My JNMIL saga

CW: Late Pregnancy Loss, Near Death Experience

I have so many stories for you ladies. I’ll start with this one.

I’ve been with my husband for 19 years. Married for 13. We had a late term loss due to Chorioamnionitis in 2016 when I was pregnant with our first baby. It was horrific and traumatic. I needed a transfusion, I had to deliver the baby and then have a D&C that did not go well. I developed a blood clot after. We were at the 16 week mark.

A few months later we got pregnant with our oldest. I was a nervous wreck the entire pregnancy. I kept telling myself we would never be safe because even when I reached the safe point with my first – we had a loss that was way worse than if it had been an early loss (it could have killed me, it could have taken my uterus, the clot could have killed me, etc).

We had my oldest just shy of a year before the anniversary of our loss. My JN showed up at the hospital before I was even out of the delivery room and attempted to pull her from my arms while I was in the wheel chair. In hindsight, I have no idea how she got there that quickly. I genuinely believe that she drove an hour to the hospital and was lurking waiting for the text that baby arrived. The nurse snapped at her to stop that the baby hadn’t been tagged yet and I had just delivered. They came repeatedly to the hospital and my father in law would make a big to do about whether or not I was “decent” as I was breast feeding thus making me uncomfortable in what should have been a safe place. Baby was seen by doc the day after we got home for her first peds appt, mother in law shows up uninvited at the doctors office but fortunately didn’t stay for
The appointment. It’s no where near her home – so she drove 15 or 20 minutes to ambush us in the parking lot.

Within a few days of getting home, she starts nagging us about when we would baptize the baby. I was raised Jewish so it’s not a priority for me but my husband is Catholic and at that point was very into pleasing his mother (even though nothing he/we ever did or have done has ever been good enough for her). I was struggling with post partum anxiety and depression. She kept at asking even though it was winter and I refused to have my newborn in public during cold and flu season. Finally, a couple of weeks in, she starts up with “what if something happens to the baby and it’s not baptized?”. She said that a few times and husband did nothing. Eventually I lost my shit on my husband and said if something happens the baby would end up with her mother eventually and her infant brother. In hindsight, as a more direct and mature woman, I should have just dealt with her head on. I dont think he said anything to her directly about the comment but she shut up about the baptism. Our oldest was baptized at 6 months.

When we had our second during Covid she started up again and again was suggesting that something could happen to my baby. This time, the highlight was that no one could come to the hospital – it was just my husband and I and it was glorious. I believe husband addressed it head on but I’ve never been around to hear him address it and I never see any proof of issues being addressed. I could fill a whole book of this woman and her husband’s aggression, passive aggression, racism, anti-semitism, bigotry, etc etc.

I do not understand how these raised my husband who has grown a lot over the years. For the last 14 months, I refuse to be anywhere near his parents and our children typically object to going over there. I feel sad for my husband but we both have come
to the agreement that it’s best for our marriage.