Dealing with In-Laws

SamanthaJ0310

Long story short I had preeclampsia with my daughter and had her at 30 weeks, in every aspect she is healthy and so far no developmental issues. I am currently 29 weeks pregnant with baby #2, and my in laws are constantly asking when I had problems with the 1st and when I had her. Then they'll say something like so you already beat it, no preeclampsia can come up at any time and is fast progressing so I could get it but my doctor is amazing and she's keeping a close eye on me.

But lately my Father-in-law has been making comments like "This pregnancy is going so good I'd think you were having a boy" we are having another girl. And until I got pre-e I didn't have any issues I felt great.

"What the doctor say, everythings going so well you chould hurry up and have this 1 then make another" who said I wanted more kids.

Or I had a bp spike in December with spotty vision, but all my tests came back normal and my bp went down. He tells me "to behave." like I can control it.

RBXChas

Ugh, I'm sorry. ILs can be so thoughtless sometimes. I often wonder if, because you are not their child, they just see you as a vessel for their grandchild, kind of a means to an end, your opinions and feelings be damned.

My in-laws were here yesterday for my husband's birthday. MIL was in rare form, as usual. She asked me twice when I will be delivering. She knows my due date yet somehow forgot in the three times she did this that due dates are just estimates. I told her I had no idea when I'd be delivering. She asked me what my family history was about going early/late (nevermind my own personal history, since this is my second time around, not that it matters, since I know people who've gone early, then late, or vice versa). I told her I didn't know, that my family history has nothing to do with anything. She looked at me like I was crazy and said, "Really?" Um, yes, really. Even my OB, who, by the way dear MIL, is a DOCTOR, doesn't go by that. As far as L&D, my OB only cares about personal/family history with regard to how quickly and "easily" it goes, not when it happens.

She also asked me if I have to eat special food while pregnant. What? Am I a dog on a special diet? I asked her what she meant, and she just repeated the question. I'm not sure she even knew what she was asking. I told her I didn't know what she meant by "special food." Then she asked me if I'm taking horse pills. I told her that if she was asking if I am taking vitamins, then yes, but the ones I have are not that big. She opines that all prenatal vitamins are horse pills, so I must not be taking prenatal vitamins but should be. Seriously, honey, did you forget that you were here for your youngest child's 35th birthday? Meaning last time you were pregnant was in 1978? Is it possible that prenatal vitamins may have gotten smaller by 2013? I bit my tongue and grabbed my vitamins, showed her the label, which says they are prenatal vitamins, then showed her one of them so she could see that they aren't giant. She scoffs at the fact that they're Target brand, but I informed her that I buy them because they are smaller and less expensive than name brands, plus my OB says they are fine. She dropped it at that point.

Later she gave me a present: a wine stopper. Seriously, you know I'm pregnant, right? Why not give it to my husband? I'm surprised she didn't present me with wine to go with it.

We were walking around this really nice plantation talking about history and stuff, and out of the blue MIL brings up my BIL and SIL's experience with having a blighted ovum back in November. (Had that not happened, SIL's due date would have been one week after mine). It was like, way to be a total downer. She then proceeds to tell me how hard it hit my SIL, like she had some special insight that I didn't. Next she starts telling me all this personal stuff about SIL that I already knew, then acted surprised that I knew these things. I think she is trying to demonstrate that the two of them have some awesome relationship (they don't, I assure you). MIL is constantly comparing me to her, and she isn't quiet about it, either. She needs to understand that I'm not SIL, and the more she makes those comparisons, the less I want to be around her!

But this is par for the course with my MIL. I know I sound incredibly harsh, but she really annoyed me yesterday, so it's rather fresh. Even my husband, who normally defends her, said he wanted to tape her mouth shut a few times, and he thought WTF about the wine stopper, too. I think that she probably wasn't thinking, though. When I told her it was pretty and thanked her for it, I joked that one day I would get to enjoy it. She giggled uncomfortably, so I think it hit her, and she was a bit embarrassed.

How I don't go off on her regularly, I will never know. FIL is cool, but I am always stressed out around him because either MIL is around, or he is trying to play peacemaker with regard to her, which makes me uncomfortable. I don't hate her, but she's just not my type of person. I don't think we will ever be close, but apparently I'm the only one who's ok with that. If they stopped trying so hard to make me like her, I don't think she would annoy me so much!

SamanthaJ0310

Great I'm glad I'm not the only 1. My husband comes from a family of boys so my SIL and I often talk about the latest thing that is driving us nuts about them. So it's nice to have someone to vent to because my husband doesn't understand he thinks I'm just overprotective.

It's funny that you mentioned wine because at Thanksgiving I had made the comment about the wine looking good and MIL says "why don't you have a glass" totally forgot I'm pregnant. I completely agree about the vessel part because they have 4 boys but apparently they seem to think my husband and I need to give them all these grandkids.