Who gets to be in the delivery room with you when you give birth is nobody's business but yours. Point blank. But if you invite one soon-to-be grandmother into the room with you during D(elivery) Day and not the other, are you being unfair? That was the argument one mother-in-law made to her daughter-in-law after she found out that she hadn't been asked into the room when things went down. The mom isn't buying it, though, and shot back that she doesn't owe her MIL anything — especially not while she's giving birth.
The mom gave birth in January, and originally she only wanted her husband in the room with her when it happened.
As she explained in a post on r/JUSTNOMIL, the original plan was to keep things small, and after the baby arrived their families would join them.
Ten hours into labor, however, the Original Poster had a change of heart.
We've all been there. You're tired, in pain, and there seems to be no end in sight.
"So I gave up and asked my husband to call my mom, I just fell like I needed her there," she recalled. And the support was just the thing she needed.
"I was holding my mom's hand so hard that one of her fingers broke," she wrote.
After her delivery, her MIL was a bit "cold" to her, but wouldn't admit to the OP that something was wrong.
At the time, the OP wasn't permitting any visitors, but allowed her MIL to FaceTime the baby to get in that good grandma time.
"This has been working fine, until yesterday," she wrote.
Apparently, her MIL didn't realize that the Redditor's mom was staying with them after the delivery.
It's important to know that her mom was staying with them because her father is a first responder and he didn't want to put her vulnerable asthmatic mother at risk during the current health crisis — not because the mom was playing favorites.
Things really went downhill recently when the OP was in the bath and her mother answered the FaceTime call. When she finally got out of the bathroom, her mom handed the phone over to her to say hello. And then her MIL disconnected the call.
The OP asked her MIL if she wanted her to call back.
Surely, the call must have been dropped, right? Nope. Her MIL told her "No, that was enough." When she "normally always bargains for more time."
So, the OP decided to push the issue.
She called her MIL on April 2 and asked her "What is the problem?" she wrote. "And don't say nothing."
To which her MIL told her that she was upset over the "favoritism" the OP was showing for her mother.
"She was with you when the baby born and I couldn't, she can visit the baby and I can't," her MIL told her. The OP clarified that her mom was staying with them, not visiting, and she didn't need to inform her MIL when they had guests.
"You have treated me so badly because I didn't let you in while I was giving birth?" she wrote. "By the love of God. I was vulnerable, in pain, and naked, I didn't wanted any one in there, [my mom] only entered because I was scared and I really needed her!"
Her MIL shot back that she had been there for all of her other grandchildrens' births and that this was a break in "tradition."
The poster's husband later confirmed that his mom had been in the delivery room for the rest of her grandchildren "and since I called my mom it would be a nice gesture permit her to get in too," she wrote. "But I still had the right to choose that."
In their heated phone call, the Reddit mom reminded her MIL that she was in pain "and trying to push a baby out of my body!" while she was giving birth. She added that her MIL could either accept her decisions "or pass the rest of your life with that crap attitude."
People were absolutely stunned at OP's mother-in-law.
"I have no advice but you were absolutely in the right to not allowing her into the delivery room because it wasn’t what you wanted," one Reddit commenter wrote.
"[Expletive] that," a second commenter posted. "My vagina is not to be displayed because her other daughter-in-laws were fine with that. Why do these women think they just get to see us vulnerable without putting the work into the relationship?"
"You were right she can get over it or go suck an egg with her p–s poor attitude," a third commenter chimed in. "She wants to FaceTime with baby, she can do it when hubby is around. She owes you an apology."
The thing is, one of her sisters-in-law didn't want her MIL in the room with her either.
As she explained in her update, one of her sisters-in-law, who is also related to the family by marriage, admitted that the MIL "forced" her way into the delivery room.
"I think she didn't do it to me because my father was there and he is a police officer," the poster added.
As far as her husband goes, she put it to him this way: If he was getting a vasectomy, would he really want his father-in-law there? "He is now on my side," she wrote.
In the end, the mom decided to ignore her MIL's FaceTime requests.
"She can call her son to do this," she wrote. "I am already stressed enough!"
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