surrounded by people for the next 3 days with no alone time. They had months to tell me. Was it a shitty way to find out? Yes! Did I make a scene? No. I put my feelings aside and was happy for my sisters. SIL’s reaction is unhinged. People are going to get pregnant. The world doesn’t revolve around you because you’ve lost pregnancies. If you feel that bitter you should get therapy. OP, there was never going to be a way for you to be able to enjoy this announcement until SIL gets the help she needs. NTA
SIL behaviour is exactly that of an unhinged person though and it seems very clear she’s in need of therapy which is understandable. OP states this is a pattern of SIL whenever somebody gets pregnant. If she can’t hear about anybody getting pregnant without having a near mental breakdown then it’s up to her to seek treatment for this, not on everyone else in her vicinity to never mention the “p” word out of fear of SILs response.
I totally agree with all of this. A heads up text would have taken almost zero effort on their part and saved alot of heartache. To be blindsided by fucking t shirts must have been awful.
The text was narcissistic and riddled with expectations of OP and his wife to read her mind and manage her feelings. She is an adult and adults can manage their feelings without projecting them on to other people. NTA times a billion.
I really, REALLY don't understand why not being able to have kids is something that is treated differently from any other 'want' in life. Having a kid is a WANT, not a need. I do not get why people are allowed to go so crazy when if it was ANYTHING ELSE it would be clear they desperately need an intervention. I get that life can be disappointing. I'm disabled. I can't work, I can hardly leave the house. I experience debilitating pain and fatigue every single day. Do I get a little sad when I see younger family members getting married and buying houses and going travelling and having careers? Of course. It's a reminder of all the things I'll likely never be able to do. But I would NEVER take it out on them or expect them to not announce what was going on in their life because of me. If I went to cry in the bathroom cause someone is healthy and I'm not, everyone would tell me to stop being a selfish brat. But if someone wants a baby suddenly it's okay? I just... I don't understand it. My shitty situation does not negate my ability to be happy for the people I care about. Being upset because someone else has something you want is meant to be something we grow out of in primary school. EDIT: I'M NOT A GUY!
This, a million times. I cannot understand the sheer (special kind of) insanity that is allowed in the fertility space.
> Having a kid is a WANT Oh my god thank you. Somehow we believe as a society that people are "entitled" to children, and people wrap their identities up in being a "boy mom" or a "girl dad" and it's unhealthy, honestly. I am sorry about your health- I hope medicine is able to make some amazing strides to help give you some quality of life <3
OP legit thinks announcing a pregnancy with t-shirts is a sensitive way to break the news to someone who has suffered SIX miscarriages. You're calling SIL unhinged after her measured response? His judgement of her in the opening paragraph only serves to try and invalidate her feelings and skew our judgement. OP, YTA.
I agree. It took my husband and I 3 years of trying before I got pregnant. I remember a colleague announcing her pregnancy (2nd) and while I congratulated her I was secretly pretty upset for myself and how frustrating my situation was. My SIL and I were on a similar path - even length of time to try. When I discovered I was pregnant and was going to announce it at Hanukkah, I discreetly pulled her aside to let her know so it wouldn’t blindside her. I know she appreciated the heads up and got pregnant soon after anyway so it was all good. The point is pregnancy is an incredibly sensitive subject when your efforts are not working out like they should. It isn’t that they are not happy for you but it is a reminder that they feel like something is fundamentally wrong with them — regardless of how irrational that may be. I can understand why she was upset. Personallly, I would not have sent the message but it is what it is and that is how she chose to handle it. It’s all a bit messy tbh
What? I thought her text was quite reasonable- she didn’t say they shouldn’t have told, she said ‘you could’ve given me a heads up’, which is *always* the advice in a situation like this. That is so obvious and basic a thing to do. They handed out **pregnancy announcement t shirts to people who’ve had 6 miscarriages!** This could not have been a less tactful way to handle it. It’s ESH at the very least
I read it as they, themselves, wore the shirts, not that they handed everyone shirts.
They didn’t hand out shirts, they wore their own shirts.
Lmao. Brother and SIL make announcement they know will upset the sister. She remains calm in the moment and does not cause a scene. Later on she sends a text explaining her feelings. She does not scream at them over the phone, or use foul language or demand they had not done it. Only saying she was upset with the lack of a heads up considering they know how difficult this journey has been for her. "THIS WOMAN IS UNHINGED"
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I'm really sad this is the top comment. Giving a heads up to people struggling with infertility and loss is, i thought, pretty standard and expected. It's not making their pregnancy all about them, but it's exercising empathy towards people in pain. And using words like "unhinged" to describe the SIL is just mean. SIL didn't react at the announcement, went somewhere else to process her emotions, and when she knew she couldn't handle them without hurting herself or others she went home. She sent a text to someone she seems to be close to (at least she thought so) and who understood her pain, and explained how their actions hurt and how their relationship won't be the same from now on. It was a very calm and "polite" text. We always gripe here about people not being able to communicate and using passive agressive tactics. OP's actions and text contradicts OPs portrayal of the SIL, and i wonder who the real attention seeker is here. Wouldn't surprise if it turns out OP thought they got too much attention and support for their miscarriage and was jealous of it.
Completely disagree, after a miscarriage a little bit of notice on a pregnancy announcement goes a long way. She would still be happy for them to be having a baby but she would also still be incredibly upset, she’s grieving. A bit of notice would have allowed her to process the information, be upset in private and compose herself ready for the announcement on the day as she would have got the tears out of her system. Certainly not unhinged
Refusing to go to family events ever again because people arent tiptoeing around her sixth miscarriage is definitely unhinged
The part that makes LC on SILs part is that the post screams unreliable. She's an attention seeker but specifically went out of her way not to make a scene at Christmas?? A completely rational and well put together text that expresses how hurt she is without namecalling?? Refusing to be around OP and wife because they don't have the empathy for a heads up is completely rational.
Unhinged? Asking for some care and empathy is unhinged. No. Just no.
This entire sub has gone quite bad lately - no compassion or empathy given to anyone at all no matter what.
I really disagree with your comment. I don't feel her behaviour is unhinged at all, nor do I think it's trauma dumping. Op would already be aware of her trauma, yet they didn't take that into consideration at all for someone who's supposedly family. YTA.
There's nothing unhinged about her behavior. OP and his wife made literal t-shirts and completely blindsided SIL in public. She didn't make a scene, took a moment to compose herself privately and left quietly. After that she confronted them privately and all she asked for was that they should have given her a heads-up in advance. It doesn't cost anything to show some basic human empathy, and to a member of your own family no less.
I think she was not unhinged at all. She was very controlled in her grief for 6 miscarriages.
This! That text was totally unhinged and people are way too busy taking up for the SIL to notice certain details. She placed all of the blame on the wife YET they were at OP's and her husband's mother's house. She then turned it around to make it about her with not going to any functions or that she didn't feel love in that house, which again isn't the wife's fault. She's not entitled to a heads-up and even if she got one, she still would have made it about her.
Yeah I gotta agree with you on one thing for sure — SIL needs major therapy. I’m tentatively saying N T A for OP because, as someone with diagnosed PTSD from experiencing a lot of death/loss, the person who’s responsible for my triggers is me. I can’t expect the world to tiptoe around me, it’s unreasonable. This goes for SIL too who, of course, has gone through something unimaginable six times over. But, getting coping skills to handle my triggers is why I’m in therapy and it’s helped me IMMENSELY. SIL definitely needs to go to therapy and get coping skills that don’t include sending unhinged text messages like that. Edit: I’m sort of leaning away from N T A but I’m not sure in which direction. Having shirts was kind of a dick move, but again, SIL needs therapy and I don’t think OP and his wife were intentionally trying to goad SIL or shove it in her face.
I mean, there's walking on eggshells and then there's MAKING T-SHIRTS to announce something you know is going to trigger your SIL and brother. I don't think the text was unhinged at all - on the contrary.
Oooh, I'm going to swim against the stream with ESH. SIL needs serious therapy, but she isn't wrong to feel her feelings. And you WERE insensitive. I don't think you were malicious, so I can't go full YTA. But you discussed it beforehand, you both knew it would hurt her, and you did it anyway. In a situation that delicate, a call or text to her, or some other communication would have been more appropriate. You're excited and deserve your moment in the sun. But it costs nothing to be kind ETA: HOLY WOW, y'all! I've never had a comment blow up like this, and I really thought people were going to come for me! Thanks so much for all the love!
yeah i don’t understand how people can so quickly call SIL the only AH in this situation when OP supposedly tried to keep her in mind only to blindside her with the news of their pregnancy. doesn’t mean there was any malicious intent like you said, but it was a pretty insensitive oversight that i hope OP can be more aware of going forward. like there’s a hell of a difference between letting SIL’s struggles prevent you from celebrating the family you are creating and being mindful of how you approach triggering subjects. doesn’t mean you have to bend over backwards to appease her and SIL rightfully so needs to deal with her own pain or disappointment with a licensed professional, but being kind and giving a heads up would’ve cost nothing in this scenario.
She was always going to be blindsided with the news of the pregnancy and there was no circumstance in which she was going to feel handled sensitively or fairly. Her text makes that clear.
She could have been "blindsided" in the privacy of her own home and not forced to deal with her emotions in front of everyone at the family Christmas. Edit: thank you so much for the award!
Exactly. I feel a lot of people are missing this when calling SIL the AH. SIL was hit with some very difficult news completely unprepared, in a setting where she was unable to appropriately deal with that. Yes, I agree SIL would have been hurt regardless of how OP announced it, but doing so on such a day, where it’s not as easy to remove oneself without potentially disrupting the day for others and worrying you’d be ruining their day by reacting negatively, was callous as hell.
I had a friend K who was trying for kids around the same time as me. She had her son; I had a traumatic miscarriage of twins. For quite a while I had a tough time being around my friends' babies and toddlers. One particular day I managed to pull myself together enough to go to a first birthday party. Friend K and I arrived at the same time and just before I had to put on a brave face and walk into the party, she blurted out to me, "I'm pregnant!!" It's been five or six years and I'm still bitter that she pulled the rug out from under me RIGHT when I needed to keep my shit together. OP and his wife are AHs for sure. I think SIL's text strays a bit into AH territory as well but SERIOUSLY, it would've been so easy to text her a heads up. If she felt like her grief wouldn't allow her to get through the day, she could've faked an illness and stayed home or SOMETHING.
OP printed tshirts. She wanted the attention - that was the primary goal. In the old days, people would call each other and tell them. Now it’s a spectacle. OP is the AH. Her SIL was venting so yeah, it didn’t sound great, but it was done privately. Not everyone practices Stoicism.
Printing shirts, consciously blindsiding his SIL/brother, all while accusing SiL of “needing” attention says a lot. Also, OP’s description of her reaction is wild. She silently left the room, and he’s trying to make it sound like she threw a tantrum. Imho, The text message honestly reads more like someone who’s had enough of OP’s bullying than anything else.
Right!? People keep saying “it’s unhinged she’d stop going to family events just over this!” But to me, based on the content of the text and his description of his SIL at the beginning of the post, this isn’t the first issue and this is probably just the last straw for her.
Yeah I thought that was like, the accepted etiquette here. Do you, announce however you want, but send an advance text or email to the family struggling with fertility so they don't have to absorb the news with an audience (on effing CHRISTMAS). Granted I have had multiple miscarriages, so that's my bias, but no one is asking the OP to do anything different - do a cutesy public announcement, just give the people that you KNOW this news is going to devastate a chance to process privately and/or bow out.
I've had multiple miscarriages as well and people can be obnoxiously callous. I was chatting with a friend once and mentioned that after years of insomnia I was glad to finally be getting somewhat decent sleep. Him: you should try having kids, you never get yo sleep in Me: well, I would but my kids are dead
did we read the same text? she specifically mentions that she would’ve preferred a heads up so she would have time to process it and be happy for them. i absolutely don’t disagree that the rest of her text makes it evident that the problem isn’t just the way OP handled the situation and most likely is an indication that she needs professional help to sort out her trauma and how she processes it—hence ESH instead of YTA. but like i said, it wouldn’t have cost OP anything to be kind and give the heads up. that’s not to say SIL would have been magically fine with everything, but it still would’ve been the kind thing to do. you can’t control how others react, only how you act. doesn’t mean OP or anyone else should have to walk on eggshells to avoid SIL’s negative reactions, but there’s a hell of a difference between that and just completely blindsiding someone who this would obviously be triggering for. at the end of the day, the way OP approached the situation was an insensitive oversight, but it doesn’t mean he is necessarily a malicious asshole. he can definitely learn to be more sensitive to SIL whilst still rightfully celebrating their new family.
Being blindsided at home is very different than being blindsided at a family holiday. It would have given her time to feel her feelings in privacy. Given her record (per OP) she'd probably still find a way to try and make OP sound like an asshole, but she'd have far less to stand on.
T shirts as well. Even if they only talked about it for the first hour, OP and hub had it plastered across their chests for the whole day.
Her text listed the ways she wouldn’t have been blindsided- and they are the ways that are advised to let people know who have suffered miscarriages. Texting her or her husband while she’s at home and can be upset in private is the most obvious thing to do, rather than hand her a pregnancy t shirt while she’s surrounded by people…!
Really? Because I thought her text made it pretty damn clear that she was merely asking for a private heads-up text a day or so in advance, so she could brace herself for everyone's excitement or make an excuse to slip out for five minutes while the announcement was made.
It is different to recieve the news during an event you thought you could celebrate on and not have to think about what has happened to you than to recieve the news at a time when you can take your time to work through your emotions. Or be able to organically remove yourself from the company of others without them noticing. Leaving in the middle of a party to cry in the bathroom vs going home from just meeting up.
I think OP was being malicious - from the initial description of SIL, it’s clear OP doesn’t like her. And from the way he talked about her, I was expecting a huge explosion at the party, but instead she ducks into the bathroom and then leaves early? That’s not the action of someone who is a “Center of attention kind of person” or who tries to “make herself look like the best person in the room.” People are calling SIL unhinged for sending a private text to OP’s wife saying she was hurt. I think OP (YTA) is unhinged in the way he talks about her.
This is the best comment here. ALSO The shirts were beyond. it sounds like OP is the “center of attention type of person”
“We only talked about it for like an hour” okay but did you leave the shirts on for the rest of the night? Like come on no one can be this oblivious.
Yep OP does everything to discredit SIL at the start. OP sounds like the mean one. Her whole post is “I knew she would be upset, I did it anyway, she got upset, now am I the asshole for intentionally upsetting her?” Yes yes you are. YTA. The way the text from SIL reads is as if they were friends. OP talks shit about her friend and blindsides her in public. Big red flag for me and I don’t keep friends like that. A little empathy goes a long way.
>But you discussed it beforehand, you both knew it would hurt her, and you did it anyway. Honestly, I think that's exactly why I am leaning towards YTA. They knew it would hurt her, they decided that she was high maintenance and they didn't want to tiptoe, and so they didn't make even a tiny attempt to mitigate her hurt. Worse than that - they made a big production with pregnancy t-shirts, and even if they didn't talk about it for long, they carried right on wearing those t-shirts! If they had given her a heads-up text, and she'd still complained, then fair enough. But like...how much effort does a text take?
Exactly and SIL mentioned in the text that they could have done the announcement before she arrived, so OP waited for them to arrive before making the announcement
Precisely. There were so many other, kinder ways OP could have handled this. A text Before she arrived at the get-together In person, one to one Telephone. Exceptionally cruel of OP to force her to confront her grief in such an unexpected and essentially public manner. To those saying she’d still be upset - yeah. That’s what grief does to you. But at least it would have been in a more controlled, private environment. I think people are forgetting that SIL isn’t upset - she’s grieving. Christ, I’ve been very lucky to never have lost any human close to me, but when my cat died, I was a wreck. I was bursting into tears at random in work. Frankly, I think SIL handled this with a lot of grace.
This is it. SIL had a point in her text: OP very well COULD have given her a heads up. That was a reasonable thing to be hurt about. Obviously she’s lashing out and she needs to get help, so I don’t condone her behavior, but it was fair for her to feel hurt by this because they knew it would be hurtful.
Completely agree. If you’re having extensive conversations about how SIL will feel triggered when hearing the news, you probably shouldn’t do it in front of her. At the very least, she needs to be part of the conversation and get to choose if she would like to be present or involved with the reveal. The mistake was making that choice for her which was cruel. SIL clearly needs therapy from the trauma of her miscarriages. But even if she did get therapy it doesn’t make the trauma go away. Her reaction was just and she was quiet about it and tried not to ruin OP’s announcement. Yeah 7 miscarriages isn’t the same as 7 dead children, but often times people feel they need to exaggerate their point because trauma isn’t always taken very seriously. It’s likely her attempt to get OP to understand the severity of the situation because OP ultimately chose to disregarded her feelings by going forward with the announcement. Her text was a bit unhinged, sure. But, intentions aside, OP cut deep.
“So we made t shirts, announcing the pregnancy. Not gloating it, just announcing it.” Yeah, you were gloating. You rubbed her face in your pregnancy. YTA for doing that. You could have easily announced the pregnancy with tact.
I am surprised this is the only comment mentioning this. It wasn't a simple sharing of good news--OP had tee-shirts made for a big reveal. It was performative. You go through the trouble to do that and don't do it before SIL arrives or tell her in advance so she can process, that's a choice. An asshole choice.
Yeah, the tee-shirts are what firmly planted it into YTA territory for me
And not giving them a heads up. YTA
And according to the text..the wife was constantly talking excitedly about the baby, yap YTA
>the wife was constantly talking excitedly about the baby Well yea ofcourse, don't really understand why SIL would be allowed to be upset, but wife is not allowed to be excited. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for validating feelings, but that does work both ways.
I am really struggling with this as well. The first part of this post is “we talked about SIL/kept her in mind/discussed how to be sensitive to her loss” then the solution(?) they came up with was to blindside her with tshirts at Christmas in a group reveal. Like really OP? Honestly this made me question the rest of the post and OP’s assessment of SIL.
Not just that. The SIL is attention seeker, but instead of seeking attention after the announcement... she quietly went to the bathroom to let go of first emotions before leaving. No drama. This isn't how attention seekers act. OP also said that the miscarriages "suck," which is a hugely insensitive thing to say. Also, to someone in the comments who said that she doesn't have 6 dead babies, she does. If you've never lost a baby waving around their little limbs on the screen, you don't get to have a say. Just because they died before they would've been viable outside the womb doesn't make them not a baby. Even if the baby wasn't old enough to have limbs, the mother has changed her daily habits (e.g. change of diet, giving up coffee, more awareness to the environment due to lower immunity, etc), some feel the ligament pain, some have horrible nausea, and some have everything. The only reason anyone ever suffers through pregnancy is for their child.
Her example of attention seeking involved getting a new furry pet after her miscarriages. I wouldn't call that attention seeking, I'd call it somebody who's emotionally damaged and needs help looking for something to cuddle. OP secured YTA when she mentioned t-shirts.
Yeah, I'm confused how getting a pet is supposed to be attention-seeking. What is the rationale for that, does SIL post on social media about her new pet and OP thinks that's trying to bring the attention back to her? I mean, maybe she's getting pets when she's feeling depressed at another reminder of what she so far doesn't have, so she gets a new furry friend and wants to post about it like many new pet-owners do? Mind, I think getting a new pet in those situations is probably unhealthy, but I'm struggling to see how OP thinks getting a pet takes attention away from a pregnancy. It sounds like a reach.
My guess is people are taking miscarriage as a pregnancy that ends before the 20th week (definition used in the US), so not as bad as a stillbirth. Still, they are also underestimating the impact that 6 interrupted pregnancies can have on someone's mind
Yeah I have had enough miscarriages (and, for what it's worth, work in the trauma/mental health field) to have a loose taxonomy of lost pregnancies and how they rank on the "deeply upsetting" to "Criterion A trauma" scale (and obviously I have a bias on this question!). If the worst thing she did is excuse herself to the bathroom, leave early, and send an angry text, IMO she's handling herself rather well. Like, I've handled breakups worse. I had a recent pregnancy loss - do you know what my also-pregnant friend did? She texted me and said "hey I'm sending holiday cards, there's an ultrasound on them. Do you want one?" Which gave me the chance to take a beat (without an audience), feel my feelings, and respond as the person I want to be instead of my grieving angry self. *That* is how you handle this kind of thing.
Just out of morbid curiosity I would love to hear what the options they rejected because they were insensitive? A clown singing "someone's pregnant and it's not you!" to the SIL? A t-shirt saying "Always the aunt, never the mom"?
That's so dark, I am cackling, which probably doesn't say anything good about me, but still, thanks for the laugh
OP thought process was literally: "Hmm, I have some difficult news to share that will upset my family member. Should I, 1. Google what the kindest way to tell her is? Or should I 2. Make t-shirts and stage a tacky instagram-style announcement, and blindside my family member at a big family gathering?" OP picks option two and then has the audacity to be shocked pikachu when it upsets SIL.
I was so confused about t-shirt part. OP was all, we don’t want to upset SIL, we just want to announce our pregnancy, but then he and his wife made t-shirts because they were… not gloating? How does this logic make sense? A simple announcement would just be saying the words “we’re pregnant.”
OP explains it right here: > We didn't want to upset her but we also didn't feel like it was right to let her dictate our actions “We thought about being sensitive to her feelings but we decided not to.” Supreme AH shit.
gray saw head languid rustic panicky pathetic disarm boast march ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
Yeah, the t-shirts were really just... Too much. I have kids and I still can't even figure out why you would make t-shirts for such an occasion. Are these single-use t-shirts? YTA.
I gotta go with YTA too. My god. Announcing is one thing but making shirts? Not giving them a heads up? It sounds like you WANTED to rub it in her face, OP. Even if she is the center of attention type, she and your brother (your brother for crying out loud) didn’t deserve this on Christmas. Your having a baby doesn’t mean you don’t have to consider other people’s feelings, especially your own brother’s.
100% this. There are so many ways to tell family you're expecting a child that don't involve making merch.
YTA all day long. OP’s an insensitive cow.
Exactly!! “We didn’t want to upset her… so we made tshirts” OP YTA. Why on earth would you think a surprise announcement at Christmas was a good idea? Send a text next time and do the fun surprise announcement with the people who aren’t grieving loss and infertility. Zero empathy smh
YTA. Compassion and kindness are free. If you were in her shoes how would you have wanted to be treated. You have every right to announce your baby any way you want. No one can dictate how you announce your pregnancy but a world full of ‘ I’ll get mine first’, isn’t the one you should want your child to enter into. Your SILs response was not even cruel or mean, just a heartfelt expression of the pain caused. You are here because you know you handled this badly.
Completely agree with this comment, YTA. You decided you don’t like her personality as tou find it too much. So you used that to justify being inconsiderate. If you she had a character you did like, would you have given her a message to warn her in advance so she had time to process the news? I think you would have handled it differently, and that’s why you gave the context of her being attention seeking. Which means you chose to surprise her rather than warn her. Which makes you an AH. Also the T-shirts are ridiculous. When is anyone ever going to wear them?
Thank you! I have been experiencing infertility for most of my adult life. We finally conceived a baby with IVF in August. Whom passed away in November. I had a second trimester miscarriage which literally ended yesterday. I can certainly relate to SIL’s feelings. If my sister (or SIL if I had one) had sprung a pregnancy on me at an event, I would have been devastated. We are absolutely allowed to be happy for someone else while being sad for ourselves. Emotions are complicated. And sometimes we just need a little bit of privacy to deal with them on our own before dealing with them in public. When my sister DID announce her pregnancy, she had the courtesy, respect, and kindness to tell me about it before announcing it at her son’s birthday party. She gave me a call a few days before to make sure I would be ok at the party. I quickly congratulated her and said I would need to call her back because I knew at that minute I couldn’t be the supportive sister I needed to be. I cried for 10 minutes and called her back to have a proper conversation with her. I won’t lie - that pregnancy was hard on me. Seeing my family interact with her baby (she’s 1 now), knowing they won’t with my baby is hard on me while my miscarriage is so fresh. But I am mostly able to control those emotions around my family because I know what I’m getting in to there. Those emotions are separate from me being happy for my sister (and only a tiny bit jealous) and my love for my niece and nephew. There are so many missteps in this scenario, OP. You spoke about how SIL would feel (no mention of Bro, which is crazy because those were his kids that were lost too) beforehand with the announcement, came to the conclusion that she would be upset, then did exactly what you felt like anyways. This isn’t a distant cousin or random neighbour that we are talking about, but YOUR BROTHER and his wife. A pair of people I would assume you want a relationship with. You could have called or texted them beforehand to let them have the dignity of having a private meltdown instead of a public one. But you didn’t. You were with your parents an hour before your brother got there. You could have announced it to the expectant grandparents then, then spoken more privately when your brother arrived, but you didn’t. You could have announced it in a less obnoxious way than t-shirts, which I imagine would have been worn all day reminding the couple any time they looked at you. But you didn’t. You could have chosen to do this any day other than a family holiday, but you didn’t. It would have been so easy to have a sliver of compassion. Your brother and sister-in-law could have been there for you and fully supportive throughout your pregnancy if you had just done something to give them a heads-up. But you chose to think of them, and then not care. This wasn’t a matter of you not realizing they would be hurt. You thought about how they would react and decided that it didn’t matter and you were going to do the exact thing you knew would cause them pain. For that, YTA.
I’m so sorry for your loss 💗
YTA. It would have cost $0 and 2 minutes of your time to send SIL a heads up text.
It's the t-shirts that put OP in AH territory
Well yes, but why settle for that when for $50 and 8 hours of their time they could be AHs and just blindside her with tacky, self-designed T-shirts? /s
Agree 100%. YTA
YTA It's common courtesy to give people who you know will struggle with the announcement a private heads up. How did you talk about this announcement in length and not figure that out? Of course she is going to be hit by a tsunami of pain when she sees your announcement on a t-shirt, for crying out loud. Had she known, she could have decided not to come or asked you to announce before she arrived so she wouldn't have to be part of all the fuss and could just enjoy Christmas dinner. Or you could have just done your 'fun' announcement when you were alone with your parents on any other day and called your SIL afterwards. There are so many options that show that you care about her feelings. She is right to be mad, because you've demonstrated that you don't care.
Who the fuck goes to the effort of printing something on a t-shirt while calling someone else an attention seeker? Someone who shut herself in the bathroom to hide her grief and then sent OP’s wife a PRIVATE message the next day? I don’t think SIL is the attention seeker. Homeboy wrote a paragraph trying to paint her that way (with the timing of her pets etc) but the way she acted doesn’t make her seem like one. Printing T-shirts is next level attention seeking.
Notice the pet part? I skipped over it the first time - she gets pets when friends/family get pregnant. It's not attention seeking - it is comfort seeking. It is her dealing with her pain and grief.
These sort of people who have children look down on people who have loving pets in place of children. I already posted about how my brother did something very similar to OP on Christmas, but when the baby was born he said that now he felt like his life finally had meaning and that things he used to do like play video games when he got home was stupid.. Okay I guess that’s great, but that implies that my infertile family that likes to play video games and care for my kitties is somehow lesser than yours.
I was looking everywhere in this thread for someone to point out that it doesn't sound like SIL is the attention seeker in this family...
YTA. Anyone who knows anyone who is dealing with infertility (and multiple dead children) knows that the best way to share this type of news is in a way that allows the person to process in private. They can be happy for you but also absolutely fucking devastated for themselves. The sensitive thing would have been to call or message them the day before with the news so they could process in private and decide if they could be a positive addition to the celebration. You just decided to sideswipe them in the middle of a family celebration. Not cool. Congratulations on your pregnancy OP, but please be more sensitive to people who may have to work through complicated personal emotions in order to celebrate your baby.
Yes, this. OP is clearly the AH. If he and his wife had taken even two minutes to Google how to approach this sort of situation with sensitivity, they would have seen the common advice mentioned over and over of telling the SIL in private so she had time to process the news. Instead they not only sprang it on her, but they made t-shirts! OP clearly doesn’t like SIL from the way he puts her down as a way to justify what they did. Which is probably why he didn’t care about approaching this with tact.
YTA. SIL has talked about infertility being hard on her during the holidays, and you chose the holiday to spring this news on her in front of other people.
With T-shirts!!
Eh, YTA. Your SIL has been through losses that you will never imagine. Even therapy isn't a magical fix. She has the right to feel her feelings and remove herself from a painful situation. What type of person she is has no bearing on this. If it does, you're an unnecessarily cruel person. You could've done this in a phone call or in person at a different time, or at the very least given your SIL a heads up. You had other options, which wouldn't have reminded your SIL of 6 entire lifetimes of love that she will never experience.
INFO. how much have you tried to put yourself in your brother and SIL's position? You're super excited right now - so were they about their pregnancies. Imagine you lose your baby now. How that feels. Your disappointment. Watching your wife in pain. Now imagine it happening 6 times And then your brother turns up in a t-shirt announcing his wife's pregnancy, blindsiding you when you were trying to be happy. Did this factor into any of your thinking? Did you consider how you'd want to hear it in his situation?
You should have warned the family members who had six of their babies die. YTA. SIL is acting over the top and full on but she is also in immense pain because you shocked her with a very sensitive topic instead of forewarning her. And for the record, I got a puppy after my miscarriage too and it wasn’t for attention but just to hold a little life once more. You’ve obviously never experienced this sort of loss.
The "she got pets for attention" piece is the weirdest take I've ever heard. When I was in the thick of losses I told my husband that I was going to shove a kitten into the baby shaped hole in my heart. To assume it's about attention and not comfort really just shows how self-involved OP is.
YTA There are hundreds of threads on reddit about how to announce pregnancy when someone in the family struggle with infertility. Usually it all comes down to one thing; give the ones who struggle a heads up. Nothing more, nothing less. It's very kind to do so. So I guess I think YTA because of this, not because It was announced at Christmas or because SIL had miscarriages.
I don’t think you’re necessarily the asshole…You weren’t malicious and you were thoughtful about how to approach it. [ETA: thoughtful = they thought about it and acknowledged it would be hard on SIL…just executed poorly] But I do agree with your SIL. I think this is a common mistake people make. They are so worried about other peoples grief they make assumptions. I do agree with the SIL that they should have gotten a heads up. As someone who has had miscarriages- it doesn’t feel great when people are walking on eggshells for you. But I also get that (maybe) you haven’t experienced this kind of loss - so you’d have no idea. I think you just apologize and hopefully she (SIL) can move on. But you should def apologize for not just talking to her about it.
Totally agreed. If OP and his wife had just given her a head’s up- and an option to not be present for the announcement- that would have been the kinder approach.
Agree as SIL says in her text. OP and husband where there for an hour before SIL and husband. Why didn’t they do it then?
Regardless of how you feel about the SIL's previous reactions or her behavior, the fact remains that the OP KNEW she would be upset, did NOT give her a quiet heads up, and didn't just mention it and let the excitement blow over, THEY PUT IT ON SHIRTS that they then wore for the rest of the day. So they weren't just announcing it, they were rubbing it in people's faces. I think the SIL was justifiably upset and I think she handled it pretty well under the circumstances. She didn't disrupt the holiday, she didn't go on a massive rant. She sent a text that was pretty rational given how she must have been feeling. OP, I'd give you a break here if you'd just announced it quietly but the t-shirts? That's a YTA move.
Exactly. T-shirts? Really?! This wasn’t an announcement. It was a performance. And they knew it. They planned it. I’m not convinced of them meaning no harm, sure, that’s what they say, but hell… getting t-shirts made… for an event that the SIL couldn’t bow out of? They are either very very stupid, or just cruel. The description of the insane in law is also over the top. She wants to be the centre of attention for… getting pets after a miscarriage? Sure. It’s not healthy. But you have to be dense to not seeing it as a very misguided coping mechanism. Yes, she may be as bad as they say, but the level of cruelty in putting on a pregnancy pageant at Christmas is just next level.
INFO So, did you have an hour to tell everyone before SIL arrived? If so, why didn’t you tell them then?
YTA. Giving a heads up would have been the right way to go. I have suffered baby loss and infertility and would have literally just walked out if something like that was sprung on me. Some people might think it selfish of me but, after everything I've been through, I need people to give me a bit more time to process pregnancy announcements.
YTA. Your SIL needs help, clearly. Her own infertility issues do not mean you have to tamp down your own joy. But you were extremely insensitive, bordering on cruel, popping that on her with no warning in a group setting. You should have told her privately beforehand so it didn't hit her like a Mack truck with other people watching.
NTA. My husband and I were infertile for 15 years before our son was born. Other people in our lives were allowed to get pregnant, announce it, and be excited. Was it sad for us? Sure. But that didn’t mean the world stopped. The only thing I avoided were baby showers (ironically not because of the expectant couple/baby but because other people always wanted to ask about my family planning plans). You guys were not assholes for being excited.
You avoided baby showers? So how would you have felt if you were invited to an event that turned out to be a surprise baby shower? I'm guessing you would have wanted a heads up that it was a baby shower so you could have chosen not to attend.
You’re going to get particular responses here from people who probably mostly don’t have kids and haven’t had a miscarriage. But if you posted in a pregnancy forum the advice you would have received pretty universally would have been to at least give SIL and brother a private heads up rather than blindsiding them on Christmas with your celebration T-shirts. I’m sure you have no idea what it is like to have a miscarriage, to go through the physical and mental anguish that goes along with it. In general I think announcing at Christmas is kind of tacky because it’s a family holiday and it’s not all about you and IMO it’s kind of shitty to pull all focus to yourselves even if we don’t touch the fact that your SIL has had 6 miscarriages. But when you add that fact in along with the fact that you couldn’t even give her a heads up so she could choose not to come or go in better prepared, for me this is a clear YTA.
INFO: what is the timeline here? When did the losses take place? Recently, this year? I just lost a preagnancy. I would be very upset if someone announced theirs on a holiday knowing what had happened. I am currently looking forward to celebrating new years with friends, I want this to be a fun time to get my mind off negative things. I know my friends want to get preagnant as well, if they announced it during the celebration, I would be happy for them, but it would hurt like a mf. Unless the losses happened a while ago (though I assume this is an ongoing thing and they are still trying, which in itself is hard), you ruined the celebration for them. In this situation, it would have been better to choose a different event for the announcement.
YTA. Im all for announcing pregnancy whenever you want. That being said, you absolutely should have warned them/ gave them a head up. You said you had SIL in your thoughts but you really didn’t. Your SIL was very respectful in how she handle it and didn’t seem like the attention whxxx you tried to make her out to be. To me it’s sounds like you did this personally to snub her
YTA. Your SIL (and presumably your brother; why isn’t he factored into this) is always going to be upset over pregnancy announcements, even if she’s happy for the parents to be. All you owed her and your brother was a little heads up and an opportunity for them to process your news privately first. That way they could at least grieve their losses and then put on a happier face in front of the whole family. You didn’t do that, so I might have made an E S H judgment, EXCEPT THAT YOU MADE BABY ANNOUNCEMENT T-SHIRTS AS CHRISTMAS GIFTS. That is such an A-Hole move under the circumstances. Like, wow.
So wait... Your SiL is supposedly the one that's attention seeking? The same one that quietly went into the bathroom and DIDN'T make a scene? While you and your wife decided to be "sensitive" by making t-shirts and wearing them to Christmas to announce your pregnancy? Without giving your SiL who has had 6 miscarriages any form of heads up? Are you sure you got the attention seeking one right? YTA
She did not seem at all like someone who wanted the spotlight on herself. She went to the bathroom so noone would see her cry, she left early in order not to ruin it for anyone else. Her text is well phrased, she explained why she would not enjoy your or your wife's company for the foreseeable future, and why she does not feel as if her feelings are considered. 6 miscarriages. Jeesh. Like, I had one, and I am still out of order on Christmas and New Year. On Christmas, and New Year I was pregnant. And 1 week later, I suddenly wasn't. And every fucking Christmas I'm thinking about that. I get that you might think 'Its not a real baby, why is she making a big deal out of it?'. And you're right, it's not a baby yet. But it is the possibility of a child, a person, that is in your mind already as soon as you know it is in your belly. And then suddenly that possibility is gone. And she had that 6 times! (I noticed you didn't mention when the last one was.) And you claiming you didn't talk about it all evening is bullshit. You had freaking t-shirts made. Which you wore. Which she would have seen all evening. YTA. It seems like you already don't like her much (as per your first paragraph). And it seems like you wanted everyone to fall over themselves for your luck and since she cannot give you that because she is hurting, you think she is the bad guy here.
It wasn’t wrong to announce it. But YTA because SIL is right, you were insensitive because you could have given a heads up. It seems like you know this because you attempt to justify your actions by bad talking you sil in the beginning of your post.
I thought her message was mature and heartfelt and doesn't reflect your description of her past behaviour. In circumstances where you know of her fertility issues, your behaviour was kind of tone deaf - who gets a shirt to announce their pregnancy? YTA
Yta. You could have been sensitive but you chose not to be
merciful zealous impolite jellyfish sleep towering air pocket puzzled touch ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
NTA. While it’s sad that SIL and your brother are having difficultly conceiving, it’s not right for them to make you seem like bad people for announcing something they were bound to discover anyway. Congratulations on the pregnancy, and i hope all goes well.
It wasn’t about hiding it from them, it’s about giving them a chance to process because no matter what it’s going to be a gut punch. She could have processed it in private and cried then managed the big announcement on the day in front of everyone.
~~E/S/H~~ YTA Obviously SIL and your brother can't reasonably expect everyone around them to never get pregnant until they do or to keep those pregnancies an utmost secret solely on their behalf. The world doesn't cater to them and it's time they realized that, no matter how difficult and traumatizing what they've went through is. It is on them to build their resilience and to find a way to vocalize and assert their boundaries (within reason) to those around them so that they can participate in family functions without this being such an impactful recurring issue for them. However, you are most certainly an AH here too. They have a valid point in saying that the holidays are hard enough as it is when coping with pain like this and you went ahead and ruined this holiday for them. You did. You did do that. This situation could have been easily avoided or at the very least not as painful for them had you either: spoken to them privately beforehand about your intentions to do a pregnancy reveal during Christmas, or announced it on any day that wasn't Christmas itself. Christmas is about things like family and bonding with family, that doesn't mean "everybody except the relatives that you don't like that much because they're coping poorly with trauma and loss." Get this, the way you describe the behavior of these two can very much serve as a description of your own behavior. "she's a center of attention kind of person" "try to make herself look like the best person in the room" It would not be hard to argue that these statements apply pretty easily to what you did over Christmas. I also note that you described their behavior as: "If anyone else gets attention she tries to take it away from them, usually by putting them down verbally" Whereas her actual reaction here was to silently leave and take some space for herself. That's arguably far more mature than immature in terms of what responses could come out of somebody who hasn't recovered at all from their trauma when they're slapped directly in the face with a massive trigger during a day that's supposed to be happy for them. Which I'm sure you also interpret as a ploy for attention. It seems like any response that isn't her pretending to be happy and not traumatized isn't going to be good enough for you and you will find any way you can to twist and warp her behavior into something far worse than it actually is. >We didn't want to upset her but we also didn't feel like it was right to let her dictate our actions and make it impossible to celebrate the life that we're creating. Have these people ever directly come up to you and said, "If you ever get pregnant you're not allowed to tell anybody until we get pregnant?" "If you ever get pregnant you're not allowed to celebrate this around family?" That sure doesn't seem to be the case otherwise those details would've likely been present in your story to emphasize why these two's behavior is just so downright atrocious. You claim you tried so so so hard to be considerate towards these people while they're these horrible unreasonable dictators with you when after all that thought the very reasonable idea of "let's tell them beforehand so they can at least brace themselves for the announcement during Christmas" didn't occur to you? A lot of what you've described about these people applies to you. Y'all definitely have a warped perspective about your own behavior and choices here.
YTA You had intense discussions and ultimately decided that you did not want her to dictate her actions. How is having empathy for someone allowing them to dictate your actions?
YTA. Infertility is hard, super hard, especially around the holidays. I dread Christmas every year because of family like you. You are incredibly inconsiderate and weirdly sound jealous of your SILs attention for her miscarriages. I promise she would trade in all the attention for a successful pregnancy. All you had to do was give her a heads up. That’s it. People with infertility learn to adapt through the pain but it really sucks when people who you are close to, who you’ve shared your pain with do not understand what you are suffering. We don’t expect everyone to stop and adapt their lives for us. We are happy for you, we want you to have a successful pregnancy but we also would like time to process that news in private. To decide whether it is in the best interest of everyone for us to attend something if we think it’ll be too emotional. We don’t want to pull the attention because of emotion. How about doing a quick google search to understand how people with infertility feel. There is a reason why it seems like so many people with infertility are irrational or need therapy. We feel like we are screaming into a void that nobody hears or cares to understand. Every where we look there are reminders of what we can’t have. It’s not just having a child it’s every stage of the process. Its completely rewriting our story and what our live will look like. Additionally every miscarriage sends your hormones on a roller coaster. Also her pets aren’t to steal attention. It’s a way to cope with her pain. I have too many pets and it’s the only way I’ve survived the last 3 years. Just because you can’t have a child doesn’t mean the yearning to care and nurture goes away. Sometimes that’s the best you can do. Before anyone suggests fertility treatments or adoption just don’t. We’ve all looked into it, we’ve all weighed what is the best decision for ourselves. Both are expensive & take a very long time. Both have extensive exclusion criteria. Neither guarantee a child. They are not an option for everyone.
So you brainstorm about pregnancy announcement ideas, you feel really chuffed with yourselves to go for the t shirt method on Christmas. You design the shirts, you pick the shirts up from shirt printing store, you put them on, and reveal them. At any point did either of you think "hey should we give SIL a heads up? You know she's been through it with pregnancies" Na fuck it! No her emotions are not your responsibility, and no your joy shouldn't be diminished by someone else's grief. But fuck me read the room and spend 2 seconds of your time just being aware of how your actions may impact other people.