Returning Gifts After Stillbirth

Ask the Experts

Robbie Davis-Floyd

I had a stillbirth a year and a half ago. A few weeks after the tragedy, I was contacted by my mother-in-law asking me to give back a few of the gifts I received from her and her husband, and from some of the other family members (on my husband's side) since I "wouldn't be needing them now," so that they could give them to another family member who was expecting. This hurt quite a bit, it felt like I was being asked to forget that I was ever going to be a mother, or going to have a child. I obliged to what she asked of me, but in doing so, it felt like my husband's side of the family was now saying I was no longer important now what I wasn't going to be a mother and that my grief meant nothing. Am I wrong to feel this way? Or was my husband's family wrong to request their gifts back?

I am shocked by your mother-in-law's behavior—asking for those gifts back was highly insensitive. If I were you I would have explained that the request hurt my feelings, that I treasured those gifts as memories of my baby, and that I might need them in the future for another child of my own or perhaps choose eventually to give them to a friend. What to do with those gifts should have been entirely your choice! I guess your mother-in-law had no idea how much this would hurt you—perhaps she was just being practical?—but I do feel that she was very wrong to request those gifts back.

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Returning Gifts After Stillbirth

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