Navigating postpartum depression with a newborn is challenging enough without unexpected visitors.

For this mom, a surprise visit from her entire family turned into a test of boundaries when her youngest brother insisted on holding her 3-week-old daughter, despite her hesitation.

Read on for the story.

AITA for not letting my brother hold my newborn?

For some context my husband Peter (33 m) and I (31 f) have been married for five years. He is from Ukraine while I am Canadian, but we both currently live in Latvia.

We have two kids together, Buck (4 m) and our newborn daughter Lina (3 weeks f). Since I have given birth to Lina I have had severe postpartum depression.

When I had Buck it was the same, but I thought it would get easier since this is my second birth.

It never gets easier, does it?

A few days ago my family showed up on my doorstep. There were my three brothers, my mom, my dad, and my auntie. I was very surprised since I live in Latvia and they live all the way in Canada.

I invited them in and asked why they were here. They told me that they planned this trip as soon as they found out what day my due date was. They said that they knew how bad the last pregnancy was (it was a high risk c-section) so they wanted to visit and help me to settle in with my new baby.

Oh boy.

I asked to talk to my mother in another room. I told her how I was going through some pretty bad postpartum and I didn’t know if I was ready for people over.

She apologized for just showing up, and told me that she also thought that my postpartum wouldn’t be as bad this time. I found out that their trip was only two nights long. I thought that I could do it, so I told her that everything was fine.

We went back into the room with the rest of my family. I explained that I was having very bad postpartum. I said how I would try my best to let them be with the baby but I couldn’t make any promises.

Seems fair enough.

Soon Peter got home from work with Buck. Lina started crying so I went to the nursery to bring her downstairs with me.

People instantly were all over me and Lina, trying to get a look at her. I was very overwhelmed but Peter helped keep everyone a few feet away from me.

Everyone wanted to hold her, but I told them that after dinner I might let them. I made up a lie saying that Lina doesn’t really like new people.

So overwhelming.

We ate take out for dinner and I found out that my family were going to a hotel to sleep. The rest of the night went smoothly along with most of the next day. I even let my mom and auntie hold Lina.

Things started to get bad when my youngest brother asked to hold her but I told him that I didn’t feel comfortable with that. He then started to get angry, calling me over protective and rude. He said how he just wanted to hold his first niece.

My two other brothers have kids too, but they only have boys. I told him that saying that wouldn’t make me any more comfortable, and if he wanted to hold her then he would either have to wait until I was ready or until the next time that they visited.

Things are about to go haywire.

The room got tense as my brother and I stared at each other. He ended up leaving with most of my family. Only my mom and auntie stayed behind.

This all happened two days ago. Everybody left my house yesterday. Now my family is split. One side says that I shouldn’t have been so harsh while the other agrees with me. So AITA?

Family reunions are supposed to be joyous, but add in unexpected guests, a new baby, and postpartum depression, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

So who’s in the wrong?

This person says OP is a jerk.

This person says it’s her call, but it was a bad one.

And this person has a better suggestion of what she could’ve done.

One thing’s for sure, family surprises should come with a disclaimer: handle with care!

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.