We had a failed first cycle with miscarriage after 6 weeks and chose to keep it to ourselves. I have since only told a couple of close friends.
Now my sister in law is due to give birth any day now ( her second since we started trying ) and my mother in law has been staying over with them to be part of the action and help them out. She clearly favours my SIL as she has children and spends so much more time with them than with us - understandable I guess but still even when we're all together she tends to ignore me a bit.
My husband has other health issues and I'd text her with an update the other day about something health related and how I was worried. She ignored my message and I even 24 hours later still hadn't replied. So I asked her whether she'd received my text and she said yes but she's been busy with my SIL and nephew and is there at the moment.
So how she can't even spare the time to reply I have no idea. Anyway it was too much for me so I called her. To cut a long story short we had an argument about her preferring them as they have kids, and her not caring about my husband. When she told me that my SIL needs the help that's when I accidentally told her about our miscarriage. I didn't tell her any detail just that we had one and what she said was 'I'm so angry why didn't you tell me?'. So that confirms why we didn't tell her in the first place, but I didn't think for a second that this would be her reaction. I had to beg her to not tell anyone.
I basically wished her a nice evening and it hasn't been mentioned since. It was my husband's birthday on the weekend and we saw his parents but it wasn't mentioned (I guess not the time) but still no acknowledgment or words of sympathy from her. I just don't get how people can be like this???
Has anyone had similar reactions?
I am blocking it out currently and dreading going to the hospital to meet the new baby. It just shows me that we did the right thing not telling them but to get this reaction is beyond me. Or am I unreasonable? I know IVF can make you lose perspective occasionally
Sorry about the long post and thank you for reading.
Wishing everyone all the luck in the world wherever you are in your journeys !!
Written by
sunshineyellow
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Firstly I'm so sorry for your loss and that your now having to deal with all this on top of it. I think sometimes family just don't understand how truly heart breaking the IVF journey is and often people still see miscarriage as such a taboo subject which is totally outrageous in my opinion.
I've recently had difficulties with my SIL (I've written a few posts about them) the only difference being they know about our miscarriage and IVF. I totally understand that fear of going to the hospital and like some lovely ladies advised me at the time you have to do what you feel is right to protect yourself.
It's horrible that you feel so unsupported by them but know you will have support from us all on here xx
It certainly sounds very insensitive of your MIL. Her reaction sounds like she is feeling guilty for not being there and being involved enough to know about the miscarriage and that she's trying trying to deflect that a bit by being angry that you didn't involve her.
I'm surprised she wasn't interested in her son's health enough to find 5 minutes to reply but maybe she's one of those older people who only check their phones a couple of times a day??
Even so I'd have thought she'd find time to reply straight away.
I have to say my Mum and I both feel closer to my sister's kids than my two brothers'. I'm not sure why but somehow it's easier to get along and feel more involved with the kids when I'm related to their mother rather than their father. I'm not sure if this is just cos I'm very close to my sister and less so to the 2 SILs or if this is just natural. Is your Mum involved at all?
Whatever the above I'm sorry your feeling so frustrated and upset by it all. Families and the birth of other kids within families is impossible to cope well with when you are going through infertility. Try to keep yourself sane and do whatever you feel most comfortable/able to cope with over this new baby.
Your defo not being unreasonable I had a similar experience with my own mum! We decided on our first round of ivf not to tell anyone just keep it to ourselves unfortunately the cycle failed & a few weeks later we text mums, dads etc about the fact it had failed and why we kept it to ourselves. My mum was the same and said she was angry we hadn't told her, we were selfish & we should have said something! Not even a concern for how we felt bearing in mind I had failed! It took a stern talking to get from myself and my nana too get her to stop acting like she was so hard done by by not knowing xx
Yeah she was adamant that she thought that my mother and father in law knew as well as my dad (they are divorced) before her and she didn't believe that we had kept it a secret from everyone she thought she was the last to know so it was a bit of a selfish thing on her part xx
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xxxx
Feeling ridiculous and annoyed with myself for feeling like this but need to vent.
'Friends' 
People can be so thoughtless 😒
