Bad reactions to pregnancy news!

gildah

Anyone else get a bad reaction from family when you announced your pregnancy? My parents and friends are all super excited, but my MIL is not. In fact she seems really upset about it. This is our 5th baby, so way outside of "normal". I should add that I am Catholic, but DH and his family are WASPs and consider anything over 2 to be a big family. Anyway, negative reactions kind of suck....

cups4

Are they worried about your ability to parent 5 or just that they think it's a big number? Either say that sucks. Have you normally been close or had you been expecting this reaction?

gildah

We are very close. I just think she thinks it's too many kids. We are financially able to support this number of children, have a big enough house and a ton of support from the community and we have a very stable marriage. I teach a large children's choir, so I have gobs of teenagers who babysit for me. I can  bring my baby to my music gigs and nurse during rehearsals. So, it's not like another baby is going to cause a crazy amount of stress and chaos. 

ivyvines6

 What's a wasp? 

I was the oldest of six kids. I heard a lot of BS remarks about my family size growing up, especially from family.  I know it hurt my mom a lot.  Try not to let it get to you because the American model has been ideologically following the nuclear family pattern since the 50s. (One boy one girl, sahm, and a white picket fence) 

lincbeesmom

ivyvines6 said:

 What's a wasp? 

I was the oldest of six kids. I heard a lot of BS remarks about my family size growing up, especially from family.  I know it hurt my mom a lot.  Try not to let it get to you because the American model has been ideologically following the nuclear family pattern since the 50s. (One boy one girl, sahm, and a white picket fence) 

White Anglo-Saxon Protestant 

sparkymcgeee

I'm Mormon where 6-10 kids is normal so I grew up in a four kid home and most of my friends from church had a ton of siblings. Or at least the same number. She needs to get over it because its really no time that weird. My coworkers sister has 14. 

blovemama

We told my MIL by putting a "promoted to big brother" shirt on my son. I told her to read his shirt and she said, "Oh no!" She is happy about it, she is just bad at giving reactions sometimes. Sorry you had such a crappy response though. I am happy to have such an experienced mom in our group though! 

sourapple1784

We haven’t announced yet but Hubby is certain his parents will be negative about it. My parents, will probably be concerned about the financial aspect but not negative. This will be baby number 4 for us. I believe hubbys parents will have a problem because his mom doesn’t like me. Never has, and from the looks of it, never will. I don’t care either. As long as me and Hubby are happy, that’s all that matters. And we’re ecstatic about this new baby. 

gildah

All that matters is that you and hubby are happy!

gildah

So funny, my MIL actually called and apologized to DH for her reaction. Apparently she feels really badly, so that's good at least.

hges83

One of the reasons we are waiting so long to annouce this pregnancy is because I know there is going to be negative reactions. Mainly because there were a few years where DH and I struggled both in our marriage and with money but things have been great, we really have spent the last 2 yrs rebuilding. I think a lot of people will be worried.

gildah

hges83 said:

One of the reasons we are waiting so long to annouce this pregnancy is because I know there is going to be negative reactions. Mainly because there were a few years where DH and I struggled both in our marriage and with money but things have been great, we really have spent the last 2 yrs rebuilding. I think a lot of people will be worried.

At least you've worked through your problems! I think marriages are usually stronger after going through struggles. You just remind people of that!

Ambermom043

I have the opposite problem... hubby's mom had 13, and his siblings are pumping them out left and right while I'm over here working on my second, taking my sweet time.. lol. I know they're all wondering what's wrong with me! Haha. We just don't care! We do what we want!