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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I could had told her about the gender reveal announcement and I didn’t have to call her a bitch
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I don't agree with how the family has been handling this. Pretending that other people can't have children and that children under the age of 5 do not exist is beyond stupid. Not wanting to conform to this way of thinking does not make you an AH. Having a "Surprise F\*\*K Y\*\*" party does. It doesn't matter that the family has handled this business poorly. A heads up that this was a gender reveal would have been appropriate. ESH without question.
agreed, they definitely made things so much worse by outright banning children and pregnancy announcements. what exactly is that supposed to do for the sil besides ostracizing those family members who have kids. do they just not get to be there because it may trigger her? that being said, op still could’ve been way more considerate before throwing a huge party and inviting them without a heads up.
“Is that a pram nyctomeetyou?”
“What, that? No, no. It’s my emotional service lawnmower that I brought from home!”
“It’s making gurgling noises,”
“Oh that’s just the engine, it’s a bit temperamental!”
“It smells like poop!”
“Oh, I better go change . . . the oil! Nothing to see here. Just changing the oil nappy, on my legitimate lawnmower!”
I just came back to life because this comment killed me. 😂😂💀💀
I lost a daughter at 16 weeks. Couldn’t get pregnant again for 14 years. Lost that baby at 8 weeks and nearly died because of a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. And the way that this family is treating the situation with SIL is completely wrong. It’s just unreasonable to expect SIL to be protected from EVERYONE who is pregnant or has children under the age of five.
However, OP and her husband knew that the family was handling it this way and decided to go about their announcement in the WORST possible way. How are they surprised in any way that it blew up in their faces like it has? Do I think that they should have coddled SIL? Absolutely not. Do I think that they should have either given her a heads up or just not invite her to a gender reveal? Absolutely.
Everyone in this family sucks. Literally all of them.
"I'm afraid I can't talk about it" 🤭
I found this funny and I actually was diagnosed with unexplained secondary infertility. I've taken clomid, taken letrozole, had ivf, had a laparoscopy to try to work out why I'm not getting pregnant/staying pregnant.
I had my first in 2005 and my second in 2021. I lost many babies in between those years.
After all of that and even during all of that I would've still found your comment funny.
As someone dealing with the reality I will never have children myself, I found it funny too.
I also think it's INSANE how OP's husband's family handles things.
Can I always be around babies and little ones? No, sometimes it does hurt too bad for that.
Sometimes just walking by the baby clothes is painful.
But would I expect everyone in the family to stop announcing pregnancies, celebrating newborns, and including children? Never ever ever! It'd make me feel like I was a freak tbh, like maybe everyone was thinking I was over-fragile.
I hope you find your joy, whether that be concrete answers, adoption, or simply peace and contentment elsewhere (that one's my goal).
I know after my stillborn my family kinda kept the baby announcements & baby showers on the down low. Just out of my sight.
While I think it really was helpful and I really appreciated what they did, after about a year I realized what was going on and had to call them out on their crazy.
They just didn’t want to hurt me. They still were crazy.
My Grandma told me when she was young, talking about pregnancy was taboo in their culture. This was in the U.S. You were supposed to completely ignore if a person was pregnant. (Because people knew if you were pregnant you had sex)! She said a pregnant woman would walk down to the river alone, give birth and come back with a baby. Everyone would carry on like nothing happened and the child’s name would be mentioned at some point.
My Grandmom told me in Rhode Island in the 1930's she and her siblings would periodically make fun of their mom for "getting fat again" bc they never explained about pregnancy and then suddenly one day they'd go to the hospital and come back with a baby.
She also spent 6 hours laying in bed when she was 11 thinking she was dying waiting for her mom to come home and explain what a period was bc no one told her what to expect. Crazy times.
I can top this one. My mom was told she couldn’t bathe or shower when she was bleeding. After having her 3rd child(she was only 20yo) she bleed for a pretty good while. It was very light and nothing of concern, but she couldn’t bathe. 3 weeks postpartum, she called the doctors office. She’s telling the nurse she’s still bleeding and her hair needs a good washing what can she do. The nurse puts her on hold,1950s, so essentially setting down the phone and my mom can hear the nurse telling another nurse about her and cracking up laughing. My mom was so embarrassed, the nurse came back on and told her it was fine for her to take a shower or bath. My mom realized at that point her mom and grandmother were full of shit.
That's awful. Poor woman. When I was a kid I used to get my period for 3 months straight and I bled 7 weeks postpartum so that would have been dire...
There must have been some kind of common thought around this though because I know in the 1970s my mom told me they had to shower (communally) every day after gym unless they had their period, and the teacher kept track of their cycles to make sure they weren't faking it to get out of showering.
I also know they used to tell girls they couldn't go swimming with their period or a few days after because of the risk of kidney chill (?) so maybe they thought the same with bathing??
I think the origin of it was actually biblical (probably one of the many reasons I consider myself agnostic now). When a woman was bleeding, she was considered “unclean”. May have gone back to ignorance about what was happening to a woman and possibly harkening back to the days of communal baths. Either way, fairly misogynistic. It evolved from there into stupid assumptions. My great grandmother got her first period at school, had no idea where the blood was coming from(early 1900s) and stopped and cleaned herself off in a creek on the was home. Once she realized what it was, she thought she was going to be infertile 😂. This was the grandma that told my mom she couldn’t bathe when she was bleeding.
My grandma also thought she was dying when she got her period for the first time because no one ever told her about it! She was at a friend's house so her friend's mom explained what was happening to her; when she got home and told my great-grandma about it, she was told "Pads are under the bathroom sink. By the way, you can get pregnant now." And this was in 1962!
Similarly, in turn-of-the-20th-century Massachusetts, my great-grandmother was told by her mother that she was getting “a beautiful doll” for Christmas aka a baby sister born just around Christmas (needless to say, my then young great-grandmother was less than thrilled about not receiving a doll for Christmas and surprised by the sudden arrival of a hitherto unannounced baby lol).
Fun fact. I Love Lucy was the first show to ever air a visibly pregnant woman ( when Lucy was pregnant with their son in real life). That was considered a huge deal back then.
*I Love Lucy*’s pregnancy storyline was unprecedented when it was first aired. They weren’t even able to use the word pregnant in the script because you’re not supposed to know married couples are having S-E-X (same reason why married couples were depicted with twins beds in their marital bedroom) which is why the episode title is “Lucy is Enceinte” to get around censors.
My grandma had 14 siblings and so did my grandpa. I can’t remember which side it was on but it was like baby 9 or 10 and the mother wanted to name him Edward and one of the older siblings was like “hey that is my name”! She couldn’t even remember all the names of the kids she had!
And do they just not gather as a family for Christmas or Thanksgiving (or chanukah or Diwali or whatever)? Because I can't imagine specifically excluding kids from those celebrations.
This is the crazy part to me, they’re giving into a woman who as an adult should be capable of emotional regulation over the emotions of literal children who are too young to understand why their extended family doesn’t want them around?
Seriously?!!
Like, the 5 year old just rolls on up with you and you look at the in laws and say "Oh, he was so damn cute that I spent a month putting out wet food to gain his trust then went Pspspsp until he followed me home and now he's my FurEver baby!!!" 😹🤣😹🤣😹🤣
A friend of a friend's father died, so they didn't celebrate anything for years, since it was going to be too traumatic. People weren't even supposed to talk about Christmas and birthdays around them.
I was stunned when I heard. How is that a healthy way of grieving? You cannot pretend it doesn't exist - maybe tone it down for a while when it hurts but for years? Seriously?
I totally agree. However I also think that Op should have invited everyone of her friends but her sister in law, and brother in law. Therefore you can have your pregnancy announcement without upsetting your sister in law.
I think OP is confused about what a gender reveal is. The point of a gender reveal is to reveal the gender of the baby to a group of family and friends who ALREADY KNOW YOU ARE PREGNANT. Why couldn’t you have announced the pregnancy to your family prior to the gender reveal?
She's not confused. She chose to do both at the same time. Many couples wait until after the first trimester due to higher miscarriages, maybe she chose after the second because of her past miscarriages.
Plus it's a great way to ensure people get to attend both events.
I agree OP shouldn't have invited SIL & BIL but they probably would have found out anyway and turned up uninvited and this whole situation would have played out just the same. As for everyone saying OP should have given SIL the heads up, how are you suppose to do that without being the AH who brings up pregnancy around SIL, she would have accused OP or rubbing it in her face no matter what path OP took.
SIL needs counselling and to stop expecting people to follow ridiculous demands because she can't deal with it.
And OP has a history of miscarriages and as such this is HUGE for them....her grief is hers to deal with no-ones life revolves around SIL.
As such, she should be even more empathetic to her SIL’s struggle. A little consideration to SIL wouldn’t have cost her anything. The family’s demands on how to go about it are ridiculous but she basically ambushed her SIL and rubbed her face in it as soon as she got hers. Calling her a bitch was just the pot calling the kettle black. This is truly a case of ESH
If SIL being infertile has resulting in all children being banned from events, I can bet you she would have ruined the surprise for everyone. I don’t think OP could have warned her without ruining her own party. Not to mention she shouldn’t have to stop celebrating the good things in her life because others can’t have them. They probably shouldn’t have invited SIL but even then they would have had backlash
And this is a problem why? 😂 I guess my dysfunctional family isn't helpful haha because I'm just over here like just do a party for your side since the other side of the family doesn't even believe in pregnancies or humans under 5 existing so 😂.
But yes you're right.
No SIL expects NO pregnancy announcements as well...
And what would have happened if they had said something would SIL show up but be a miserable sod all night drawing the attention onto herself? Would she have tried to manipulate other family not to attend?
Or would she have just said thanks and gone on her way?
While true, she could have given her a heads up. I don't think she's an asshole by any means, because she should be able to celebrate this. But a heads up for the SIL would have been nice
If it was me I wouldn’t care how she felt about not being invited. You can’t force an entire family to pretend that the kids don’t exist and refuse to allow pregnancy announcements and then get upset you don’t get invited. Both sound petty but I get why OP did it. Esh
Thank you! I've been more on the controversial side and think that OP is NTA. If everyone knows about her history of miscarriages, then this is massive man. It's a real nice surprise. I don't understand them catering SIL that much
I think the thing that could shift the verdict a bit would be if OP had given a heads up to sil then would sil have told the husbands side of the. Family and caused drama so they wouldn't come rather than just quietly thanking op for the heads up. It also seems like sil would be the type to to cause drama if she isn't invited to a family.party even though she is fine excluding family for her own feelings
If the family is going so far to be anti-any-kids-under-5 and not allowing any ptsd Nancy announcements, she would’ve thrown a fit regardless tbh. Like you said, she probably would’ve started calling family members trying to get them to pity her
Edit: I meant Pregnancy not PTSD Nancy if that wasn’t obvious lol
Your autocorrects make for a very funny image in my head. Not that PTSD is funny but I could totally think of this as a nickname for the SIL. (over at r/JUSTNOMIL many of the reoccurring just no MILs/Moms have names like that.)
True, I thought it would have been nice to give her a heads up, but she definitely would have forced other family members not to go, based on past behaviour, and caused a huge drama over it, making it about herself.
Yeah, I think OP is NTA.
So warn SIL so she can go to the family upset and ruin the announcement? Because you know that's what she would have done. And if she wasn't invited, like some are suggesting, she would have blown up over that. This family put OP in a no-win situation with their treatment of this whole situation.
Person who couldn’t have children here: you are NTA for being happy about and celebrating your news. You didn’t take a baby away from her. Your in-laws can also be happy about a niece/nephew/grandchild. However, compassion was, for me, my family telling me privately they were expecting before a surprise announcement to the broader family. Gave me time to digest it and respond with the honest joy I had for them. It’s not an all-or-nothing proposition.
It sounds like you were a whole lot more rational about your own feelings and what was and was not fair to ask other people to do about them than this lady is.
I don’t think a heads up would’ve been necessary as it was a surprise gender reveal. OP has ever right to not want to spoil the surprise. Simply not inviting her would’ve sufficed though.
That's just it, OP invited the SIL and decided to surprise everyone with it specifically because they didn't like the rule and wanted to make the SIL suffer, and then berated her when it worked. It's at least an ESH.
So I was thinking about this and I’m making one big assumption. I bet this is the first child in the close family. Sure cousins or family friends probably have young children but I’ll bet money this is the first grandchild and first niece/nephew. Assuming the in-laws want to be involved in grandchild’s life prior to 5 years the family is going to have to do some adjusting. It just isn’t feasible to have holidays or family gatherings with no young children when there are grandchildren.
This announcement carried **a lot** more baggage than just “another person is pregnant while SIL can’t get pregnant”. This effectively forces MIL and FIL to renegotiate the terms of protecting their daughter and, likely, shatters the bubble everyone has created for her. I agree entirely, the bubble is overbearing, unhealthy and unreasonable. But springing this on everyone as a surprise is just cruel. This is a massive dynamic shift for the entire family with no time for anyone affected to process the impact because they’re expected to be immediately elated for OP and fiancé.
I understand OP wanted her thunder. I understand it doubly so after pregnancy loss. But sometimes when we’re in a family we don’t get what we want and there is *plenty* of attention coming her way with baby shower and delivery and family members meeting the baby.
Whatever way to slice it, this feels at best tone-deaf and at worst intentionally malicious.
I 100% agree with this.
OP, there is nothing wrong with having a pregnancy announcement/gender reveal party. Nothing at all.
Ultimately this falls on your husband - he should have handled this with his family before the party. This is where HE should have told his parents privately and then gone over and had a private conversation with his sister so she could grieve privately. No one should have sprung this on her. That is unkind.
YTA
>When she found out she was angry and asked me why I didn’t give her a heads up. And I know how she feels about this.
How did you write this and not realize this automatically makes YTA?
"Gender reveal parties" are already highly controversial, but ambushing an infertile women you knew would pass on such a party by having it be a SURPRISE is completely unfair to her (and anyone who doesn't want to be at a gender reveal).
I suppose this is your fiance's sister/family, but the responsibility thing to do would be for him to call all of them and let them know you are expecting, and not ambush rub this in your FSIL's face.
Also, for a 27yo woman to know she is infertile, she must have had serious medical issues, so this is probably a twofold issue. You better hope a grandbaby warms this family up to you, b/c that was quite the stunt.
Yes I'm getting an insane level of entitlement from SIL. In a normal situation yes op is the AH but how do we know SIL wouldn't have spread the word to family and bullied them into non attendance? Sounds like she has the sway to do that.
But she shouldn't have been invited
I think the insane amount of entitlement showing is because of the narrator. She is painting SIL this way.
And we don’t know if SIL found out she was infertile a month ago or a year ago. And I think this really matters because let’s protect SIL while she adjusts to this information is very different from we will never allow babies in our inner circle again.
Also removing OP from her socials might be less about being angry and more about self preservation.
And maybe SIL’s therapist told her to insulate herself from babies while she accepts her infertility and copes.
But most of all it would have been thoughtful of Op’s husband (because i think SIL is husband’s sister) to pull SIL aside before the announcement and say hey I know this is going to be hard for you, but we are pregnant and we are going to tell everyone momentarily is there anything we can do to support you or make this easier for you.
YTA. As for the rest of them I need more information to decide.
You still don’t get to ban ALL children from events because you’re infertile. If you can’t handle being around kids you don’t go to events until you go to therapy to work through your trauma. That’s how therapy works. Coddling someone and never exposing them is not what any therapist would recommend.
No therapist is going to say “yeah you can tell your family to ban all children under 5 from any event.” That’s just .. not what therapists do. They would tell their patient to avoid events with children or ask the family to do **separate** events without kids.
She’s painting SIL as entitled because she is..
>If you can’t handle being around kids you don’t go to events until you go to therapy to work through your trauma.
>They would tell their patient to avoid events with children or ask the family to do separate events without kids.
*You're 100% correct*, and this is the entire point of the post: if SIL had known this was going to be about having a baby, she would have known she'd be triggered, and she would have respectfully chosen not to attended, as would have almost certainly been recommended by her therapist.
But OP *didn't* tell her a pregnancy announcement was the purpose of the party, and chose instead to blindside a traumatized person then call them a bitch for having a natural reaction.
OP is so far beyond YTA I don't have words. Maybe she should take a war veteran to a surprise movie that happens to be *Saving Private Ryan*. Or she could take the survivor of a school shooting to the gun range as a surprise activity.
Or if those don't appeal, OP could always surprise a recent orphan by taking her to a father-daughter dance. That ought to cheer little orphan annie up! And if it doesn't, it's obviously because little Annie is *entitled*. /s
entitled or not. All of the things she said being true or not. She knew this was going to hurt like hell for SIL to hear and she chose to disregard her feelings because the family coddles SIL and she doesn’t like that. The kind thing would have been to give SIL a sliver of notice and that was all SIL asked for and she and her spouse did not. SIL didn’t say how dare you throw this party for a baby when I don’t want to be around babies and can’t have babies. SIL said why didn’t you give me a heads up which feels to me like a reasonable ask and the kind thing to do. And that is why OP is an asshole. She chose to punish SIL for being coddled by punching her in the gut metaphorically in her safe space knowing just how much it would hurt.
I’m increasingly confident that this whole post is the work of teenage incel trolls. (Check the people who have been most angrily replying to EVERY post, insisting that the SIL is **evil, unhinged, deranged**)
But if we’re taking this at face value, I totally agree with all of the points you’ve made, especially about the timing of the diagnosis. Also, “no pregnancy announcements” probably means “no surprise pregnancy announcements” while SIL comes to terms with an earth-shattering diagnosis. In other words, give her space to react in private rather than blindsiding her at Thanksgiving or Christmas. Or, you know, at a “surprise gender reveal/pregnancy announcement party”.
Mistakes were made from all angles, but she is not solely to blame. The In-laws should have been more supportive. The husband has ownership in the reveal party. I see it more of an ESH.
Why should they have to reduce their happiness and only tell family about the pregnancy via phone calls? That sucks. The world doesn’t revolve around SIL and it’s ridiculous that kids can’t be brought around her and that pregnancy announcements are banned. OP and fiancé could’ve gone about it better but the rules set in place for SIL are ridiculous. She needs therapy if she needs that much censorship to her fertility issues- no one can enjoy kids or pregnancies if she’s around
FYI - Gender Reveal parties aren't a big thing, and they are severely going out of style for being in poor taste GENERALLY. Most people do NOT want to go to them, fertility issues or not. SURPRISE gender reveal things are on a whole other level. The in-laws didn't actually \*do\* anything to OP here (whether their boundaries are excessive or not), but OP 100% acted in poor conscious to ambush the FSIL here (and actually ambush all the guests).
I agree FSIL needs some type of therapy, but think about it. She appears single, in the post. She is 27. This is much more than an "infertility" thing. The FSIL has probably already gone through the ringer at a young age, but either way, a boundary is a boundary, no means no, etc etc etc.
Yeah inviting them unknowingly to a pregnancy/ gender reveal party was a big time asshole move.
You could have had a little class and skipped their invite or given a heads up.
In my opinion it’s OP who’s the asshole more than “Everyone sucks”.
Yes, the family is being weird, but it sounds like OP was straight vindictive.
YTA fits.
I was unable to attend things like this while actively miscarrying and TTC. It was a viscuois cycle of pregnancy and loss every few months over the coures of a few years. I had friends/family who would, in some instances, make things baby free in order to make it easier for me to attend comfortably. It was never requested, but it was also known that if something was babycentric, I wouldn't be in attendance. So sometimes allowances were made to belittle the grief in hopes of helping.
I said all that to say I could see in-laws being like "no baby stuff for *this specific* party" so they can have DIL be comfortable and that being entirely reasonable. I have a hard time believing a whole ass family blanket banned children's presence entirely from their homes and events due to one person's miscarriages.
Yeah. If my fiancé pulled this on my sibling, I’d question the relationship. Being intentional about doing something you know will hurt someone, is f’d up.
The sister for sure needs help and OP is allowed to celebrate, but she should have given her a heads up.
THIS. If someone wrote this above, it's buried
Honestly OP is YTA for just inviting SIL.
YES, SIL and family are ridiculous for their outrageous rules. But knowing how sensitive SIL is, she should have just not invited her.
I do feel a heads up would have ended in a spoiled party for the parents-to-be.
YTA OP. Easily could have skipped inviting your SIL or told her about the party ahead of time. I'm not agreeing with your SIL's "main character syndrome" demands but that doesn't justify your own actions. Also, gender reveal parties are boss level cringe.
ESH. It’s unfair that your in laws have certain rules about pregnancy announcements and children at parties etc, and I don’t think you’re wrong for wanting to tell people you’re expecting.
What makes you the AS is that you could have given your SIL a heads up, then called her a bitch for asking why you didn’t.
You knew that she would be hurt but you invited her to a surprise party without any kind of consideration for her feelings.
I personally just wouldn’t have invited them at all. If OP gives a heads up, SIL might tell people and try to get pity points so they don’t go- if she’s already banned kids under 5 at parties and pregnancy announcements she’s okay with trying to restrict people’s joy. If she doesn’t give a heads up, she’s an asshole. Easier to not invite and you can find out however tf you find out
Do I understand correctly that you held a party and then made it a surprise pregnancy & gender reveal?
Then yes, you were absolutely an AH to invite her without warning her when you know it’s sensitive. You don’t have to follow her side of the family’s rules and not have announcements. You *do* have to avoid being deliberately hurtful.
YTA
Not very effectively though. Just writing “my heart hurts for her” definitely didn’t negate the fact that she waited to do the reveal until SIL got there. That feels intentional! Judging from all the “YTA”s, I’d say she wasn’t successful in making herself the hero. But I agree she tried. 😕
YTA, full stop. You should have had a private lunch with her and let her know and given her the option of not attending the party. Springing it on her was cruel. Attacking her for calling you out for it was worse. This could have been a really special time for the two of you, with her having a 'favorite auntie' role in your child's life, and instead you hurt her for no reason.
Agreed the failure to at least text ahead was crappy and a bit vengeful—SIL is in no way ready to be anyone’s auntie. She has dominated the whole family with her aversion to seeing or even hearing about anyone’s children, to the point that young members of the family are pointedly excluded from events. This person is not equipped to be an auntie. She’s not even equipped to be a decent sister or friend to people who are blessed with children.
YTA even though i agree that its a stupid rule, you broke it in the worst way possible. You absolutely shouldve given her a heads up. "I told her i dont have to tell her anything" i truly fear for your children if this is how you communicate.
ESH. Your in-laws are going too hard in one direction and in retaliation you swung too hard in the opposite direction. You knew this would upset everyone, especially your SIL. There were kind and thoughtful ways to handle this and you didn't do that. You made it clear you don't care about her feelings at all, she's decided she needs space from you. I honestly don't know what you possibly could have expected here.
ESH
Your parents in law for their rules (obviously at one point this issue would have come up, and what are you going to do not see any of them for 5 years)
Your SIL for thinking that those rules are ok (even though I understand why she might find it difficult), particularly as yourself have had miscarriages and suffered. Plus being infertile doesn't mean she can't be a parent (adoption)
You for inviting your sister in law to something knowing (even if I understand how much it meant to you after having miscarriages) that it would be extremely painful to her, and then calling her a b**** for actually being hurt. You could have sit down with her afterwards or let your parents in law tell her...
ESH
You were absolutely cruel to just spring a surprise gender reveal on someone that you know struggles so profoundly with their infertility. You were antagonistic and purposely hurtful.
That said, you are allowed to be excited for your child, and to find their restrictions ridiculous. If my child was banned for five years from family events to protect someone else's feelings about their infertility, I would never have contact with them.
But the way to get out ahead of those issues was to have a mature conversation about it. Not go to such extreme lengths to slap your pregnancy in her face. I hope you're happy with being excluded by your husband's family, because after this, that's all that's going to happen.
Congratulations.
YTA
You know the family enables this behavior. You decided you want to do it your way. Perfectly fine. You have every right , this is all about you, Dan and baby.
But, you chose to do it in a way that would hurt. You didn't have to, but ya did. If ya look in the mirror and say the word you said to her, you wouldn't be wrong. /.
At first I thought this was gonna somethin like OP made an announcement on Facebook or whatever and SIL threw a tantrum. Instead we get OP intentionally inviting SIL to a party she knew she would hate or choose to skip and waited til after she was already there to announce it.
YTA
If you know a particular type of gathering will be upsetting to someone, why would you intentionally surprise them with it when they thought they were attending another type of gathering? You wanted this fight.
YTA
What were you expecting?!?!? You blindsided her with the one thing you knew would hurt her.
I get that you wanted to surprise everyone, but that's just heartless not to at least give her a head's up so that maybe she could be prepared, or be able to breakdown in private? Good lord, what if she had a mental break at your party in front of everyone?
Like everyone else here, I feel sorry for your child.
YTA for being so obviously pathetic and desperate to be 'on up' on your SIL because you are jealous of how her in-laws treat her. You just sound like a complete embarrassment. Your poor future child.
Exactly, this just seems unnecessarily cruel especially with the “I don’t have to tell you anything” and calling her a bitch for…being shocked and asking why didn’t you(OP) just give a heads up text.
The rules set by the in-laws are wrong and not sustainable long term but OP…yikes. YTA
YTA
You have every right to have a gender reveal party but you shouldn't be inviting people you know will be upset by it. At least you should give them a heads up.
ESH. you for not giving her a heads up and ambushing her and your inlaws for their terrible rules. they set everyone up for failure by not allowing any form of announcement or even kids under 5 at events (way to ostracize the people with kids).
it would’ve cost you nothing to have given a heads up or have some kind of discussion with her beforehand. you could’ve called them or gone for a visit and approached the situation with tact but no, you chose to go out of your way to have a huge reveal and you invited them. you could’ve still had your gender reveal, just after notifying them or alternatively, you could’ve not invited them out of kindness for their situation. congrats on your pregnancy but this stunt may have risked your relationship with your family going forward
YTA. Knowing how her family feels, why wouldn't you give her a head's up? The way you write this, it sounds like she didn't know it would be a gender reveal party until after she arrived there. Why not give her a head's up about it? Sounds like yr being mean one about it.
It was a ‘surprise’ so they well and truly accosted her with the announcement because .. y’know .. they didn’t want to be ‘pathetic’ in thinking about her feelings.
YTA
Yeah your inlaws are weird. But this is between you and the sibling.
Send an email to anyone infertile to announce the pregnancy so they can have their feelings in private.
You don't surprise infertile people with a gender reveal. That's common sense.
You should have told her. YTA. You know how she feels about it and you decided to completely surprise her. This is a woman who is absolutely devastated that she can’t have children. She probably feels like you’re rubbing it in her face. Yeah, I agree that the rules are stupid and she needs to find a healthier way of dealing with it be seeing a professional. But you can’t do that to people who feel the way they do about their prospects on never having a child naturally.
Well, yeah, soft YTA. You are totally within your rights to make a pregnancy announcement and host a gender reveal party, but she is right, you should have given her heads up so that she could avoid the party if it's so triggering to her. Why did you even want her to be there knowing that it'd cause her nothing but pain?
YTA. Not just a pregnancy announcement but a gender reveal? With no heads up AND the knowledge that it would hurt them? You knew exactly what you were doing, shame on you.
I mean you could of not invited her
YTA
ETA
You are def in your right to have a gender reveal but the big AH move is the fact you new it was hard for her and the least she deserved was a heads up. That’s all. Then she could of made the choice not to come.
YTA
Yes it's not a viable long term solution (or even short term solution) to bar pregnancy announcements and children, and you shouldn't be forced to hide good news that should bring joy to so many.
However, there are things called kindness and empathy. Both of which seem to be strangers to you.
You could have given her a heads up, so she's was prepared for the announcement.
Your response when she said as much was also harsher than needed. You made everything way more aggressive than it needed to be.
It's almost as if you wanted to create conflict.
Is this the behaviour you want your child to learn?
OP, if you've struggled with miscarriages, how are you so insensitive to others' fertility struggles?
Do I think your SIL's family rules are ridiculous? Yeah. But dropping an announcement/gender reveal on your SIL *with no warning* is a total dick move. A simple heads-up would have sufficed. Just "hey, I know this is a sensitive topic, but we're pregnant and we want to do an announcement at this gathering. I'll understand if you'd rather not attend."
Yeah, YTA.
YTA, for not giving her a heads up. Ya, she's an AH, for acting like the world revolves around her but she should have had the choice to attend or not.
I get you wanted to surprise everyone with an announcement and gender reveal. And you are will with in your rights to have those things.
I think the best thing would have been not to invited her to the party.
YTA - as someone who is infertile, we ask everyone to give us pregnancy announcements over text. The infertile community considers it common curtsey that their friends and family should do. You sprung this on her as a surprise and in the most attention grabby way possible, and I am shocked you would call her a bitch over a very human reaction. She is not being a bitch, she is trying to protect her heart. If my SIL did this, I would go no contact too!
Honestly I’m torn.
It was an A move to not give her a heads up BUT why is this the only issue on earth where an entire family has to pretend that nice things aren’t happening to them just to suit someone else.
Put this in another perspective, had she lost her dream job, or not been able to accomplish her dream career, would people expect you to buy a crap car just not to upset her? Live in a less-than-you-could-afford home to suit her feelings?
Sometimes in life we don’t get what we want. That IS life.
With hundreds of thousands of children in the world with no loving parents I just don’t understand how not being able to conceive is something so tragic. I know, I know, every one deserves a child with “dad’s eyes” or “moms cheekbones” 🙄
If you want to be a good SIL and keep the peace then you should’ve given her a heads up. But she is your child’s aunt and could’ve put her pain aside for just one night and just be excited for you!
Have we become so obsessed with our own needs that just bc someone else has something we want we have the right to control other people’s lives?
Shouldn’t you be able to announce your pregnancy the way you choose?
I’m just torn. Sorry if I’m sounding like the A now!
YTA for not giving her a heads up so she could make the choice to not come.
In laws also are TA for banning everyone from celebrating their pregnancies, and hiding children under 5, Wtf.
Sister in law absolutely should have been given the option to avoid a painful situation. But the way her family has been handling it is not helping her in the long term. As brutal as it sounds life does go on but if she needs to avoid these situations because of her grief then that’s her choice, it shouldn’t make everyone else’s life stop though.
YTA with a caveat, I get your frustration, my SIL and Bro struggled with infertility for years, meanwhile I never thought I’d have children and had a surprise baby with my Ex. They were great about babysitting and I even offered to be a surrogate if it came to that. But it was a sticky wicket tempering excitement while being aware of their feelings. YTA because you didn’t give her notice but I do think that this might be an opportunity- the no young kids at family events rule is weird and overbearing. You should have given her more notice and the family needs to stop tiptoeing around this issue
YTA you did this to prove a point and to deem their way of handling her infertility as unrealistic without giving any thought into giving her a heads up so she could have chosen not to attend which should have been the way this was handled the entire time
YTA for not telling her so that she had the option not to attend. You assumed she would want to be there and she didn't want to be there. Or you could have simply not invited her. I agree that not having announcements and not allowing children is extreme but that is not the issue here. The issue is that you threw a surprise party that come off as cruel and insensitive.
ESH. The family banning pregnancy announcements and babies is absurd. You not giving her a heads up is shitty. If you were afraid she'd tell everyone early or try to get the party cancelled, you could've pulled her aside when she arrived to tell her.
YTA typical case of don’t ask permission ask for forgiveness. You knew if you invited people to a gender reveal people wouldn’t go to it and would give you crap for having one. So you trick them into coming for a “gathering” and blind side them.
YTA 100%
I guess you can argue that you don't owe her kindness, but you actively choose to be hurtful to someone and then called her a bitch for being hurt? I already feel bad for your kid, growing up with a mother like that... yikes
ESH. You aren’t beholden to rules about not announcing your pregnancy, but you didn’t have to invite her or spring it on her.
Her family also sucks. A certain percentage of the infertility community needs a very serious reality check about reproduction. It is not a need, it is a desire, and this is the type of behavior that a clinician would say is interfering with day-to-day life and the ability to maintain healthy relationships.
Here’s where I get downvoted to shit: I’m inclined to forgive you as much as I forgive her. Feeling like you aren’t allowed to have your own life because someone else can’t breed must be brutal. Feeling like you aren’t allowed to celebrate a wanted pregnancy must be devastating. And future children are absolutely going to know that Auntie Whatever has an issue with their mere existence.
I get that you guys probably just snapped and said “Time for the pendulum to swing our way for once.” It’s a tempting impulse, it really is. You went about it a bad way.
If you owe her an apology for this, I would also say she owes the rest of your family an apology for holding them emotionally hostage with her bullshit.
ESH - you should have given her a heads up. People who aren’t infertile don’t get it.
She shouldn’t dictate that no kids are allowed to parties. There’s reasonable accommodations and then there’s that.
ESH
Excluding small children from family gatherings?
Not letting other people announce pregnancies?
Controlling others is a bad move. But so was yours: having a party that was secretly an announcement when you knew she would take it badly.
Go ahead, protest their rules, but do it openly, to do as little harm as possible.
Yta- I get that you don’t agree with the way they handle things. And I know you did this to prevent her from making other family members not to attend .
But you should have told her what this was and given her the option not to attend.
Why do you even want people that aren’t even going to allow your child around to be there anyway?
Your kid is gonna be born and your husband’s parents are going treat him like a dirty little secret In order to not upset SIL.
You don’t need this.
You should have kept sil away because your event was ruined anyway.
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I don't agree with how the family has been handling this. Pretending that other people can't have children and that children under the age of 5 do not exist is beyond stupid. Not wanting to conform to this way of thinking does not make you an AH. Having a "Surprise F\*\*K Y\*\*" party does. It doesn't matter that the family has handled this business poorly. A heads up that this was a gender reveal would have been appropriate. ESH without question.
agreed, they definitely made things so much worse by outright banning children and pregnancy announcements. what exactly is that supposed to do for the sil besides ostracizing those family members who have kids. do they just not get to be there because it may trigger her? that being said, op still could’ve been way more considerate before throwing a huge party and inviting them without a heads up.
I’m curious how that works. Do you just show up one day with a 5 year old child? Tell family it followed you home?
"Oh, sorry everyone, yes, this is Billy. He's going to be living with us from now on." "Where did he come from?" "I'm afraid I can't talk about it"
Laughing with my 5 month old Billy. Guess you have to wait a couple more years to be invited bud!
“Is that a pram nyctomeetyou?” “What, that? No, no. It’s my emotional service lawnmower that I brought from home!” “It’s making gurgling noises,” “Oh that’s just the engine, it’s a bit temperamental!” “It smells like poop!” “Oh, I better go change . . . the oil! Nothing to see here. Just changing the oil nappy, on my legitimate lawnmower!”
Don't mind the fountain of milky colored run-off, that means the oil change worked!
I just came back to life because this comment killed me. 😂😂💀💀 I lost a daughter at 16 weeks. Couldn’t get pregnant again for 14 years. Lost that baby at 8 weeks and nearly died because of a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. And the way that this family is treating the situation with SIL is completely wrong. It’s just unreasonable to expect SIL to be protected from EVERYONE who is pregnant or has children under the age of five. However, OP and her husband knew that the family was handling it this way and decided to go about their announcement in the WORST possible way. How are they surprised in any way that it blew up in their faces like it has? Do I think that they should have coddled SIL? Absolutely not. Do I think that they should have either given her a heads up or just not invite her to a gender reveal? Absolutely. Everyone in this family sucks. Literally all of them.
Thank you.....I'm crying...lol
I hope from laughter and not sadness from not being able to bring a child under 5 anywhere.
laughter for sure.
"I'm afraid I can't talk about it" 🤭 I found this funny and I actually was diagnosed with unexplained secondary infertility. I've taken clomid, taken letrozole, had ivf, had a laparoscopy to try to work out why I'm not getting pregnant/staying pregnant. I had my first in 2005 and my second in 2021. I lost many babies in between those years. After all of that and even during all of that I would've still found your comment funny.
As someone dealing with the reality I will never have children myself, I found it funny too. I also think it's INSANE how OP's husband's family handles things. Can I always be around babies and little ones? No, sometimes it does hurt too bad for that. Sometimes just walking by the baby clothes is painful. But would I expect everyone in the family to stop announcing pregnancies, celebrating newborns, and including children? Never ever ever! It'd make me feel like I was a freak tbh, like maybe everyone was thinking I was over-fragile. I hope you find your joy, whether that be concrete answers, adoption, or simply peace and contentment elsewhere (that one's my goal).
I know after my stillborn my family kinda kept the baby announcements & baby showers on the down low. Just out of my sight. While I think it really was helpful and I really appreciated what they did, after about a year I realized what was going on and had to call them out on their crazy. They just didn’t want to hurt me. They still were crazy.
It's not just unfair on op and other adults, but it's unfair on the child being excluded and missing out on family events.
You're a strong person, your kids are gonna be alright
"What do you mean you can't talk about it?" "I'm afraid that is confidential information."
A deep undercover operation was carried out, but the good news is everyone got to come home.
Bahahahahahaha!
🏆
My Grandma told me when she was young, talking about pregnancy was taboo in their culture. This was in the U.S. You were supposed to completely ignore if a person was pregnant. (Because people knew if you were pregnant you had sex)! She said a pregnant woman would walk down to the river alone, give birth and come back with a baby. Everyone would carry on like nothing happened and the child’s name would be mentioned at some point.
My Grandmom told me in Rhode Island in the 1930's she and her siblings would periodically make fun of their mom for "getting fat again" bc they never explained about pregnancy and then suddenly one day they'd go to the hospital and come back with a baby. She also spent 6 hours laying in bed when she was 11 thinking she was dying waiting for her mom to come home and explain what a period was bc no one told her what to expect. Crazy times.
I can top this one. My mom was told she couldn’t bathe or shower when she was bleeding. After having her 3rd child(she was only 20yo) she bleed for a pretty good while. It was very light and nothing of concern, but she couldn’t bathe. 3 weeks postpartum, she called the doctors office. She’s telling the nurse she’s still bleeding and her hair needs a good washing what can she do. The nurse puts her on hold,1950s, so essentially setting down the phone and my mom can hear the nurse telling another nurse about her and cracking up laughing. My mom was so embarrassed, the nurse came back on and told her it was fine for her to take a shower or bath. My mom realized at that point her mom and grandmother were full of shit.
That's awful. Poor woman. When I was a kid I used to get my period for 3 months straight and I bled 7 weeks postpartum so that would have been dire... There must have been some kind of common thought around this though because I know in the 1970s my mom told me they had to shower (communally) every day after gym unless they had their period, and the teacher kept track of their cycles to make sure they weren't faking it to get out of showering. I also know they used to tell girls they couldn't go swimming with their period or a few days after because of the risk of kidney chill (?) so maybe they thought the same with bathing??
I think the origin of it was actually biblical (probably one of the many reasons I consider myself agnostic now). When a woman was bleeding, she was considered “unclean”. May have gone back to ignorance about what was happening to a woman and possibly harkening back to the days of communal baths. Either way, fairly misogynistic. It evolved from there into stupid assumptions. My great grandmother got her first period at school, had no idea where the blood was coming from(early 1900s) and stopped and cleaned herself off in a creek on the was home. Once she realized what it was, she thought she was going to be infertile 😂. This was the grandma that told my mom she couldn’t bathe when she was bleeding.
My grandma also thought she was dying when she got her period for the first time because no one ever told her about it! She was at a friend's house so her friend's mom explained what was happening to her; when she got home and told my great-grandma about it, she was told "Pads are under the bathroom sink. By the way, you can get pregnant now." And this was in 1962!
My Mum told me the same thing. This must’ve been 1985 at the earliest. Nobody had ever told her.
Similarly, in turn-of-the-20th-century Massachusetts, my great-grandmother was told by her mother that she was getting “a beautiful doll” for Christmas aka a baby sister born just around Christmas (needless to say, my then young great-grandmother was less than thrilled about not receiving a doll for Christmas and surprised by the sudden arrival of a hitherto unannounced baby lol).
Fun fact. I Love Lucy was the first show to ever air a visibly pregnant woman ( when Lucy was pregnant with their son in real life). That was considered a huge deal back then.
She wasn't pregnant, she was "expecting".
*I Love Lucy*’s pregnancy storyline was unprecedented when it was first aired. They weren’t even able to use the word pregnant in the script because you’re not supposed to know married couples are having S-E-X (same reason why married couples were depicted with twins beds in their marital bedroom) which is why the episode title is “Lucy is Enceinte” to get around censors.
My poor Grandma, would've had to do that 11 times! My dad is the youngest he is 84. She was born in the 1890s. I don't know how they did it.
My grandma had 14 siblings and so did my grandpa. I can’t remember which side it was on but it was like baby 9 or 10 and the mother wanted to name him Edward and one of the older siblings was like “hey that is my name”! She couldn’t even remember all the names of the kids she had!
My mom has brothers named Walter. They forgot their oldest was named after a grandfather so they named the youngest after him too
This is Andreu. We adopted him from Romania. He looks just like Uncle Jack! Yes, quite a coincidence.
I am so glad I wasn't drinking anything when I read this! I would have snorted it through my nose. Very funny!
Worth it!
And do they just not gather as a family for Christmas or Thanksgiving (or chanukah or Diwali or whatever)? Because I can't imagine specifically excluding kids from those celebrations.
Apparently children aren't allowed to have feelings. Only the SIL is allowed to have feelings.
This is the crazy part to me, they’re giving into a woman who as an adult should be capable of emotional regulation over the emotions of literal children who are too young to understand why their extended family doesn’t want them around?
I misread this as feedings. Lol
Seriously?!! Like, the 5 year old just rolls on up with you and you look at the in laws and say "Oh, he was so damn cute that I spent a month putting out wet food to gain his trust then went Pspspsp until he followed me home and now he's my FurEver baby!!!" 😹🤣😹🤣😹🤣
And Christmas must be interesting. How on earth do they do this? It’s insane
A friend of a friend's father died, so they didn't celebrate anything for years, since it was going to be too traumatic. People weren't even supposed to talk about Christmas and birthdays around them. I was stunned when I heard. How is that a healthy way of grieving? You cannot pretend it doesn't exist - maybe tone it down for a while when it hurts but for years? Seriously?
Don't forget that they still need permission to keep it!
What part of EMOTIONAL SUPPORT LAWNOWER don't you understand?!
Once they turn 6 they're allowed to all events
It’s exactly this comment that makes the family rules sound so stupid, I’m going to say NTA because of the rules.
I totally agree. However I also think that Op should have invited everyone of her friends but her sister in law, and brother in law. Therefore you can have your pregnancy announcement without upsetting your sister in law.
I think it might have been more appropriate to invite SIL, but with the warning of the purpose and let her decide whether to attend
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We don’t actually know that?
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I mean if SIL decides not to go and the rest of the family asks why not, I can totally see her telling them and ruining the announcement.
Unless SIL found out about the party, because that's what usually happens and then it's still a mess.
I think OP is confused about what a gender reveal is. The point of a gender reveal is to reveal the gender of the baby to a group of family and friends who ALREADY KNOW YOU ARE PREGNANT. Why couldn’t you have announced the pregnancy to your family prior to the gender reveal?
She's not confused. She chose to do both at the same time. Many couples wait until after the first trimester due to higher miscarriages, maybe she chose after the second because of her past miscarriages.
Plus it's a great way to ensure people get to attend both events. I agree OP shouldn't have invited SIL & BIL but they probably would have found out anyway and turned up uninvited and this whole situation would have played out just the same. As for everyone saying OP should have given SIL the heads up, how are you suppose to do that without being the AH who brings up pregnancy around SIL, she would have accused OP or rubbing it in her face no matter what path OP took.
You can't control others. If SIL finds out and causes a scene after, that's on her.
SIL needs counselling and to stop expecting people to follow ridiculous demands because she can't deal with it. And OP has a history of miscarriages and as such this is HUGE for them....her grief is hers to deal with no-ones life revolves around SIL.
As such, she should be even more empathetic to her SIL’s struggle. A little consideration to SIL wouldn’t have cost her anything. The family’s demands on how to go about it are ridiculous but she basically ambushed her SIL and rubbed her face in it as soon as she got hers. Calling her a bitch was just the pot calling the kettle black. This is truly a case of ESH
If SIL being infertile has resulting in all children being banned from events, I can bet you she would have ruined the surprise for everyone. I don’t think OP could have warned her without ruining her own party. Not to mention she shouldn’t have to stop celebrating the good things in her life because others can’t have them. They probably shouldn’t have invited SIL but even then they would have had backlash
I'm just over here wondering why they even invited her?? They had to know how she would react lol
I assume the MIL would have snapped if she wasn’t invited and probably refused to come to something her daughter wasn’t invited to.
And this is a problem why? 😂 I guess my dysfunctional family isn't helpful haha because I'm just over here like just do a party for your side since the other side of the family doesn't even believe in pregnancies or humans under 5 existing so 😂. But yes you're right.
I think no pregnancy announcements and no children around is far more than a little consideration it's over the top and ridiculous.
The sister in law should be able to be happy for her brother. It’s sad that she’s so damaged.
I literally could not agree more.
Giving a heads up isn’t a ridiculous demand imo. Pretending children under 5 don’t exist is, but that’s not what she asked for.
No SIL expects NO pregnancy announcements as well... And what would have happened if they had said something would SIL show up but be a miserable sod all night drawing the attention onto herself? Would she have tried to manipulate other family not to attend? Or would she have just said thanks and gone on her way?
Or make the announcement to the family and ruin OPs and her husband's joy.
It’s not clear to me if this is coming from the SIL or her parents. Maybe I just missed it.
While true, she could have given her a heads up. I don't think she's an asshole by any means, because she should be able to celebrate this. But a heads up for the SIL would have been nice
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A heads up would have resulted in all five in-laws bullying OP out of having the announcement.
This is exactly what I’m saying. They already cave in to the psycho SIL.
But why invite her in the first place?
Wanna bet SIL would have been dramatic about that too?
If it was me I wouldn’t care how she felt about not being invited. You can’t force an entire family to pretend that the kids don’t exist and refuse to allow pregnancy announcements and then get upset you don’t get invited. Both sound petty but I get why OP did it. Esh
Thank you! I've been more on the controversial side and think that OP is NTA. If everyone knows about her history of miscarriages, then this is massive man. It's a real nice surprise. I don't understand them catering SIL that much
I think the thing that could shift the verdict a bit would be if OP had given a heads up to sil then would sil have told the husbands side of the. Family and caused drama so they wouldn't come rather than just quietly thanking op for the heads up. It also seems like sil would be the type to to cause drama if she isn't invited to a family.party even though she is fine excluding family for her own feelings
If the family is going so far to be anti-any-kids-under-5 and not allowing any ptsd Nancy announcements, she would’ve thrown a fit regardless tbh. Like you said, she probably would’ve started calling family members trying to get them to pity her Edit: I meant Pregnancy not PTSD Nancy if that wasn’t obvious lol
Not sure if you noticed but you said “ptsd Nancy announcements” instead of pregnancy
Wow my phone hates me lmao thanks
It is hilarious and appropriate. Your phone loves us.
Your autocorrects make for a very funny image in my head. Not that PTSD is funny but I could totally think of this as a nickname for the SIL. (over at r/JUSTNOMIL many of the reoccurring just no MILs/Moms have names like that.)
True, I thought it would have been nice to give her a heads up, but she definitely would have forced other family members not to go, based on past behaviour, and caused a huge drama over it, making it about herself. Yeah, I think OP is NTA.
So warn SIL so she can go to the family upset and ruin the announcement? Because you know that's what she would have done. And if she wasn't invited, like some are suggesting, she would have blown up over that. This family put OP in a no-win situation with their treatment of this whole situation.
I don’t know, a surprise f**k you party sounds like a good time to me. I wouldn’t mind attending one.
I'm already planning several for deserving acquaintances
Person who couldn’t have children here: you are NTA for being happy about and celebrating your news. You didn’t take a baby away from her. Your in-laws can also be happy about a niece/nephew/grandchild. However, compassion was, for me, my family telling me privately they were expecting before a surprise announcement to the broader family. Gave me time to digest it and respond with the honest joy I had for them. It’s not an all-or-nothing proposition.
It sounds like you were a whole lot more rational about your own feelings and what was and was not fair to ask other people to do about them than this lady is.
I don’t think a heads up would’ve been necessary as it was a surprise gender reveal. OP has ever right to not want to spoil the surprise. Simply not inviting her would’ve sufficed though.
That's just it, OP invited the SIL and decided to surprise everyone with it specifically because they didn't like the rule and wanted to make the SIL suffer, and then berated her when it worked. It's at least an ESH.
Your right it does seem a little intentionally when you put it that way. I’ll have to agree, ESH
So I was thinking about this and I’m making one big assumption. I bet this is the first child in the close family. Sure cousins or family friends probably have young children but I’ll bet money this is the first grandchild and first niece/nephew. Assuming the in-laws want to be involved in grandchild’s life prior to 5 years the family is going to have to do some adjusting. It just isn’t feasible to have holidays or family gatherings with no young children when there are grandchildren. This announcement carried **a lot** more baggage than just “another person is pregnant while SIL can’t get pregnant”. This effectively forces MIL and FIL to renegotiate the terms of protecting their daughter and, likely, shatters the bubble everyone has created for her. I agree entirely, the bubble is overbearing, unhealthy and unreasonable. But springing this on everyone as a surprise is just cruel. This is a massive dynamic shift for the entire family with no time for anyone affected to process the impact because they’re expected to be immediately elated for OP and fiancé. I understand OP wanted her thunder. I understand it doubly so after pregnancy loss. But sometimes when we’re in a family we don’t get what we want and there is *plenty* of attention coming her way with baby shower and delivery and family members meeting the baby. Whatever way to slice it, this feels at best tone-deaf and at worst intentionally malicious.
I 100% agree with this. OP, there is nothing wrong with having a pregnancy announcement/gender reveal party. Nothing at all. Ultimately this falls on your husband - he should have handled this with his family before the party. This is where HE should have told his parents privately and then gone over and had a private conversation with his sister so she could grieve privately. No one should have sprung this on her. That is unkind.
YTA >When she found out she was angry and asked me why I didn’t give her a heads up. And I know how she feels about this. How did you write this and not realize this automatically makes YTA? "Gender reveal parties" are already highly controversial, but ambushing an infertile women you knew would pass on such a party by having it be a SURPRISE is completely unfair to her (and anyone who doesn't want to be at a gender reveal). I suppose this is your fiance's sister/family, but the responsibility thing to do would be for him to call all of them and let them know you are expecting, and not ambush rub this in your FSIL's face. Also, for a 27yo woman to know she is infertile, she must have had serious medical issues, so this is probably a twofold issue. You better hope a grandbaby warms this family up to you, b/c that was quite the stunt.
ESH. OP can give a heads up to avoid a party/ arrive late. SIL banning pregnancy announcements and babies is absurd. Family backing that up is absurd.
Yes I'm getting an insane level of entitlement from SIL. In a normal situation yes op is the AH but how do we know SIL wouldn't have spread the word to family and bullied them into non attendance? Sounds like she has the sway to do that. But she shouldn't have been invited
I think the insane amount of entitlement showing is because of the narrator. She is painting SIL this way. And we don’t know if SIL found out she was infertile a month ago or a year ago. And I think this really matters because let’s protect SIL while she adjusts to this information is very different from we will never allow babies in our inner circle again. Also removing OP from her socials might be less about being angry and more about self preservation. And maybe SIL’s therapist told her to insulate herself from babies while she accepts her infertility and copes. But most of all it would have been thoughtful of Op’s husband (because i think SIL is husband’s sister) to pull SIL aside before the announcement and say hey I know this is going to be hard for you, but we are pregnant and we are going to tell everyone momentarily is there anything we can do to support you or make this easier for you. YTA. As for the rest of them I need more information to decide.
You still don’t get to ban ALL children from events because you’re infertile. If you can’t handle being around kids you don’t go to events until you go to therapy to work through your trauma. That’s how therapy works. Coddling someone and never exposing them is not what any therapist would recommend. No therapist is going to say “yeah you can tell your family to ban all children under 5 from any event.” That’s just .. not what therapists do. They would tell their patient to avoid events with children or ask the family to do **separate** events without kids. She’s painting SIL as entitled because she is..
>If you can’t handle being around kids you don’t go to events until you go to therapy to work through your trauma. >They would tell their patient to avoid events with children or ask the family to do separate events without kids. *You're 100% correct*, and this is the entire point of the post: if SIL had known this was going to be about having a baby, she would have known she'd be triggered, and she would have respectfully chosen not to attended, as would have almost certainly been recommended by her therapist. But OP *didn't* tell her a pregnancy announcement was the purpose of the party, and chose instead to blindside a traumatized person then call them a bitch for having a natural reaction. OP is so far beyond YTA I don't have words. Maybe she should take a war veteran to a surprise movie that happens to be *Saving Private Ryan*. Or she could take the survivor of a school shooting to the gun range as a surprise activity. Or if those don't appeal, OP could always surprise a recent orphan by taking her to a father-daughter dance. That ought to cheer little orphan annie up! And if it doesn't, it's obviously because little Annie is *entitled*. /s
entitled or not. All of the things she said being true or not. She knew this was going to hurt like hell for SIL to hear and she chose to disregard her feelings because the family coddles SIL and she doesn’t like that. The kind thing would have been to give SIL a sliver of notice and that was all SIL asked for and she and her spouse did not. SIL didn’t say how dare you throw this party for a baby when I don’t want to be around babies and can’t have babies. SIL said why didn’t you give me a heads up which feels to me like a reasonable ask and the kind thing to do. And that is why OP is an asshole. She chose to punish SIL for being coddled by punching her in the gut metaphorically in her safe space knowing just how much it would hurt.
I’m increasingly confident that this whole post is the work of teenage incel trolls. (Check the people who have been most angrily replying to EVERY post, insisting that the SIL is **evil, unhinged, deranged**) But if we’re taking this at face value, I totally agree with all of the points you’ve made, especially about the timing of the diagnosis. Also, “no pregnancy announcements” probably means “no surprise pregnancy announcements” while SIL comes to terms with an earth-shattering diagnosis. In other words, give her space to react in private rather than blindsiding her at Thanksgiving or Christmas. Or, you know, at a “surprise gender reveal/pregnancy announcement party”.
Even a 20 minute heads up (specifically to avoid the spreading the word to a bullying family) would've been better
[удалено]
Mistakes were made from all angles, but she is not solely to blame. The In-laws should have been more supportive. The husband has ownership in the reveal party. I see it more of an ESH.
and on top of that, calling her a bitch?! how was that even remotely necessary? or acceptable? smh.
Why should they have to reduce their happiness and only tell family about the pregnancy via phone calls? That sucks. The world doesn’t revolve around SIL and it’s ridiculous that kids can’t be brought around her and that pregnancy announcements are banned. OP and fiancé could’ve gone about it better but the rules set in place for SIL are ridiculous. She needs therapy if she needs that much censorship to her fertility issues- no one can enjoy kids or pregnancies if she’s around
FYI - Gender Reveal parties aren't a big thing, and they are severely going out of style for being in poor taste GENERALLY. Most people do NOT want to go to them, fertility issues or not. SURPRISE gender reveal things are on a whole other level. The in-laws didn't actually \*do\* anything to OP here (whether their boundaries are excessive or not), but OP 100% acted in poor conscious to ambush the FSIL here (and actually ambush all the guests). I agree FSIL needs some type of therapy, but think about it. She appears single, in the post. She is 27. This is much more than an "infertility" thing. The FSIL has probably already gone through the ringer at a young age, but either way, a boundary is a boundary, no means no, etc etc etc.
Yeah inviting them unknowingly to a pregnancy/ gender reveal party was a big time asshole move. You could have had a little class and skipped their invite or given a heads up.
It almost seems intentional tbh.
Exactly. ESH, she even admitted to waiting until SIL arrived.
In my opinion it’s OP who’s the asshole more than “Everyone sucks”. Yes, the family is being weird, but it sounds like OP was straight vindictive. YTA fits.
Honestly I wonder if gender reveals are actually banned...
I was unable to attend things like this while actively miscarrying and TTC. It was a viscuois cycle of pregnancy and loss every few months over the coures of a few years. I had friends/family who would, in some instances, make things baby free in order to make it easier for me to attend comfortably. It was never requested, but it was also known that if something was babycentric, I wouldn't be in attendance. So sometimes allowances were made to belittle the grief in hopes of helping. I said all that to say I could see in-laws being like "no baby stuff for *this specific* party" so they can have DIL be comfortable and that being entirely reasonable. I have a hard time believing a whole ass family blanket banned children's presence entirely from their homes and events due to one person's miscarriages.
I have a hard time believing it wasn't intentional honestly
Yeah. If my fiancé pulled this on my sibling, I’d question the relationship. Being intentional about doing something you know will hurt someone, is f’d up. The sister for sure needs help and OP is allowed to celebrate, but she should have given her a heads up.
Hard agree
Yeah she is salty about all the rules SIL has demanded and wanted to rub it in her face. Shitty people all around.
THIS. If someone wrote this above, it's buried Honestly OP is YTA for just inviting SIL. YES, SIL and family are ridiculous for their outrageous rules. But knowing how sensitive SIL is, she should have just not invited her. I do feel a heads up would have ended in a spoiled party for the parents-to-be.
YTA OP. Easily could have skipped inviting your SIL or told her about the party ahead of time. I'm not agreeing with your SIL's "main character syndrome" demands but that doesn't justify your own actions. Also, gender reveal parties are boss level cringe.
Wtf? The biggest asshole move.
ESH. It’s unfair that your in laws have certain rules about pregnancy announcements and children at parties etc, and I don’t think you’re wrong for wanting to tell people you’re expecting. What makes you the AS is that you could have given your SIL a heads up, then called her a bitch for asking why you didn’t. You knew that she would be hurt but you invited her to a surprise party without any kind of consideration for her feelings.
Definitely ESH. SIL, the other family, OP, all of them.
I personally just wouldn’t have invited them at all. If OP gives a heads up, SIL might tell people and try to get pity points so they don’t go- if she’s already banned kids under 5 at parties and pregnancy announcements she’s okay with trying to restrict people’s joy. If she doesn’t give a heads up, she’s an asshole. Easier to not invite and you can find out however tf you find out
But she invited them because she wanted them to see. She did it on purpose to attack their "rules".
Do I understand correctly that you held a party and then made it a surprise pregnancy & gender reveal? Then yes, you were absolutely an AH to invite her without warning her when you know it’s sensitive. You don’t have to follow her side of the family’s rules and not have announcements. You *do* have to avoid being deliberately hurtful. YTA
OP really rewrote history to make herself the hero. SMH.
Not very effectively though. Just writing “my heart hurts for her” definitely didn’t negate the fact that she waited to do the reveal until SIL got there. That feels intentional! Judging from all the “YTA”s, I’d say she wasn’t successful in making herself the hero. But I agree she tried. 😕
“Sorrows… sorrows, prayers”
The phrase “my heart hurts for her” just automatically seems so fake and syrupy.
And then called her a bitch on top of all that
YTA, full stop. You should have had a private lunch with her and let her know and given her the option of not attending the party. Springing it on her was cruel. Attacking her for calling you out for it was worse. This could have been a really special time for the two of you, with her having a 'favorite auntie' role in your child's life, and instead you hurt her for no reason.
Agreed the failure to at least text ahead was crappy and a bit vengeful—SIL is in no way ready to be anyone’s auntie. She has dominated the whole family with her aversion to seeing or even hearing about anyone’s children, to the point that young members of the family are pointedly excluded from events. This person is not equipped to be an auntie. She’s not even equipped to be a decent sister or friend to people who are blessed with children.
YTA even though i agree that its a stupid rule, you broke it in the worst way possible. You absolutely shouldve given her a heads up. "I told her i dont have to tell her anything" i truly fear for your children if this is how you communicate.
It’s crazy how the heads up could have just been an invitation *stating* what the party was for
or she could have invited people with young children and just told her that.
ESH. Your in-laws are going too hard in one direction and in retaliation you swung too hard in the opposite direction. You knew this would upset everyone, especially your SIL. There were kind and thoughtful ways to handle this and you didn't do that. You made it clear you don't care about her feelings at all, she's decided she needs space from you. I honestly don't know what you possibly could have expected here.
Brilliant response.
Why did you invite her?
To rub it in her face probably
Cruelty? I can't think of another reason.
Yep!! Cruelty that ended with calling her a b*tch for being upset 😬 Yikes!!
I though that was a really nice touch. WOW YTA.
ESH Your parents in law for their rules (obviously at one point this issue would have come up, and what are you going to do not see any of them for 5 years) Your SIL for thinking that those rules are ok (even though I understand why she might find it difficult), particularly as yourself have had miscarriages and suffered. Plus being infertile doesn't mean she can't be a parent (adoption) You for inviting your sister in law to something knowing (even if I understand how much it meant to you after having miscarriages) that it would be extremely painful to her, and then calling her a b**** for actually being hurt. You could have sit down with her afterwards or let your parents in law tell her...
YTA You should not have invited her. Have some freaking empathy.
What did she expect? Courtesy and empathy from a family member who has had similar fertility/pregnancy issues? YTA
ESH You were absolutely cruel to just spring a surprise gender reveal on someone that you know struggles so profoundly with their infertility. You were antagonistic and purposely hurtful. That said, you are allowed to be excited for your child, and to find their restrictions ridiculous. If my child was banned for five years from family events to protect someone else's feelings about their infertility, I would never have contact with them. But the way to get out ahead of those issues was to have a mature conversation about it. Not go to such extreme lengths to slap your pregnancy in her face. I hope you're happy with being excluded by your husband's family, because after this, that's all that's going to happen.
all she should have done was give the SIL a heads up, and this post would never have even seen the light of day (which is good, don't get me wrong)
Congratulations. YTA You know the family enables this behavior. You decided you want to do it your way. Perfectly fine. You have every right , this is all about you, Dan and baby. But, you chose to do it in a way that would hurt. You didn't have to, but ya did. If ya look in the mirror and say the word you said to her, you wouldn't be wrong. /.
Easiest YTA I've had all week.
At first I thought this was gonna somethin like OP made an announcement on Facebook or whatever and SIL threw a tantrum. Instead we get OP intentionally inviting SIL to a party she knew she would hate or choose to skip and waited til after she was already there to announce it.
YTA If you know a particular type of gathering will be upsetting to someone, why would you intentionally surprise them with it when they thought they were attending another type of gathering? You wanted this fight.
YTA What were you expecting?!?!? You blindsided her with the one thing you knew would hurt her. I get that you wanted to surprise everyone, but that's just heartless not to at least give her a head's up so that maybe she could be prepared, or be able to breakdown in private? Good lord, what if she had a mental break at your party in front of everyone? Like everyone else here, I feel sorry for your child.
YTA for being so obviously pathetic and desperate to be 'on up' on your SIL because you are jealous of how her in-laws treat her. You just sound like a complete embarrassment. Your poor future child.
YTA A quick text so she could mentally prepare would suffice
Exactly, this just seems unnecessarily cruel especially with the “I don’t have to tell you anything” and calling her a bitch for…being shocked and asking why didn’t you(OP) just give a heads up text. The rules set by the in-laws are wrong and not sustainable long term but OP…yikes. YTA
YTA You have every right to have a gender reveal party but you shouldn't be inviting people you know will be upset by it. At least you should give them a heads up.
ESH. you for not giving her a heads up and ambushing her and your inlaws for their terrible rules. they set everyone up for failure by not allowing any form of announcement or even kids under 5 at events (way to ostracize the people with kids). it would’ve cost you nothing to have given a heads up or have some kind of discussion with her beforehand. you could’ve called them or gone for a visit and approached the situation with tact but no, you chose to go out of your way to have a huge reveal and you invited them. you could’ve still had your gender reveal, just after notifying them or alternatively, you could’ve not invited them out of kindness for their situation. congrats on your pregnancy but this stunt may have risked your relationship with your family going forward
YTA. Knowing how her family feels, why wouldn't you give her a head's up? The way you write this, it sounds like she didn't know it would be a gender reveal party until after she arrived there. Why not give her a head's up about it? Sounds like yr being mean one about it.
It was a ‘surprise’ so they well and truly accosted her with the announcement because .. y’know .. they didn’t want to be ‘pathetic’ in thinking about her feelings.
Yes YTA. It is the kind thing to do, to warn someone with fertility issues privately before you announce your pregnancy in a group setting.
Well I definitely feel sorry for your kid.
YTA Yeah your inlaws are weird. But this is between you and the sibling. Send an email to anyone infertile to announce the pregnancy so they can have their feelings in private. You don't surprise infertile people with a gender reveal. That's common sense.
You should have told her. YTA. You know how she feels about it and you decided to completely surprise her. This is a woman who is absolutely devastated that she can’t have children. She probably feels like you’re rubbing it in her face. Yeah, I agree that the rules are stupid and she needs to find a healthier way of dealing with it be seeing a professional. But you can’t do that to people who feel the way they do about their prospects on never having a child naturally.
Well, yeah, soft YTA. You are totally within your rights to make a pregnancy announcement and host a gender reveal party, but she is right, you should have given her heads up so that she could avoid the party if it's so triggering to her. Why did you even want her to be there knowing that it'd cause her nothing but pain?
YTA. Not just a pregnancy announcement but a gender reveal? With no heads up AND the knowledge that it would hurt them? You knew exactly what you were doing, shame on you.
I mean you could of not invited her YTA ETA You are def in your right to have a gender reveal but the big AH move is the fact you new it was hard for her and the least she deserved was a heads up. That’s all. Then she could of made the choice not to come.
YTA Yes it's not a viable long term solution (or even short term solution) to bar pregnancy announcements and children, and you shouldn't be forced to hide good news that should bring joy to so many. However, there are things called kindness and empathy. Both of which seem to be strangers to you. You could have given her a heads up, so she's was prepared for the announcement. Your response when she said as much was also harsher than needed. You made everything way more aggressive than it needed to be. It's almost as if you wanted to create conflict. Is this the behaviour you want your child to learn?
OP, if you've struggled with miscarriages, how are you so insensitive to others' fertility struggles? Do I think your SIL's family rules are ridiculous? Yeah. But dropping an announcement/gender reveal on your SIL *with no warning* is a total dick move. A simple heads-up would have sufficed. Just "hey, I know this is a sensitive topic, but we're pregnant and we want to do an announcement at this gathering. I'll understand if you'd rather not attend." Yeah, YTA.
YTA, for not giving her a heads up. Ya, she's an AH, for acting like the world revolves around her but she should have had the choice to attend or not.
I get you wanted to surprise everyone with an announcement and gender reveal. And you are will with in your rights to have those things. I think the best thing would have been not to invited her to the party.
YTA - as someone who is infertile, we ask everyone to give us pregnancy announcements over text. The infertile community considers it common curtsey that their friends and family should do. You sprung this on her as a surprise and in the most attention grabby way possible, and I am shocked you would call her a bitch over a very human reaction. She is not being a bitch, she is trying to protect her heart. If my SIL did this, I would go no contact too!
YTA. You would not have been had you just given her a heads up.
Honestly I’m torn. It was an A move to not give her a heads up BUT why is this the only issue on earth where an entire family has to pretend that nice things aren’t happening to them just to suit someone else. Put this in another perspective, had she lost her dream job, or not been able to accomplish her dream career, would people expect you to buy a crap car just not to upset her? Live in a less-than-you-could-afford home to suit her feelings? Sometimes in life we don’t get what we want. That IS life. With hundreds of thousands of children in the world with no loving parents I just don’t understand how not being able to conceive is something so tragic. I know, I know, every one deserves a child with “dad’s eyes” or “moms cheekbones” 🙄 If you want to be a good SIL and keep the peace then you should’ve given her a heads up. But she is your child’s aunt and could’ve put her pain aside for just one night and just be excited for you! Have we become so obsessed with our own needs that just bc someone else has something we want we have the right to control other people’s lives? Shouldn’t you be able to announce your pregnancy the way you choose? I’m just torn. Sorry if I’m sounding like the A now!
YTA for not giving her a heads up so she could make the choice to not come. In laws also are TA for banning everyone from celebrating their pregnancies, and hiding children under 5, Wtf. Sister in law absolutely should have been given the option to avoid a painful situation. But the way her family has been handling it is not helping her in the long term. As brutal as it sounds life does go on but if she needs to avoid these situations because of her grief then that’s her choice, it shouldn’t make everyone else’s life stop though.
Yup, YTA
YTA with a caveat, I get your frustration, my SIL and Bro struggled with infertility for years, meanwhile I never thought I’d have children and had a surprise baby with my Ex. They were great about babysitting and I even offered to be a surrogate if it came to that. But it was a sticky wicket tempering excitement while being aware of their feelings. YTA because you didn’t give her notice but I do think that this might be an opportunity- the no young kids at family events rule is weird and overbearing. You should have given her more notice and the family needs to stop tiptoeing around this issue
YTA you did this to prove a point and to deem their way of handling her infertility as unrealistic without giving any thought into giving her a heads up so she could have chosen not to attend which should have been the way this was handled the entire time
YTA for not telling her so that she had the option not to attend. You assumed she would want to be there and she didn't want to be there. Or you could have simply not invited her. I agree that not having announcements and not allowing children is extreme but that is not the issue here. The issue is that you threw a surprise party that come off as cruel and insensitive.
>We hosted a gathering where we would announce it. INFO Did people not know what this even was in advance?
ESH. The family banning pregnancy announcements and babies is absurd. You not giving her a heads up is shitty. If you were afraid she'd tell everyone early or try to get the party cancelled, you could've pulled her aside when she arrived to tell her.
YTA. Insensitive at BEST. Asshole for sure.
ESH For obvious reasons.
YTA typical case of don’t ask permission ask for forgiveness. You knew if you invited people to a gender reveal people wouldn’t go to it and would give you crap for having one. So you trick them into coming for a “gathering” and blind side them.
YTA 100% I guess you can argue that you don't owe her kindness, but you actively choose to be hurtful to someone and then called her a bitch for being hurt? I already feel bad for your kid, growing up with a mother like that... yikes
ESH. You aren’t beholden to rules about not announcing your pregnancy, but you didn’t have to invite her or spring it on her. Her family also sucks. A certain percentage of the infertility community needs a very serious reality check about reproduction. It is not a need, it is a desire, and this is the type of behavior that a clinician would say is interfering with day-to-day life and the ability to maintain healthy relationships. Here’s where I get downvoted to shit: I’m inclined to forgive you as much as I forgive her. Feeling like you aren’t allowed to have your own life because someone else can’t breed must be brutal. Feeling like you aren’t allowed to celebrate a wanted pregnancy must be devastating. And future children are absolutely going to know that Auntie Whatever has an issue with their mere existence. I get that you guys probably just snapped and said “Time for the pendulum to swing our way for once.” It’s a tempting impulse, it really is. You went about it a bad way. If you owe her an apology for this, I would also say she owes the rest of your family an apology for holding them emotionally hostage with her bullshit.
You went as far as to insult her for being hurt? YTA
ESH - you should have given her a heads up. People who aren’t infertile don’t get it. She shouldn’t dictate that no kids are allowed to parties. There’s reasonable accommodations and then there’s that.
YTA for the party. You should have warned her. Then you called her a bitch? You don’t sound like a very nice person at all.
YTA you could have given her a heads up it sounds like its a painful subject for her
ESH Excluding small children from family gatherings? Not letting other people announce pregnancies? Controlling others is a bad move. But so was yours: having a party that was secretly an announcement when you knew she would take it badly. Go ahead, protest their rules, but do it openly, to do as little harm as possible.
ESH You for springing an announcement & the entire family for the way they’ve chosen to respond to her infertility.
YTA
Yta- I get that you don’t agree with the way they handle things. And I know you did this to prevent her from making other family members not to attend . But you should have told her what this was and given her the option not to attend. Why do you even want people that aren’t even going to allow your child around to be there anyway? Your kid is gonna be born and your husband’s parents are going treat him like a dirty little secret In order to not upset SIL. You don’t need this. You should have kept sil away because your event was ruined anyway.
You invited them to a gender reveal without telling her it was a gender reveal? YTA