Not all parents get to experience the happy parts of parenting a baby. Instead of being able to enjoy the milestones and find routine in the sleepless nights, their little loved one dies due to sudden infant death syndrome, and the parents are left with an unimaginable grief that is too often swept under the rug. SIDS is a reality for 3,500 parents in the US each year and support, empathy, and understanding are key to helping the grieving parents come to terms with living in their new reality.
Supportive friends and family make all the difference in this process, but unfortunately, one mom is getting the opposite in her time of grief.
An anonymous mom took to Reddit to get advice on a situation she's unfortunately found herself in.
Posting in Reddit's AITA community, the woman shared some background history on her family. "I f33 lost my son Tom eight months ago to SID, it was horrible and so devastating, my life got completely ruined and I been a mess since the day my baby was taken away from me," she began her post off writing.
She said that she's been "distancing" herself from family, so she didn't realize what was going on in their lives until her family came to visit.
She found out during that visit that her brother and his wife are expecting a baby.
OP said she found out they were expecting when they "came to visit me after their appointment to the doctor's office to reveal the baby gender and he told me that they were expecting a baby boy."
These announcements can be hard for parents who are grieving the loss of their own child. But the OP told her brother and sister-in-law that she was happy for the two of them.
Well, until her brother told her what they had planned to name their son.
"He told me that his wife suggested naming their son after my son as a way to honor him," OP shared. She said, "I was taken a back." The grieving mother said she felt uncomfortable about the name they've chosen and she "asked if they were considering other names."
Her brother said they were considering other names, but "my sister in law was insisting on Tom and my mom strongly agrees with her."
OP said she didn't understand why her SIL was insisting on naming her child after hers.
"It was strange that my sister in law who constantly trys to picks fights with me and spite me was insisting on naming her baby after my son," she wrote. "This woman literally cried when I gave birth to my son out of hate, she hates my husband and disrespects him all the time, she treats us badly but put on a nice face for the family."
When OP went to her mom's house later, it was clear her sister-in-law wasn't empathetic to her baby that died at all. "I was at my mom's house and my sister in law started referring to her baby as 'our Tom' infront of me," she wrote.
This situation didn’t sit well with her husband.
Her husband "got very upset and his face was red," and her SIL still didn't clue in. "She did it again I had to speak up," OP said. She explained that she asked in a polite way if SIL could "consider another name seeing how sensitive we were," but her SIL was being really stubborn and refused.
"She said no, I told her that can't spite me by naming her baby after mine that's messed up, but she lashed out and said that I have no say," she shared. OP also said that her SIL called her pathetic for asking her to choose another name. "We got into an argument, my mom sided against me but my brother remained quiet."
OP said that when she and her husband got home, her husband said he would "never visit again after this because she was clearly using our loss and grieve against us and is acting all innocent."
OP then asked the Reddit community if she was wrong for asking her SIL to choose a different name, and they had some strong opinions.
"While I'm usually in the 'no one owns a name' camp this is 50 shades of messed up right here," a comment read. The commenter added, "NTA."
"This type of situation is where you do own the name, especially amongst immediate family," another wrote. "My MIL suffered a late term miscarriage and named their daughter. Her niece still asked permission to use the name even after 20+ years since the baby passed."
Another commenter agreed that OP was not in the wrong. The Redditor elaborated: "If this was about honoring your son, she wouldn’t have doubled down once you expressed your discomfort. She’s not honoring your son by tormenting his grieving parents. By your brother’s reaction he knows this is wrong, and he cannot expect you to be around a constant reminder of your dead baby created by your hateful SIL. This is absolutely unforgivable. I’m usually not a fan of ultimatums, but I think this calls for one."
"NTA I am so very very sorry for your loss and I’m equally sorry how insensitive your SIL is being," shared another commenter. "What decent human would think that’s ok. Hearing “Our Tom” would be like a knife to the heart and how one woman could do that to another is beyond me. Good luck to you and your husband."
This is so not an OK thing to do. We wish OP and her husband peace.
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