BM's family crosses the line

FutureMrsBaird

Me and my husband have full custody of his 3 kids ages 6, 8, and ,9. The youngest is the only girl. Recently I became pregnant. We announced to everyone while the kids were spending Thanksgiving break with their mom/gma. We had planned on waiting several weeks before we told the kids bbecause the boys are autistic and if there was a loss it'd be hard to explain.

When they got home, my daughter told ME that I'm having a baby!!!

With my pregnancy hormones, I called their mom and went off. The kids say their mom told them. She says that her mom (their grandmother) was talking about it openly in front of them. (The stinger is that I have their gma blocked on Facebook for previously fb-stalking me, like telling everyone that we adopted a child after I posted that we'd started sponsoring a child in Africa, and that was when she had never even met me yet and she still lived across the country)

As this will probably be my only pregnancy because 4 kids is a lot of kids, I'm upset that we didn't get to tell them ourselves about their new baby sibling.

What can you do about her family crossing lines like this?

mhwood

Where did her family hear about it?

If it were me, I wouldn't be pissed at them, I'd be pissed at whoever blasted it to them.

If you posted it on Facebook or some other social media site, and they picked it up, then you only really have yourself to blame.

blended10

Def in poor taste for mom or gma to tell the kids. Awful. But now that it's happened you ask what can you do? You can do exactly what you did which was to call bm out on it & explain your hurt feelings. And you have every right to be sad about missing that opportunity. When it's time to announce the sex (if you choose to find out) make sure the kids are the first ppl you tell so that you know they hear it from you first. There's not much more you can do. It sucks. It really does. Sorry

NatashaBoyack

I think i know how you could be feeling, my husband and I are expecting our first together but he has a daughter from a previous relationship. His daughters mother ruined ours, not only for his little girl but for all of his side of the family. We had a fun dinner and desert all planned for that Sunday, but by that Thursday I had everyone calling and texting me with congratulations of the news. We hadn't even told her, but she took it apon herself to just start blabbing to everyone I was. I am sorry that it had to happen to you that way.

EverythingsBetterOutside

First of all, I'm sorry that happened. If it happened to me, I would be livid! However, that's why when/if I do get pregnant, we won't be telling anyone until we're prepared for it to become common knowledge and we're telling my stepson first. It affects his life more than anyone else other than my husband and myself, so he deserves to hear it first and firsthand. Your mistake was "We announced to everyone while the kids were spending Thanksgiving break with their mom" because in fact you didn't announce to everyone, you deliberately chose to announce when your kids weren't there and to have many other people know about it while trying to keep them in the dark. It sucks, and you totally have a right to be upset about it, but it was also foreseeable and may not even be grandma's/mom's fault. If she heard it through the grapevine, she may assume the kids already knew because she may conclude, like I did, that because it makes a huge impact on your stepkids' lives they would of course be told before an announcement was made to others. I'd be less concerned about losing your chance to tell them about their new sibling however you were going to do it and more concerned about whether they feel hurt or slighted that you told others before telling them.

As for what to do about it... personally, in situations like this my strategy is to "get there first". If it's information you don't want shared with the kids at all, you probably shouldn't share it with anyone because it WILL get back to them. If it's something you'd like to do in your own way, do it first. Make sure Dad has the chance to bring his daughter to her first daddy-daughter dance before stepdad/mom's boyfriend happens to do it; if you're an avid skier and you want to share that with the kids, then go teach them how to ski and have that be your special time with them. Of course don't be a brat about it and make sure to be conscious and considerate of Mom's special things with the kids. But unless your family has a great relationship with Mom and her family, realize that you have absolutely zero control over her behavior. And unless she's doing something illegal or abusive or in clear, direct violation of a court order, you have no recourse, and sometimes even then there's nothing you can do but damage control in your own home.

mhwood

I've been on the other side of this...I'm the BM and my ex has 2 kids with his girlfriend (they are now 8 and 6 give or take a year).

With child # 1, they told everyone - his side, her side, all their friends. They waited weeks to tell my daughter, when they did, it was a casual "she's having a baby" and nothing more. By that time, she had already heard about it from several people and was heartbroken.

With child # 2, the same thing, except this time they still hadn't told her about it and the girlfriend was at least 8 months pregnant when my daughter finally just came out and asked. She was told that she should mind her own business.

Shortly after that, my ex stopped picking her up for visits. She is now 19, and they haven't spoken in 4 years.

blended10

@mhwood that's terrible. How insensitive that that was the way they all went about it.