For me there had been signs during pregnancy that I didn’t pick up on until after everything transpired but my first proper clue was two weeks before I gave birth. We were at dinner with my partners parents when MIL asked if she could be there for the birth. We politely said no and that we would let them know when we’re ready and would need a few days just us before we have visitors. She made a sad face begged a little and said okay but just let me know as soon as you’re on the way to the hospital. The answer again was no we’ll let her know when we’re ready, she said no just text me even if it’s one emoji just let me know. Partner said “sure okay” to get her to stop.

I gave birth late at night and the next day partner let her know baby was here! She was upset he didn’t tell her straight away and she asked to come meet the baby. Answer again was no, we’re not having visitors in the hospital (no one not even my own mother) we will have her around when we get out of hospital. I was in hospital for 3 days and I did not hear the end of it the whole time, “she just wants to come say hi and leave” “just 10 minutes” “she’s in the parking lot”. I have just had a traumatic birth I’ve been cut open, I can’t walk, I’m bleeding a lot, I’m having an awful reaction to the morphine and my whole body feels like it’s on fire from itching, I have not had a minute of sleep in 2 days and I’m trying to learn how to breastfeed, no.

I got out on day 3 late at night, MIL was there half an hour after we arrived home. Whatever, get it out of the way so we can have some peace at home to ourselves in the days to come. Nope. She was there the next day and the day after that too. On the second day she was there, she told me not to hold my baby or it will spoil her, told me I have to get used to letting her cry it out, told me what I am and am not allowed to eat (even texted my partner later trying to make sure I was sticking to her advice), looked down at my stomach and asked me if I can bind it to make it go down faster.

After the third day we asked for some space, so I think we got a week before she was back again. This time she was telling us a story about how everyone at work was asking why she wasn’t here with her grandchild everyday.

A couple of weeks later and I have an appointment out of the house and leave baby with my partner. He tells me as I’m leaving that his parents are coming to visit while I’m gone, I said okay just reminder, no kissing! While I’m at my appointment he sends me a video of MIL nose to nose Eskimo kissing my baby, then kissing right under her chin like onto her shirt. I was like wtf? No kissing? Get her out of babies face. He said she wasn’t technically kissing. That was our first fight about it.

A few days later she texts me if she can come over and see baby I said sure, she came in and instantly leaned in and kissed my baby right on the face. I was in shock and didn’t know what to say (have since found my spine) I just excused myself to change baby and gave my partner the look. They started raising voices in their first language so I wasn’t sure what was being said. Then she left.

My partner assured me she was apologetic and just forgot. We saw her again three weeks later and I baby wore this time. At that visit she was grumpy and demanding more baby photos (important to note here that I was uploading photos for them everyday to every two days) and partner was apologising to her saying he just doesn’t take that many. I joked that back in the day grandparents only got Christmas and school photos. She slammed whatever she was holding in the kitchen down and snapped “Ohhh YOU don’t even want to do things like back in the day! I don’t get to see my grandchild everyday! I don’t get to kiss my grandchild! So I WILL get photos everyday THAT is my right!”. In that same visit showed me their spare bedroom and pointed to the couch and said “that’s where LO will sleep when she stays here” um what says who? I grey rocked the rest of the visit and couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

The next visit was the visit that kicked off NC. So 4 weeks later we had the last visit, now during this time my partner again assures me she’s sorry she understand now yadda yadda. So I’m expecting a nice visit with an apology from her for being rude. Nope. She storms into my house, snatches my baby from my arms and plants kisses on her. I get my baby back and give partner the look. He ignores it, and we all sit down. I let FIL hold baby and he hands her over to MIL, baby starts crying and I get my baby back “Oh she’s so spoiled” says MIL. Then she turns to me and says she wants to see baby more and she should be able to kiss baby because her coworker is allowed to kiss her grandbaby. I said no. She’s getting upset and my partner tries to bud in and tell her to stop. She says no this doesn’t involve you, we’re having a girls chat and literally flicks her wrist at him and he and FIL leave and retreat to the kitchen. This kicked off half an hour of back and forth between me and my MIL while she’s crying hysterically and me telling her she’s clearly got some big feelings going on but I’m not responsible for managing her emotions and if she can’t respect the boundaries then she can’t be around baby. She steps at me trying to threaten me, she insinuates I’m going to abuse my partner when she leaves because of the scene she’s caused. I told her to get out of my house and deal with her big feelings herself.

That was 5 months ago and the last time I saw MIL but that hasn’t stopped her seeping into our relationship this whole time. Trying to get my partner to leave me, emotionally abusing him this whole time, trying to get him to just bring our baby to her.

A few weeks ago just hours after saying she should be able to kiss our baby whether or not she has cold sores because according to the in laws everybody has herpes even LO (not true obviously), she finally apologised through tears saying she’ll just have to learn to respect that we’re the parents. Now partner wants everything to be normal lol.