After weeks of medical emergencies, sometimes the only thing you want for the holidays is to stay home and breathe.

Imagine your newborn spent nearly a month in the NICU, and Christmas showed up just days after you finally brought them home, before you’d even had a chance to catch your breath. Would you be ready to celebrate the holidays? Or would you just want to rest?

In the following story, a new mother finds herself in this predicament, and her MIL is not making it easy. Here’s the story.

AITA For Wanting A Quiet Christmas After Baby Spends Nearly A Month In The NICU

I recently gave birth at the end of November. The original plan was to visit my in-laws for Christmas Eve, Christmas, and Boxing Day. It would’ve given us a month to have our baby home and get into a routine.

However, life threw us a curveball, and she was admitted to the NICU, where she remained for nearly a month. She has now been home for 3 full days.

I also had some trouble myself as I suffered a postpartum hemorrhage at home 2 weeks ago. My baby still has medicine and needs blood sugar monitored. It has been a bumpy and stressful journey.

Her MIL is hard to handle.

Now Christmas is soon & we’ve decided to stay home. The in-laws are more than welcome to come for short visits. I was even open to a short Christmas Day visit, but we would not be leaving the comfort of our house.

As a result, my MIL is very upset. She doesn’t even want to come down to visit. She especially didn’t want to come down to visit us when she learnt that another family member was going to visit around the same time.

My MIL is very much one who’s like, “I’ll hold the baby so you can get stuff done.” But this other family member baked and cooked for us, did laundry, and cleaned up my blood after I hemorrhaged at home.

The worst part is that her wife won’t help.

My wife mentioned she knew this would happen and that her mom or I would be upset, that it’s a no-win situation. My wife is quite passive/neutral in the matter. She hasn’t “taken sides,” so to speak.

I’ve compromised a lot in this situation. I let her visit when we were home for less than a day (I wanted at least a couple of days).

I’m offering more visits around the holidays. I’ve agreed to come down on Jan 1st for a visit. I don’t know what else to do.

AITA?

Yikes! It sounds like she’s been through more than enough.

Let’s see what the folks over at Reddit think she should do.

This reader would keep people away from the baby.

Here are some strict orders for her.

According to this comment, her wife needs to do better.

Yet another person who thinks the wife should do more.

She should stop worrying about this! Her MIL needs to let it go and get over herself.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.