Unsupportive Mother & Sister

Hi All,

Sorry if this ends up being a bit of a rant. I'm pregnant, current due date is Halloween. I've had a bit of a rough pregnancy; kidney stones, sciatica, lot of back pain in general starting from early month 5. Due to all this I've been on short term disability much earlier than I anticipated, and while I try to stay positive, some days it can be hard not get down on myself. My mother and sister since this started happening have been acting like I am exaggerating, my sister in particular has been awful. At my shower she shamed me for using all my time off already, implying that I will be replaced for taking so much time off, despite the fact that the type of work I do I physically cannot do with a painful back, and I have been assured multiple times by my HR department that my job is protected and to not worry about work. As I was opening gifts at my shower, my sister was telling me which ones I should return and replace with something else as I was opening them, and at the end of gift opening she felt the need to explain how to use everything as if I can't figure it out myself. She is a couple years older than me, but still acts like I'm a little lost child despite being in my early 30's. One of my friends said she could hear my sister and had trouble not saying something to her. Another friend who was taking photos noticed one of my aunts discretely giving my sister the finger as she was telling me to return the gift my aunt had given me. For the record, I kept all the gifts I was given as they were exactly what I had asked for, so that warranted a snarky "guess you didn't have to take my advice" from my sister. Earlier in my pregnancy, I excitedly told my sister about starting to feel the baby move and she brushed it off that I was "just having gas." We were pregnant at the same time, and I distinctly remembered her telling me about feeling her baby move around the same week in pregnancy and being so happy for her. I know her and husband had trouble conceiving, and when I found out I was also pregnant she told my mother that she felt "I was stealing her thunder" and acted as if I had gotten pregnant at the same time out of spite. 

Anyway, that's all mild irritants I can deal with, but on Labor Day, at the end of the day I started having contractions. It started out feeling like I was having menstrual cramps, so I laid down trying to feel better, but then I felt my stomach getting hard off and on, and after 45 minutes my husband and I decided to call the hospital to see what we should do, and they told me to come in. At that point the contractions were every 5 minutes, but by the time we got to the hospital they were every 3 minutes and extremely painful to the point where I was having trouble talking through them. The triage staff were preparing me for the potential of having a premature baby. Fortunately, I never dilated, and my water never broke, and after 3 hours they were able to calm the contractions down. I had Braxton-Hicks on and off throughout the week, and then early Sunday morning I was having full blown contractions again, and again after not getting them to calm down we called the hospital who told me to come in again. Again, the contractions were every 3 minutes, but I never dilated, water never broke, and after a couple hours the contractions calmed down.

What's frustrating is both my mom's and sister's response to all this has been "You'll know what real contractions feel like when you're having them," and they are refusing to call it anything other than Braxton-Hicks, despite them being real contractions, the hospital calling it false labor. The resident OB even had a talk with me that they believe at this point I may go into labor a few weeks early, and that if this happens again I may need to get a steroid shot to help my baby's lungs develop faster, and to be prepared for that and my mother's response was "That's bullshit. Absolute bullshit." I am just beyond frustrated with the two of them at this point. My mother is a nurse but she is NOT a labor and delivery nurse, and my sister just had a baby so she thinks that because she never went through all this, therefore I am not going through it either, and that I am overreacting. It hurts me so much to not feel supported by my own family members, and I am at a point where I don't want to share anything with them about my pregnancy. I'm tired of being made to feel like I'm some hysterical crazy woman who can't handle the "basics of pregnancy" as they like to call it. It stresses me out so much trying to defend myself to them, that I just don't even want to talk to them anymore. I'm not looking for sympathy, I just don't want them to keep brushing off my fears, and pain. I don't want to talk to them about my pregnancy anymore, and I honestly don't even want to talk to them if my child is ever sick or anything, I just want them to leave me alone and stop telling me I'm overreacting all the time, when the hospital tells me I'm doing the right thing.

Sorry for the long rant. I'm just tired of second guessing myself, and not knowing who to turn to when I'm scared or having a bad day. Obviously my husband is very supportive, but when he's at work and I need someone to talk to it would be nice if I could talk to my family members, but I always end up feeling worse after I talk to them.