Sigh....I didn't really want to come here and do this. My DH would flip out if he knew I was posting about this here, as he does not like telling the whole world our business. But I am really at the end of my rope here, and it's not like he is open to discuss this, so here it goes....
I used to have a pretty good relationship with my MIL. She came and stayed with us for two weeks after ds's birth with no problems, we used to go shopping together all the time, etc. Then DH, DS, and I moved up to GA from Florida in 2006, and she offered us her home to stay in until we got on our feet...we planned to save up money, fix our credit, and all that good stuff, but DH was working a dead end job at the time, and 11 months later we moved out with barely anything saved because I could. not. take it anymore. My MIL was ok at that time, but my FIL was driving me up the freaking wall. DS was under two at the time, but was a very loud baby, would do the whole shrieking thing to see how people would react and FIL did NOT like it, was trying to tell me how to discipline him(NOT gently), etc. MIL actually defended me most of the time, though I do remember one time she tried to have a talk with me about discipline and though I tried to be as receptive as I could, the conversation did not go very far(her standpoint is to spank when necessary, but is definitely not totalitarian like FIL. Still has a hard time understanding GD though, considers it permissive parenting).
So...fast forward to last year, when I was pregnant with DD. Before I even got pregnant we were at her house with a mutual friend who had homebirthed her last daughter, and as we were talking about it our friend tells her husband that I am thinking about having a homebirth(HBAC). MIL overhears and immediately says, in a totally nonchalant way: "Oooh, I want to be there!" which was kinda shocking to me, and at the time I thought it would be nice to have her there, especially if she was so open about it. So, we get pregnant, and sometime at the beginning of my second tri, we tell her we are having a homebirth. BAD idea.
Apparantly she was not really for the idea at all, especially with me having had a previous c-section. The WHOLE pregnancy, she tried to talk me out of it, and I pleasantly maintained that it was not up for discussion.
So...my labor begins, after a little over an hour of sleep one night, and hits me like a Mack Truck. I won't go into too many details here, but let's just say it was not what I was expecting(I did not hire a doula, and I really wish that I had). I labored through the night by myself and throughout the day with my DH by my side....my cntxs never picked up, they kept getting closer and then farther apart all day. DS had gone to our neighbors house but MIL and FIL were supposed to come pick him up at some point. They finally arrived at 5 PM or so: when the doorbell rang it startled me and DH told me who it was....at this point I should have run upstairs but before I knew what was happening, DH had opened the door and they were inside my house, pretty much watching me labor.
Then MIL says to me: "I begged you not to do this" at which point I bolted(if you can call it that) up the stairs to the safety of my bedroom, until I heard them leave. The whole time they were there, maybe 20 minutes, I had ONE contraction, and it petered out after like 4 seconds. I really felt like they stalled my already stalled labor, which I know is my fault and DH's fault, but still, the fact that she came in my house and tried to give me a guilt trip while I'm trying to have a baby is unfathomable to me. But that's just the tip of the iceberg.
I end up in the hospital the following morning, with another c-section.
My labor never picked up and after 28 hours of trying, I had no energy left and was going out of my mind with pain. MIL came to the hospital when she heard, and this perhaps was her one saving grace: she stood by me with DH as they were getting our information in a frenzy, with me moaning through contractions, and she rubs my head and tells me "I wish I could take your pain." She did comfort me, to a point. Then followed the most traumatic birthing experience I could ever imagine....not only did I not have my dream HB, but as they were performing the c-section, I felt everything they did because the spinal block did not work, or worked only a little. I was NOT numb, and was screaming at them the whole time. So....all in all, most traumatic experience of my life. At least the subsequent hospital stay was pretty ok, and they were very agreeable with whatever I wanted: no bottles, pacis, vaxes, and they let (beautiful, healthy) dd room with me. 
So...MIL was supposed to come and help us in the days following the birth, which I was fine with. She lives 10 minutes from us, and wasn't going to stay over, except that up until that point, ds had been co-sleeping with me, and now I that I was recovering from unexpected surgery, we asked if she could stay in the guest bed and have ds sleep with her(bad idea, who knows what number we are at by now). This worked fine for 2 days...on the third night she went upstairs with him to get ready for bed, and I was on the phone with a friend from LLL, when suddenly I hear through the monitor DS freaking out, crying, sounding like a struggle. I quickly say goodbye and get up with a lot of difficulty, and dh tells me: "I'll take care of it." Not completely sure of the details of what happened next, it is kind of a blur. All I know is, I felt like ds needed me(and especially because I had not been there for him AT ALL since dd's birth 5 or so days before...I was in such a daze), and I wanted to see what was going onthat was making him so upset. So I follow DH upstairs, to find MIL wrestling Ds's clothes off to put on his PJ's, and he is crying and fighting her with all his might. I say nothing ill towards her, all I say is: "Whoa, what's going on, let me go to my son." (DH and MIL both say that sometime within these few minutes, I also started screaming at DH, who was giving me a hard time about following him up the stairs after he had told me that he would handle it...but honestly, I don't remember screaming at him at all, and when DH told me that I apologized).
So I say "Let me go to him.." and enter the room, I go and hug ds, and MIL BLOWS UP at me. Tells me that I am creating a monster, that none of her 3 kids were EVER disrespectful to her( right...) and on and on, the basic gist being that I am a crappy parent and I have no idea what I'm doing, and that there are TWO parents here and I need to let them BOTH do their jobs(yeah, and last time I checked, YOU were not one of them, lady. But she was talking about the history dh and I have of not agreeing on discipline...he is also a lot more traditional than I am…). Then, I finally end the tirade with "Get out of my face" because she was very very close to me, and she says "Fine", grabs a bunch of her stuff, and leaves. Meanwhile, I am still in a lot of pain, greiving the loss of my birth, and now with no help, and DH had to go back to work the next day.
Somehow, we made it through that horrific experience, all the while enjoying our tiny newborn as best we could. DH had to call the mom of a co-worker, a nice lady that he knew but that I had never met, to come and help me out for the next 2 days until my mom flew in to town. MIL and I did not talk for 3 months, until the week before Thanksgiving. She kept telling DH that she was going to write me a letter and that she wanted to talk to me and settle things, but I never saw any attempt from her to reconcile. Finally I had DS call her and invite her over to play Candy Land, she came over and while he was outside, there was that lovely uncomfortable silence, until I again had to drag the conversation out of her. She said that basically the reason she blew up at me was that she had witnessed a lot of times where I was too accepting of Ds's "bad" behavior, and brought up a time from the Christmas before last when he was two, had a tantrum in a public place over candy, and while DH was carrying him to the car, I was walking behind them telling ds that it would be ok, and damn right, I was trying to let him know that I understood that he was upset. I told MIL that I had a right to empathize with my child, and she said yes I did, but that I shouldn't reward bad behavior. Obviously she has no concept of developmentally appropriate behavior, especially since HER kids NEVER disrespected her. Right. Oh, and she explained how ds acted the night she flipped out, saying that he had heard me tell him to get his pj's on with her, but when she went upstairs, he refused, and was sitting on the floor holding onto one of his chairs refusing to budge. But he was three, and had just gone from being an only child to being a big brother. Of COURSE he's going to act out...
Then our conversation got cut off by ds coming inside, and it never picked up again. She never apologized for her behavior towards ds, never apologized for going off on me 5 days after the most devastating experience of my entire life(and ironically, one of the best since it produced my dd). We were civil towards one another over the next few months, just not overly friendly with one another, and our relationship has been very cool, if not borderline frigid. They live 10 minutes away from us and I for the better part of this year I have avoided going over there unless I HAD to(like, if ds begged me to go see her). Then, over the summer he started having pretty regular sleepovers over there, about once a week. And I found the more I was forced to deal with her, the more that this major incident slipped further into the back of my mind(since she is pretty much back to her sweet, giving "perfect wife and mother" self, as if nothing ever happened)....until this week. My family and I just moved into a new house(still only about 10 minutes away from the IL's, unfortunately!
), and twice this week, my MIL has come over to help us hang paintings, etc. And everything was, well, fine....we got along, were able to laugh about little things that happened...but it seemed that whenever we would be alone without anyone else around there would be an eerie silence between us, like that "thing" that happened was still there, unresolved. So, on the second day that she had come over, I went and found her hanging pictures in ds's room(while ds, dh, and FIL were outside), and I said(very hesitantly...I haaaate confrontation!): "Look, I don't want to stir things up again, I just want to say...I'm glad we're ok again, but, you really hurt me." And she said immediately: "And you really hurt me." And launched into this whole thing about how I had screamed at her son as if he didn't matter, and my son and his "bad behavior", etc.
Still did not apologize, turned the whole thing around and made it about her, again. Admits that her timing was terrible, but seems totally justified in her actions otherwise, and I get a serious impression that she expects me to apologize. Even DH, who accidently walked in on our conversation and then quickly left the room...when I was with him alone in the kitchen later, I acted nonchalant about it and said:"Everything's fine, she still didn't apologize though" and he said: "Did you?"
What on EARTH am I supposed to apologize to her for? She came into MY house, days after the most traumatic experience of my life, and cut me down, insulted me, basically poured salt into my VERY fresh open wound. And I'm supposed to apologize to her for screaming at her adult son(which I already apologized to HIM for), or for my 3 year old acting his age??? I mean, I just don't get it. I don't see how she, and my own HUSBAND, think that the two things are even remotely comparable. I can't talk to him about it because it turns into this ugly argument...he just does not understand!!
I really want to forgive her, and I know I need to for my own sake. It felt like I was going to be able to. Until I brought it up again. I don't know why I did. I guess I just wanted closure, and I felt like it would be ok even if she didn't apologize, I just wanted her to realize what she did to me. But she doesn't get it, and keeps making it about her, even though I didn't say one ill word towards her! And now that I angry about it again, I have not been able to get it off my mind, and I have been so sad all day. Which is why I came and posted in here, I just had to let it out somehow, and I do feel at least a little better. I wish I could afford therapy, I would go, seriously, because I also have issues with the women on my side of the family. 
But MDC and my IRL friends are all I have to vent to for now....
So, there it is. My story. Sorry, I know it is insanely long. If you made it this far, thank you so much for reading, please let me know your thoughts or if I need to further explain something. I appreciate your time....
ETA: I meant to also add, WWYD at this point, if you were me? I've thought, so many times(but especially in the last couple of days since this last occurence), that I would e-mail her and just let it all out, so I could actually finish what I had to say, and then add, at the end, "I forgive you" (even though I don't feel ready to anymore, but I know I need to, as it is hurting me more than it is hurting her). Uggggh, I just don't know. I wish there was a clear-cut answer, or that I could just let it all go, or at the very least get some understanding from my own husband about it....
I used to have a pretty good relationship with my MIL. She came and stayed with us for two weeks after ds's birth with no problems, we used to go shopping together all the time, etc. Then DH, DS, and I moved up to GA from Florida in 2006, and she offered us her home to stay in until we got on our feet...we planned to save up money, fix our credit, and all that good stuff, but DH was working a dead end job at the time, and 11 months later we moved out with barely anything saved because I could. not. take it anymore. My MIL was ok at that time, but my FIL was driving me up the freaking wall. DS was under two at the time, but was a very loud baby, would do the whole shrieking thing to see how people would react and FIL did NOT like it, was trying to tell me how to discipline him(NOT gently), etc. MIL actually defended me most of the time, though I do remember one time she tried to have a talk with me about discipline and though I tried to be as receptive as I could, the conversation did not go very far(her standpoint is to spank when necessary, but is definitely not totalitarian like FIL. Still has a hard time understanding GD though, considers it permissive parenting).
So...fast forward to last year, when I was pregnant with DD. Before I even got pregnant we were at her house with a mutual friend who had homebirthed her last daughter, and as we were talking about it our friend tells her husband that I am thinking about having a homebirth(HBAC). MIL overhears and immediately says, in a totally nonchalant way: "Oooh, I want to be there!" which was kinda shocking to me, and at the time I thought it would be nice to have her there, especially if she was so open about it. So, we get pregnant, and sometime at the beginning of my second tri, we tell her we are having a homebirth. BAD idea.
Apparantly she was not really for the idea at all, especially with me having had a previous c-section. The WHOLE pregnancy, she tried to talk me out of it, and I pleasantly maintained that it was not up for discussion.So...my labor begins, after a little over an hour of sleep one night, and hits me like a Mack Truck. I won't go into too many details here, but let's just say it was not what I was expecting(I did not hire a doula, and I really wish that I had). I labored through the night by myself and throughout the day with my DH by my side....my cntxs never picked up, they kept getting closer and then farther apart all day. DS had gone to our neighbors house but MIL and FIL were supposed to come pick him up at some point. They finally arrived at 5 PM or so: when the doorbell rang it startled me and DH told me who it was....at this point I should have run upstairs but before I knew what was happening, DH had opened the door and they were inside my house, pretty much watching me labor.
Then MIL says to me: "I begged you not to do this" at which point I bolted(if you can call it that) up the stairs to the safety of my bedroom, until I heard them leave. The whole time they were there, maybe 20 minutes, I had ONE contraction, and it petered out after like 4 seconds. I really felt like they stalled my already stalled labor, which I know is my fault and DH's fault, but still, the fact that she came in my house and tried to give me a guilt trip while I'm trying to have a baby is unfathomable to me. But that's just the tip of the iceberg.I end up in the hospital the following morning, with another c-section.
My labor never picked up and after 28 hours of trying, I had no energy left and was going out of my mind with pain. MIL came to the hospital when she heard, and this perhaps was her one saving grace: she stood by me with DH as they were getting our information in a frenzy, with me moaning through contractions, and she rubs my head and tells me "I wish I could take your pain." She did comfort me, to a point. Then followed the most traumatic birthing experience I could ever imagine....not only did I not have my dream HB, but as they were performing the c-section, I felt everything they did because the spinal block did not work, or worked only a little. I was NOT numb, and was screaming at them the whole time. So....all in all, most traumatic experience of my life. At least the subsequent hospital stay was pretty ok, and they were very agreeable with whatever I wanted: no bottles, pacis, vaxes, and they let (beautiful, healthy) dd room with me. So...MIL was supposed to come and help us in the days following the birth, which I was fine with. She lives 10 minutes from us, and wasn't going to stay over, except that up until that point, ds had been co-sleeping with me, and now I that I was recovering from unexpected surgery, we asked if she could stay in the guest bed and have ds sleep with her(bad idea, who knows what number we are at by now). This worked fine for 2 days...on the third night she went upstairs with him to get ready for bed, and I was on the phone with a friend from LLL, when suddenly I hear through the monitor DS freaking out, crying, sounding like a struggle. I quickly say goodbye and get up with a lot of difficulty, and dh tells me: "I'll take care of it." Not completely sure of the details of what happened next, it is kind of a blur. All I know is, I felt like ds needed me(and especially because I had not been there for him AT ALL since dd's birth 5 or so days before...I was in such a daze), and I wanted to see what was going onthat was making him so upset. So I follow DH upstairs, to find MIL wrestling Ds's clothes off to put on his PJ's, and he is crying and fighting her with all his might. I say nothing ill towards her, all I say is: "Whoa, what's going on, let me go to my son." (DH and MIL both say that sometime within these few minutes, I also started screaming at DH, who was giving me a hard time about following him up the stairs after he had told me that he would handle it...but honestly, I don't remember screaming at him at all, and when DH told me that I apologized).
So I say "Let me go to him.." and enter the room, I go and hug ds, and MIL BLOWS UP at me. Tells me that I am creating a monster, that none of her 3 kids were EVER disrespectful to her(
right...) and on and on, the basic gist being that I am a crappy parent and I have no idea what I'm doing, and that there are TWO parents here and I need to let them BOTH do their jobs(yeah, and last time I checked, YOU were not one of them, lady. But she was talking about the history dh and I have of not agreeing on discipline...he is also a lot more traditional than I am…). Then, I finally end the tirade with "Get out of my face" because she was very very close to me, and she says "Fine", grabs a bunch of her stuff, and leaves. Meanwhile, I am still in a lot of pain, greiving the loss of my birth, and now with no help, and DH had to go back to work the next day.Somehow, we made it through that horrific experience, all the while enjoying our tiny newborn as best we could. DH had to call the mom of a co-worker, a nice lady that he knew but that I had never met, to come and help me out for the next 2 days until my mom flew in to town. MIL and I did not talk for 3 months, until the week before Thanksgiving. She kept telling DH that she was going to write me a letter and that she wanted to talk to me and settle things, but I never saw any attempt from her to reconcile. Finally I had DS call her and invite her over to play Candy Land, she came over and while he was outside, there was that lovely uncomfortable silence, until I again had to drag the conversation out of her. She said that basically the reason she blew up at me was that she had witnessed a lot of times where I was too accepting of Ds's "bad" behavior, and brought up a time from the Christmas before last when he was two, had a tantrum in a public place over candy, and while DH was carrying him to the car, I was walking behind them telling ds that it would be ok, and damn right, I was trying to let him know that I understood that he was upset. I told MIL that I had a right to empathize with my child, and she said yes I did, but that I shouldn't reward bad behavior.
Obviously she has no concept of developmentally appropriate behavior, especially since HER kids NEVER disrespected her. Right. Oh, and she explained how ds acted the night she flipped out, saying that he had heard me tell him to get his pj's on with her, but when she went upstairs, he refused, and was sitting on the floor holding onto one of his chairs refusing to budge. But he was three, and had just gone from being an only child to being a big brother. Of COURSE he's going to act out...Then our conversation got cut off by ds coming inside, and it never picked up again. She never apologized for her behavior towards ds, never apologized for going off on me 5 days after the most devastating experience of my entire life(and ironically, one of the best since it produced my dd). We were civil towards one another over the next few months, just not overly friendly with one another, and our relationship has been very cool, if not borderline frigid. They live 10 minutes away from us and I for the better part of this year I have avoided going over there unless I HAD to(like, if ds begged me to go see her). Then, over the summer he started having pretty regular sleepovers over there, about once a week. And I found the more I was forced to deal with her, the more that this major incident slipped further into the back of my mind(since she is pretty much back to her sweet, giving "perfect wife and mother" self, as if nothing ever happened)....until this week. My family and I just moved into a new house(still only about 10 minutes away from the IL's, unfortunately!
), and twice this week, my MIL has come over to help us hang paintings, etc. And everything was, well, fine....we got along, were able to laugh about little things that happened...but it seemed that whenever we would be alone without anyone else around there would be an eerie silence between us, like that "thing" that happened was still there, unresolved. So, on the second day that she had come over, I went and found her hanging pictures in ds's room(while ds, dh, and FIL were outside), and I said(very hesitantly...I haaaate confrontation!): "Look, I don't want to stir things up again, I just want to say...I'm glad we're ok again, but, you really hurt me." And she said immediately: "And you really hurt me." And launched into this whole thing about how I had screamed at her son as if he didn't matter, and my son and his "bad behavior", etc.Still did not apologize, turned the whole thing around and made it about her, again. Admits that her timing was terrible, but seems totally justified in her actions otherwise, and I get a serious impression that she expects me to apologize. Even DH, who accidently walked in on our conversation and then quickly left the room...when I was with him alone in the kitchen later, I acted nonchalant about it and said:"Everything's fine, she still didn't apologize though" and he said: "Did you?"
What on EARTH am I supposed to apologize to her for? She came into MY house, days after the most traumatic experience of my life, and cut me down, insulted me, basically poured salt into my VERY fresh open wound. And I'm supposed to apologize to her for screaming at her adult son(which I already apologized to HIM for), or for my 3 year old acting his age??? I mean, I just don't get it. I don't see how she, and my own HUSBAND, think that the two things are even remotely comparable. I can't talk to him about it because it turns into this ugly argument...he just does not understand!!
I really want to forgive her, and I know I need to for my own sake. It felt like I was going to be able to. Until I brought it up again. I don't know why I did. I guess I just wanted closure, and I felt like it would be ok even if she didn't apologize, I just wanted her to realize what she did to me. But she doesn't get it, and keeps making it about her, even though I didn't say one ill word towards her! And now that I angry about it again, I have not been able to get it off my mind, and I have been so sad all day. Which is why I came and posted in here, I just had to let it out somehow, and I do feel at least a little better.
I wish I could afford therapy, I would go, seriously, because I also have issues with the women on my side of the family. But MDC and my IRL friends are all I have to vent to for now....So, there it is. My story. Sorry, I know it is insanely long. If you made it this far, thank you so much for reading, please let me know your thoughts or if I need to further explain something. I appreciate your time....
ETA: I meant to also add, WWYD at this point, if you were me? I've thought, so many times(but especially in the last couple of days since this last occurence), that I would e-mail her and just let it all out, so I could actually finish what I had to say, and then add, at the end, "I forgive you" (even though I don't feel ready to anymore, but I know I need to, as it is hurting me more than it is hurting her). Uggggh, I just don't know. I wish there was a clear-cut answer, or that I could just let it all go, or at the very least get some understanding from my own husband about it....
NO ONE helped me after I had my baby. No one brought me dinner or helped with the house. DH worked and grumbled when he got a bottle once at night. Would have loved to have my MIL stay the night. Only one person offered who had just gotten out of a mental institution (no thanks). I nearly lost my mind and I only had one. I also didn't have the birth exp I wanted but nothing like yours. I thank my lucky stars I had 3 days of labor as opposed to an awake c/s! Ugh.
) because you yelled at your DH (Heaven forbid a post-partum woman recovering from a traumatic surgery should yell at her husband!) was very much not okay.
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