My husband and I had already come to terms with the thought that we wouldn’t have children. Wed been married for a decade when, quite unexpectedly, I found out I was expecting.
Looking back, I still cant forget how my mother-in-law would make fun of me in front of my own relatives. Shed smirk, I suppose I wont get any grandchildren from my son, thanks to his barren wife. She already had a granddaughter, Charlotte, my husbands older brothers child. I hated hearing such things but there was little I could do, especially since she said it more than once.
I love my husband dearly, and he loves me back just as much. Hes been my rock through it all. All those appointments with specialists and the endless tears I shed into my pillowour perseverance was finally rewarded: Im pregnant!
Charlotte, my niece, had a daughter of her own last year, and just four months ago, I gave birth to a little boy. Even though all the doctors assured us there was nothing wrong with either of us, my husband and I still cant believe our luck. It truly feels as though fate has given us this miracle. Yet, my mother-in-laws behaviour since the birth of her great-granddaughter and my son has taken a turn I never saw coming.
My husbandthe very child she waited for all these yearssuddenly doesnt matter to her; nor does our son. But her great-granddaughter is the apple of her eye.
Whenever the family gathers, all conversation is about the great-granddaughter: how tall she is, her first words, how many teeth shes gotten… My own boy, it seems, barely registers. As if he has somehow failed to meet her expectations, and shes wanted nothing to do with him from the first day.
I cant make sense of my mother-in-laws attitude. She spent ten years criticising and humiliating me for not measuring up to her family standards (in her mind, all the women in their family fall pregnant as soon as they blink), and now that the impossible has happened, she wont even hold her own sons child. Meanwhile, she showers her great-granddaughter with expensive dresses, toys, and gold banglesall things my son receives in measure. Im left baffled by her favouritism, if not a little heartbroken.
