dealing with MIL while being pregnant

having some major issues with being pregnant and with dealing with MIL. i don't know how i am going to be able to successfully get through the first few months after giving birth if my MIL is going to be around me all the time. i know that i'm in no position to deny help from anyone seeing as how we are having twins but i also know that i need to be somewhat sane in order to properly care for my babies and if she's around all the time i just don't know how i'm going to handle it.

when h and i first told her that we were pregnant her first words were, and i quote, "i thought you guys were coming over to tell me that you were getting a divorce or are pregnant"...it wasn't anything nice or supportive, like "congrats". nope it was completely negative right from the start. after she said that she immediately went into how i wasn't going to be able to handle being a parent and that she was concerned with all of the medication i was on and how she is not going to get excited until the first trimester is over because she had a couple of miscarriages. nothing nice was said. and for the following days she kept questioning me about whether or not i was happy about being pregnant because i wasn't happy enough and that she was suprised with my response since i had wanted children so badly. ugh!

lately she's been asking me if i am bonding with the babies (at 10 weeks mind you), if i'm actually putting for any effort into picking strollers and what not (apparently i'm just looking at price tags and color and not safety), and telling me that she feels left out because i'm not talking to her on a daily basis and posted a picture up on myspace. seriously, all of her "concerns" makes me feel like i am not pregnant with my children but rather pregnant with hers. and whatever she says goes because that's the way good moms behave, just like her.

seriously how am i going to be able to handle this?

 

Honestly? No, really? Honestly? I would have to tell her to leave me the heck alone if I were you. That's ridiculous.

 

Holy cow, that is ridiculous. You need to have an honest conversation with your husband and explain to him that your MIL is toxic influence and she is stressing you out during your pregnancy, which is unacceptable. He should put in the effort to get her away from you because you should not have to deal with this negative influence. Ban this woman from your life, she is pure poison.

 

You're too busy growing babies to deal with this silly stuff. You need to ask your husband to deal with it. He can talk to her each day and give her updates and send her pics (of what?? they're not even born yet!) if that's necessary. You need to be a zen woman for the sake of your babes.

 

oh my goodness!! I am so sorry you have to put up w/ that. someone needs to tell that lady off and in a hurry!! If your hubby won't do it, you need to - think of how wonderful it will make you feel (and you can blame it on 1st trimester hormones!) I'm kidding......sort of. you should not have to put up w/ that - tell your husband that he needs to provide her the daily updates and make excuses for you - you are too busy preparing for the babies, etc. to give daily updates. Then you can continue peacefully and she'll pass through all her "advice" to your husband. Good luck dealing with her. I'm sure it can't be fun.

 

thanks everyone. i really appreciate the advice and tips. my husband just keeps saying that he doesn't like getting involved in this issue and feels like he is caught in the middle. he tells me to ignore her or to let her talk and if i hear something i like keep it, if i don't ignore it...well that's not working. every comment that she makes completely undermines me as a future parent. whether it's intentional or not, her words cut.

the other day i typed out this really long e-mail that i was going to send her about how i need for her to back off and realize that everything i am doing in completely normal and is not wrong. i never sent it because i knew it would piss her off. but i'm seriously rethinking that now. my husband also says that i should be nice to her since it will be her that helps us out the most when the babies come. i told him tonight that i don't think i can handle her "helping" me because i know everything that i do will be wrong in her eyes and i just can't deal with that. so he got pissed at me because i can't get along with his mom.

i try to tell him that he's got to be the one to set the limits because she doesn't listen to me but he refuses and says "i do" when really he doesn't.

so i don't know. she is upset that i don't want her in the delivery room with me. she thinks it's horrible that i wouldn't want her in there. she also concocted this reason as to why she had to be present for our first ob/gyn appointment. convincing DH that she would be there to help and make things easier. well, as you can imagine, i did not allow her to come.

i guess i could go back and rewrite that e-mail and if she gets mad just blame it on the hormones. but unlike her i actually have a heart and would feel bad about hurting her feelings.

 

I find that when two people get married there is a "territory pee" that some Mil will do to try to mark their territory of their sons. It seems to happen again when the first baby arrives especially if it is the first grandchild. It really comes down to RESPECT, and if anyone isn't doing that, you need to find a way to be an adult yet see her as a child since she is acting childish. Speak to her like you would your own child. "that's not appropriate" "I dont' appreciate that comment" "no that is not the way we are going to do things" "we will decide those things together" , "I find that comment very hurtful" ....

You CAN take care of these babies on your own, you wont' need your mil to "help" since she sounds like she won't be very helpful anyways. You can do this without her, and you don't need to put up with this your entire pg just "incase" you need her help. You need her RESPECT.

 

Heathertwins-you are right on the money! Perfect!

 

You definitly will not need her help - she doesn't sound like shoud would be much of a help anyway. My MIL is just as bad and when she comes over, my blood starts to boil. Instead of me watching 3 kids - I have to enterain and wait on her too! I refuse. My husband and I fight over her all the time. She was also mad she wasn't in the delivery room for my first son - so much that she didn't even want to come up to see her first grandchild. When my twins were born, she didn't come up for a few days - they were 2 months early and spend 3 weeks in the NICU and she never visited or helped. But she will be the first person to say she has twin grand-daughters and how much she loves them and sees them. She is 20 minutes away and sees them all every couple of months at the most.

Don't stress yourself out - Try your best to ignore her. It won't get any easier when they are born. Just do what you feel is right. You will blow up at her eventually - make sure it doesn't ruin your marriage

 

Sometimes you cannot get your point through without chewing off somebodies face....

"MIL, why are you so obsessed with xyz, it is not healthy!"

You might want to google motherinlawstories, it is militantly DIL-sided, but I love it, and it gave me western words for my eastern experiences.

I wish you a blessed and beautiful pregnancy!

Naua

 

OMG i think i would have told her to shove off by now!! I think she needs to be told that she is over stepping the mark alot because if you dont it will stress you out more and more and you will eventually blow at her (which might make you feel good but probably wont help lol) Good luck keep us posted! Big :hug: Just remember you CAN do it yourself and you dont need her help at all x

 

oh my gosh I would have slapped her already! Stop answering her phone calls immediatly, block her from your myspace, and simply print off any emails and give them to DH...Dont read them! Dont visit her anymore, if DH needs to let him go alone! I wouldnt want her in the delivery room either when my son was born it was a huge bonding experience that I couldnt imagine being angry and stressed out about, dont let her in, my mother was in the room only because I'm still a mommy's girl and once the contractions started I was crying for her. Talk to your doctor when your at an apt. without DH and tell him you really dont want your MIL in the room, bet you he'll go along with you saying only one person can be in the delivery room...Hospital policy..LOL

As for help after...many people do it with out help, yes help is nice, but toxic help is worse than no help! This is going to be the happiest time in your life...excpecially those first few weeks, granted they may all swirl together in a fog (as I've heard from other twin mom's) but still dont let her take that away from you! Put your foot down with DH, its his mother and his responsibility to be involved it doesnt make sence for him to stay out of it.


Good Luck :grouphug: :grouphug: I know it can be hard I've had In law issues myself....once you put your foot down it'll get better...Just worry about you and your babies for now!

 

I know EXACTLY how you feel. My mother in law lives in Ohio and we live in Texas so she decided for herself that when the babies come shes coming to stay with us for 2-3 months!! When I heard that, I told my husband that we are getting her a hotel! Thanks but NO THANKS! The past couple weeks have been ok but since I found out I'm pregnant she tells me what I need to be eating, how much sleeping I should be getting, O and when I talk to her on my way home from work she tells me well just go home, take a bath, cook some dinner and go to bed early every single time. UM I think I know the things I need to do and when I need to go to bed! I'm like I wish that was all I had to do. O and when I was in my first trimester I got behind on the laundry bc I was sick all the time and I guess my husband mentioned it to her (I was not happy) and she told me that I needed to learn to do the laundry and keep up with it bc when these babies come I wont be allowed to get behind on anything. ALSO... she told me she doesn't think that my husband and I are going to be able to handle having these babies because we like to sleep in until maybe 10 on the weekends and I was taking naps during my first trimester. I wanted to scream at her! O and she is VERY protective over her son(hes her baby and still acts like he is 14!) And then my whole pregnancy until last week I just had a huge feeling it was two girls but I didn't care what we had. Well to her we were NOT having two girls and that she knew that we were having a boy and a girl and their names were going to be hunter and haylie(excuse me but when did we tell you to name our babies??) well we found out we are having TWO GIRLS like I said. ANYWAYS this is what I decided to do.... I answer her phone calls maybe once a week and the other times I tell my husband to tell her I'm busy making dinner or doing something and so she talks to him and bugs him instead now because I really can't handle the stress she makes me feel. I hope this helps! Hang in there! HOPEFULLY it will get better!

Sorry I kind of went off!

 

I am so sorry about your MIL, and the bigger sorry that your DH is taking the neutral role on this.
About taking care of the babies. I am sure you woudl be able to do it yourself ( but not sure for how long) but it's better to hire someone then keep MIl in the house.
I would say you need to argue with her you need to go for that confrontation so she will understand that you are the boss in you house and if she want to see that babies she need to play on your rules. I think that not seeing the babies is what they afraid of. I know it is earlier to talk about babies yet, but you need to stay for yourself. what woud lbe worse? she wouldn't talk to you for a while? good more time to be calm. If your DH cannot handle that go with confrontation at least your DH need to take one side.

 

Haleystar- Your only 10 weeks. You have,hopefully, at least 26 left. Nip this in the bud now or your going to go into preterm labor. And all this from the woman who was hoping you guys were announcing a divorce. Maybe she is trying to push you so that you think your only option to get away from her would be to divorce your husband. lol you never know. One suggestion I offer to you is DO NOT mention any name ideas you guys might have. I learned this the hard way. They will always have an opinion about the name you pick and it won't be a good one. Save yourself the headache choose the names you want and announce it the day they are born. (At least to the in laws, my mom had a few opinions this time but said they are your kids not mine you guys choose the names you want I'll love the kids no matter what. I was like "wow thank you." My MIL would never have said this.)

I really do believe it is law to not get along with your in laws. My husbands family has this unspoken rule that everyone has to come to EVERY holiday. The first holiday he missed was because he went with me to Florida for Thanksgiving to see my ENTIRE family (except for one sister and my mom) and his mom and grandma called him crying about how he didnt love his family anymore because he didn't want to be there with them. Needless to say I never wanted to go to another holiday with them again. It is my family tradition (I've done it since I was 7) to go to Florida where I see my dad and grandparents and aunts and uncles on both sides of my family. My in laws now want us to go every other year because it's not fair that we go there every year. I told DH that he could do that but me and the kids are going to FL. He said, "I don't think so. Your family is funner and have WAY better food. I get two BiG thanksgiving dinners. If I go to my family we have sandwhichs and chips." That is what they always have. They never go to his dads family just his moms. I don't know why. And we told them that we would come there for Easter before I found out I was pregnant, let alone with twins. I will be 28 weeks then. The doctor already said he didn't recommend me traveling that far then (5 hours). We told them this and they turned it into that we didn't want to see them and this and that, not that I was thinking about my babies and their health. It's always about them. My husband works two jobs so he ends up working 7 days a week even if its only a few hours a day and I do home day care and make my hours around the parents. And they don't understand why we can't just take off work to go see them every few weekends. Because then we won't have a home to come home to because we can't pay our bills. Duh. And they always call to see if we are alright. And when they get this urge they will keep calling til we answer and they are like are you ok you didn't answer your phone we were sooo worried. Umm... we were trying to have a night out. Sorry. We aren't 12 we don't need checked up on all the time. It's not like we don't talk to them all the time. grr...

What made me the maddest of all though was how they treated my son. They would come every few months and try to hold and hug him and make him kiss them without him knowing who they were and he would cry. I didn't like hearing him cry like that. One time my mil got mad because he wanted to go downstairs with me and I took him. She said "he's going to have to stay with us sometime. You can't baby him forever." I told her he doesn't know who you are, he's scared of you. You are strangers to him kissing and hugging him. She got pissed and told me it was OUR fault he didn't know them because we didn't bring him to see them more and that we need to leave him there for a couple weeks because he is their grandparents and have a say in his life. I picked him up and said he's my son and left. I was pissed. My husband had just got back from basic training for the airforce, I had just lost my job, we were in the middle of moving and they wanted us to spend the little extra money we had to come see them once a month. When they just spent $7000 on a cruise that was longer than anytime they came to visit us.

Sorry this got so long I dislike in laws and really needed to vent. My DH won't really listen. We need to start a In Law rant page!!! I think it would do us all good to be able to go in there everytime they do something stupid to get it off our chests since DH's dont want to hear about it.

 

I love my MIL, it's my own mother that drives me bananas!!! But boy do i have stories about her.

 

I am so sorry you are the one that has to be in the middle of your MIL and husband. No easy answer. But, I would recommend ditching the email route and having a stern face-to-face conversation instead. Many times bullies back down this way. This may be uncomfortable but may be the best way to get her respect when she realizes you are not afraid to communicate your feelings to her and call her out on her comments. And you do not have to rely on her help. She needs to know her place and if she cannot be supportive, you don't need the negativity! Most likely seeing her grandchildren is important to her, therefore, even if your relationship improves even to a strain, she is going to honor your wishes. You are the one bearing these children. Even if you are angry, you can totally take the "hurt" route. Make her understand what her comments do to you. Tell her she is very hurtful. Good luck to you.

 

OH how I do sympathise! EVERY wond that comes out of my MILs mouth is advice and in 8 years not one piece of it has been useful.
My MIL has repeatedly told me I am not allowed to buy anything until after the babies have been born alive.
When I told her that they would be coming by 28 weeks, she asked me what the specialists had said I could do. I said, just rest. She said, oh no, they wouldn't have told you that. And then launched into a 5 minute speech about what I should be doing based on what she had just read about Lisa-Marie Presley and her twins in a woman's magazine.
I try and ignore a lot of what she says. But other times I say in a very strong voice. 'Dave (DH) and I have decided that we will be......' 'Well, there is lots of different opinions on that but what we have already decided that we will be doing is.....' etc etc.
And ask your partner not to tell you anything negative she says to him. You don't need to know. Or even get him to tell her that you need to keep a positive frame of mind so only want to hear positie things. My husband had to step in when his sisters insisted on telling me all their horror birth stories.

 

What is the difference between in-laws and outlaws ?

....... outlaws are wanted. hehe

 

:laughing: Heathertwins lol

Im so sorry you have to put up with this at the moment :hug: to you!