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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/I-Really-Hate-Fish on 2023-08-24 10:55:53.
I’m sorry if this gets confusing, there’s a lot of backstory. All fake names
TW: Traumatic pregnancy, miscarriage, traumatic birth, near infant-death, sick children.
My husband (45M) and I (F36) have 2 children; “Alex” (12M) and “Harry” (5M). When I was younger, I had a lot of intestinal issues and ended up having major surgery. Less than 6 months later, I found out that I as pregnant. I was told that it was fine.
It was not fine.
From around week 20 I was in serious pain as the fresh scar tissue was stretched. The birth was rough and premature and I ended up having contractions and was 4 cm open for 72 hrs.
In spite of this, my husband and I really wanted another kid, and 5 years later we conceived. We found out 2 days before leaving on a trip to see my husband’s parents who live abroad. We figured it would be fine.
It was not fine.
I had a miscarriage 2 weeks into the visit. My MIL was supposed to take care of Alex so my husband could stay with me at the hospital and translate for me. She went shopping instead, so my husband had to stay with Alex, leaving me alone and not knowing what was going on because I don’t speak the language. It was awful.
Fast-forward another couple of years and I got pregnant again. The birth was also traumatic as I passed out half-way.
4 weeks later, I found Harry in his crib, blue in the face and unresponsive. He wasn’t breathing and I started CPR.
I managed to revive our son myself and we went to the hospital to get him checked out afterwards. He recovered entirely and is generally a healthy, if a bit wild boy.
All this has left me with PTSD. I can’t handle babies. If I get close to an infant, I get the phantom feeling of a limp dead baby in my arms, I get flashbacks and nausea and panic attacks. The same for visibly pregnant women.
Now, my niece “Andrea” (19F) is pregnant and she’s going through a rough patch, but I can’t be around her without getting the aforementioned symptoms, so for the time being, I’ve withdrawn from family get-togethers. If my niece is going to be there, I just don’t go. My husband is taking the boys so they don’t miss out, but I just can’t.
My mum, however, is annoyed by this. She thinks it’s selfish of me not to help, which I feel like I have. We’ve donated everything we had from when Harry was a baby, including his pram, baby monitors, etc, all expensive items we could have sold for good money instead. I just can’t be there in person.
She thinks it’s ridiculous that I feel this way because Harry didn’t die, and in some ways I can’t help but feel that she might be right because Harry is here and I’m so grateful that he is. I also really want to be there for my niece, but I just feel so awful whenever I try.
My mum thinks I need to try harder and has been trying to force it by not telling me that my niece will be visiting when we go there.
I’ve looked into getting therapy, but the only person in my country who specialises in this has a 2 year waiting list.
But AITA for ignoring my niece?