Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) Support Group
Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is any sudden and unexplained death of an apparently healthy infant aged one month to one year. SIDS is responsible for roughly 50 deaths per 100,000 births in the US.
I swear my in-laws come from a different planet. They lack compassion, are self centered and ignorant. Okay, that may be a little harsh but thats how I feel these days. Before I ask for advice I'm gonna give a quick history that brought us to this. When Elijah was born not one person from my husbands side came to the hospital to visit our son who was in the NICU for almost three weeks.His dad and brother did come to the house when Elijah was two months old to meet him. His brother was at our house every weekend there after being a great uncle. His mother and sister didnt meet Elijah until thanksgiving and only that one time. His other sister and brother didnt ever meet him and never even came to his funeral. After the funeral everyone on my in-laws side has dropped off the face of the planet. Justins dad does call here and there to see if everything is okay which is great. Now his sister is getting married on june 4th and EVERYONE is going to be there.
Justin told his sister he cant make it because he has to work. In all reality he could get off work if he wanted to but he doesnt want to. He is very upset that everyone is going to be at the wedding but couldnt make it to our sons funeral. He finally opened up to his sister and told her he was hurt and disappointed and didnt feel like celebrating. It has only been 3 months since Elijah passed after all. His sister responded by saying he needs to stop using Elijahs death as an excuse! WTF.... That made me made even hearing that. He was finally reaching out and expressing his feelings and she goes and stomps on him and makes such horrible comments. She went on to say she was there for him the day of the funeral so he needs to be there for her for the wedding. Not understanding the intensity of emotions that are involved here. She went on to compare her giving up her twins (which she still sees to this day) to being the same as us losing our son. I feel she is so ignorant and isnt showing any compassion for him. I dont know what to do. I don't know if I should try talking to her and explaining that justin is very hurt, not only over the loss of Elijah but over the way the family is acting. Or should I just let it be? I hate seeing him hurt more by his own family whenhe is finally starting to open up about his feelings. Any advice would be great.
Justin told his sister he cant make it because he has to work. In all reality he could get off work if he wanted to but he doesnt want to. He is very upset that everyone is going to be at the wedding but couldnt make it to our sons funeral. He finally opened up to his sister and told her he was hurt and disappointed and didnt feel like celebrating. It has only been 3 months since Elijah passed after all. His sister responded by saying he needs to stop using Elijahs death as an excuse! WTF.... That made me made even hearing that. He was finally reaching out and expressing his feelings and she goes and stomps on him and makes such horrible comments. She went on to say she was there for him the day of the funeral so he needs to be there for her for the wedding. Not understanding the intensity of emotions that are involved here. She went on to compare her giving up her twins (which she still sees to this day) to being the same as us losing our son. I feel she is so ignorant and isnt showing any compassion for him. I dont know what to do. I don't know if I should try talking to her and explaining that justin is very hurt, not only over the loss of Elijah but over the way the family is acting. Or should I just let it be? I hate seeing him hurt more by his own family whenhe is finally starting to open up about his feelings. Any advice would be great.
After Kamden's funeral, I have made a memorial website for him. I have started a donation jar for all my businesses to give to the SIDS Network and Research and to also give to the funeral home who did Kamden's funeral because they are a non-profit organization who paid for all of it. I decided to do this on behalf of other mother's in my situation who couldn't afford the funeral.
I also posted the link to the memorial site on Daniel's facebook for his family and friends who are not on mine to see it. I have also tagged Daniel in pictures on facebook of our kids.
So - for the dramatic part - Daniel's 18 year old neice decided to tell me that I was "throwing my son's death and funeral around" and "it was time to pick myself up off the ground and move on" and "life goes on, he was just a baby" --- REALLY? - "JUST a baby" ? Kamden was my baby. And nobody's throwing anything around. And if she could just walk a mile in my shoes and know the pain and hurt that I feel everyday, then maybe she wouldn't be saying that.
And Daniel's new bride has also decided to call my kids her stepkids, even my son, who she had decided that didnt need to see his father? Uh uh. And then she also had the nerve to tell me that if I would have let Daniel take our newborn baby 4 hours away to his hometown that none of this would have ever happened? Like I did something to my son? No. Ugh! I hate his family. I hate this new bride. I don't like any of them. I find it to be completely immature and childish for people to talk like they do.
And now that Daniel is actually trying to vent to his family, nobody wants to listen to him. He has called me from Iraq crying and telling me that everybody won't listen to him and they tell him it's been this long and if it was to ever have hit him it should have hit him when it first happened. Like, really? Why would somebody say that? That is completely retarded. The man was in shock!
What I have found to help with this type of situation is basically just ignoring them. Don't answer the phone. Don't bother with them. I know it may seem harsh, but either they will stop talking the way they way they do, or they will come around on their own and apologize. The only bad part is that they also may not come around.
I tried talking to his family and telling them that Daniel really needs somebody and he was in shock and his feelings are hitting him more when he has nobody around cause he is back in Iraq now, and he really needs somebody. They just turn their shoulders and thats when I just finally gave up with his family. I told him I'm here for him and that he can get on this website..
But good luck I do apologize for your loss and the way his family is acting.
My in-laws live in England so they never met Toby. We invited them over after the birth but rather than come here they decided to go on a cruise instead. (TO my mother-in-law's credit, she wanted to come here instead.)
When Toby died, my mother-in-law was in a Hospice. She had cancer and wasn't expected to live much longer. My father-in-law flew over for the funeral but was completely useless to us. He mostly sat around and told us how we were doing everything wrong. He changed his plane ticket and flew back home 3 days early.
A week later, my mother-in-law died. We were still grieving for Toby and my husband was an emotional wreck. He bought a plane ticket to go home to his mom's funeral but his father-in-law and sister told him that he couldn't bring me nor our other son because it was just for "family." (Even though his 5 year old nephew was going to be there.) This was the last straw. He didn't want to leave us and literally couldn't get on the plane. He broke down in a huge panic attack when our son asked if he was "leaving us too." So he stayed here and we did a memorial service to his mom.
That's when our trouble started. Over the course of the next few weeks we got a bombardment of hateful texts, emails, and phone calls from his dad and other family members. One particuarly bad one to me read, "You killed your son, congratulations." His dad sent him a bill for $15,000 for not living up to be the man that he wanted him to be. My husband attempted suicide and I started going to sleep, praying that I wouldn't wake up the next morning. All kinds of things were said and done.
In the end, there was nothing we could do. Instead of focusing on how they SHOULD be acting we had to start focusing on us. We couldn't change how they acted, but we could change how we reacted. If you'd like, you can read one of my journal entries entitled "Dear Family Member."
My friends say that one day his family will change. But you know what?I don't care if they do. They are the ones losing out on getting to know Sam and the child that I am pregnant with. The only thing we've lost out on is the idea of something that never existed to start with.
There are a LOT of people in this world that are simply not comfortable with emotions and what to do with their own or others' when thing go wrong. It's kinda like watching someone who isn't comfortable with a computer looking at a blue screen of death .. "No disk found. Insert disk and press any key." might as well be written in swahili. It's just something they would much rather ignore and pretend they didn't need or they'll hit it or try something completely unrelated to the obvious (to the rest of us) problem. The people y'all are talking about are just like that with emotions. They just don't understand them. They're normally not malicious people and actually mean well in their avoidance .. they don't know what to do so doing nothing is not only simpler but seems to be the least possibly offensive.
Another possibility is that they may see children and child-rearing as very private 'internal' matters where weddings are public and community affairs. A simple difference in beliefs and culture can cause HUGE offenses.
Now, I'm not saying any of you are wrong in your anger toward these loved ones at all. My personal method of dealing with them is to tell them to piss off and go figure out how to be a decent f'ing human being then they can come back into my life. However .. it is sometimes worth noting why some people do what they do and that, perhaps, the offense may come from ourselves and, not necessarily, from them.
As for explaining to hubby's sister, I wouldn't bother. The way I see it you and hubby have 2 options.
1)Go to the wedding, smile and wave (as the penguinms say in Madagascar) thereby investing in a future that MIGHT include them. Be fake and get out of there as fast as you can.
2)Don't go and forget about them for a while. They will NEVER understand, don't waste your energy. Maybe one day in the future you will be able to have them in your life though they don't get it. One day when much time has passed and you are better equipped for this world.
Love to you and good luck sorting this. At least it sounds like you and hubby are one the same page.
But I agree...I'm taking care of my family. Can't change how others are going to act but can change how I will react. I'm lucky in that my in-laws live on the other side of the ocean so dealing with them on a daily basis is not required. I am sad that my son doesn't know that side of the family and that they have no interest in him, but hopefully my side has made up for it. On down the line if he chooses to get to know them and is curious then I will support that, but in the meantime neither my husband nor myself are making any efforts on our part. We post pictures, we send cards, and we send updates via texts as far as being pregnant, due date, gender, etc. Other than that, we limit our communication. It's still too raw. (And still ongoing. Just the other day my husband got a text from his dad saying that it didn't matter that he got a college education because he still couldn't take care of his family properly...Oh, and my husband is a college professor so I think he's doing okay.)
Hugs to you.