Mom Excludes Sister From Her Baby's First Birthday Because She Couldn't Come To His Birth — 'It's Not My Fault She Had A Miscarriage'
Her grieving sister couldn't bear to come to the hospital. She's been punishing her ever since.
Jewelsy / Getty Images, Neirfy via Canva, Krakenimages.com / Shutterstock The effects of a miscarriage are wide-ranging, and some women are debilitated by grief for ages in the aftermath. But one new mom on Reddit feels slighted by the way her sister's grieving process got in the way of her own joy, and now she's retaliating in a way that has struck many people as cruel.
A new mom is excluding her sister from her baby's first birthday party out of revenge.
"My sister and I are not on so good terms," the new mom writes in her post, which is too bad since they used to be deeply close until recently, "Growing up we didn't have any issues between us, we were close until around a year ago." That all changed once it came time for her to give birth to her son.
The new mom's sister didn't come to the birth of her son because she was grieving her own miscarriage.
Just before the new mom gave birth, her sister and brother-in-law suffered an all-too-common tragedy. "My sister got pregnant around the time of my delivery," she writes, "I remember I was in my third trimester when they announced their pregnancy."
Her sister had been dealing with fertility issues and had a miscarriage—one of several she's suffered. It all went down just before the new mom had her baby. "She had her miscarriage about a week before I gave birth," she writes, going on to say that "obviously I was very sad for them and I supported her as much as I could."
That support wasn't easy for her—her pregnancy was high-risk, so she wasn't able to leave the house. But she made sure to call and support her sister. When it came time for her to give birth, her sister wasn't able to support her in the way she says she needed.
"It was a hard delivery for me," she writes, "so I really appreciated the support from my family." But her sister wasn't able to make it to the birth. "She called and congratulated us, asked if we were ok and such," the new mom writes, "but she said she couldn't bear to go to the hospital" because she was still grieving her miscarriage. "I was very hurt about this," she writes.
The new mom kept her sister from meeting her baby and is now punishing her by excluding her from his birthday.
When her sister offered to come to see her once she was home, the new mom told her "My husband and I wanted to be alone." When she tried to come by to meet the baby on subsequent occasions, the new mom told her "It wasn't a good time." It ended up being months before her sister saw the baby. "She ended up meeting him when he was three months. She was a bit butthurt because she was the only one who had to wait to meet my son."
Her sister told her that she felt excluded, but the new mom was unmoved, telling her she had her chance to meet the baby in the hospital like everyone else. Her sister explained again that she was in the midst of suffering the emotional effects of a miscarriage, but the new mom wasn't having it. "We argued and since then we have not been on good terms even after she apologized," she says.
Now that the baby's first birthday has come around, the new mom is sticking to her guns. When her sister confronted her about her and her husband not being invited, she told her that "since they didn't want to be there when he was born they don't get to be there for his birthday."
Her sister accused her of "punishing her for grieving her miscarriage," which she obviously is. But the new mom doubled down, telling her sister "It's not my fault she had a miscarriage, I needed her and she wasn't there for me."
The effects of a miscarriage can be devastating, and many people online thought the new mom was being cruel to her sister.
Recovering from a miscarriage is no small thing. The physical experience is bad enough, but as the TikTok below illustrates, the loss comes with a litany of incredibly difficult emotions too, with many women feeling like the miscarriage was somehow their own fault.
But the effects of miscarriage go far beyond such thoughts—for many women, the grief of a miscarriage leads to actual mental health conditions. A 2016 study at Imperial College London found that ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages trigger Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, in 40% of women who experience pregnancy loss.
And a 2015 study conducted by hospitals in Michigan and Minnesota and the University of Louisville found that nearly 20% of women who experience a miscarriage end up with depression and/or anxiety—and these effects of miscarriage can last as long as three years.
Given how difficult a situation her sister was in, many online felt the new mom was being inexcusably cruel and petty.
As one person on Reddit put it, "You supported her 'as much as you could' during her miscarriage, which sounds like [it] involved calling her rather than going to be with her due to your high-risk pregnancy... Then you turn around and are spiteful towards her for calling and not physically meeting your baby."
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers family, social justice and human interest topics.