Woman Slammed for Keeping Her Pregnancy a Secret Until Her In-Law’s Baby Shower
“Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight,
Make me a child again just for tonight!
Mother, come back from the echoless shore,
Take me again to your heart as of yore;
Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care,
Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair;
Over my slumbers your loving watch keep —
Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!
Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years!
I am so weary of toil and of tears —
Toil without recompense, tears all in vain —
Take them, and give me my childhood again!
I have grown weary of dust and decay —
Weary of flinging my soul-wealth away;
Weary of sowing for others to reap —
Rock me to sleep, mother – rock me to sleep!
Over my heart, in the days that are flown,
No love like mother-love ever has shone;
No other worship abides and endures,
Faithful, unselfish, and patient like yours:
None like a mother can charm away pain
From the sick soul and the world-weary brain.
Slumber’s soft calms o’er my heavy lids creep;
Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!
Mother, dear mother, the years have been long
Since I last listened your lullaby song:
Sing, then, and unto my soul it shall seem
Womanhood’s years have been only a dream.
Clasped to your heart in a loving embrace,
With your light lashes just sweeping my face,
Never hereafter to wake or to weep—
Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!” — Excerpted from Rock Me To Sleep by Elizabeth Chase Akers Allen
It’s why a mother is so important to every human being. Next to God, she’s mankind’s source of strength and solace, of inner peace and inspiration. To be a good mother, it takes extraordinary determination and effort. It takes such a great sacrifice.
But to everyone who decides to be a mother, nothing can equal the happiness of having a child.
It’s why this woman found it very difficult to forget the anguish she went through after losing her baby. In fact, she and her husband still remember the pain; that’s why they were secretive about her second pregnancy.
But something happened that led to many relatives and Redditors slamming her on Reddit’s r/AmItheA–hole forum. This is her story: “I (23f) am currently 8 months pregnant. We had been keeping it a secret and planned to tell people around this time, but a few months after my pregnancy, my SIL (26) found out she was pregnant, and then it just felt awkward to announce. We wanted to wait for the right time. I’ve been married to my husband for only six months, but we’ve been together on and off since we were 14 (permanently together since we were 16). When we were 17, we found out I was pregnant, I had complications, and I gave birth to my preemie stillborn at 25 weeks. So this pregnancy, we’ve been extra cautious and secretive.”
According to this pregnant woman, with the username u/HelloCheese12, she has not seen their family much over the past months. Also, people often thought she had simply gained weight since her bump was small and could be easily hidden under loose clothing.
However, a problem arose when her SIL invited her and her husband to her baby shower. OP wrote, “We were hesitant about me going, I was just going to send my husband with a gift of mine, but SIL said she really wanted me there. I decided to try my best to hide the bump and go. It was all going well, no one noticed – I mean I got a few looks but no one asked me anything. Then, about an hour in, I started having tiny cramps that eventually got more aggressive. I told my husband we needed to leave and that I needed to go to the hospital. As we were walking, a sharp pain hit me, and I grabbed the picnic table next to me and almost stumbled over, causing attention to myself.”
That drew everyone’s attention to OP, whose labor pains got more intense. In a panic, as people surrounded them, asking questions, OP’s husband told them that she was pregnant and he must take her to the hospital.
Their family and friends were shocked, but the couple had no time to explain why they kept her pregnancy a secret.
At the hospital, OP and her husband were informed that it was simply a case of false labor. But, instead of their relatives and friends asking if OP was fine, she and her husband received angry text messages about their hiding her pregnancy from them and OP’s pulling a ‘baby stunt’ at someone else’s baby shower.
Many of the AITA members have been harsh in judging this woman. But there were also those commenters who expressed sympathy and understanding toward this young mom.
Here’s a thread of those sensible and compassionate responses:
From Environmental-Run528: “Are women’s emotions so fragile that 100% of all the attention at a baby shower must be on them? Jesus, grow up. Btw, OP never intended on anyone finding out, so she wasn’t actively seeking attention.”
From Fudgms: “Ok. So you have an expectation of every guest at your party not to have a literal medical emergency. Be sure to tell everyone that you will be upset with them if they need to go to the damn hospital.”
From jkrowlingisaTERF: “Right, because how dare she go into preterm labor?!?! How DARE she set foot outside of her house when she KNOWS SIL is having her baby shower! It’s like she wanted her water to break while she was there just to rub it in! How self-centered! How inconsiderate! She should have either retroactively given everyone a play-by-play update of the pregnancy, so they knew what to expect, or just held it in and made the cramping stop. I mean, the nerve! Just in case that wasn’t blisteringly clear, NTA.”
From small: “She had sudden heavy pain! How tf is that a planned way to get attention? My god.”
And these words of wisdom come from fertility expert and doula Elizabeth King, who told Newsweek, “A lot of women hide a pregnancy just because they have experienced fertility challenges and want to protect that from others. Some like to share early, to have support along the way. Some like to hide their pregnancy to keep it intimate between them and their partner. Having a baby is such a personal thing that there are no right ways to know when to announce it. Families may feel sad they didn’t know, but ultimately, it’s not up to them. They can feel sad, but they should leave the decision to the pregnant person.”
