'AITA for being upset and leaving when my SIL stole my pregnancy announcement?' UPDATED 4X (2024)

My nephew was very excited and put on the shirt. He put his sweater on over it and I told him he could take the sweater off whenever he wanted at dinner. In the middle of dinner he took off the sweater and waited for someone to notice. Soon my sister jumped up and excitedly screamed when she saw the shirt.

They all then immediately assumed it was my sister in law. I wasn’t hurt my them assuming this and I kind of expected it because she is married. I was hurt because my sister in law didn’t try to correct them. She just went along with it and began to rub her flat belly while laughing. I must have looked completely hurt because my mother yelled at me to stop being rude and to congratulate them.

I tried to explain that I was the one who gave my nephew the shirt. They all didn’t even hear me and just continued to fawn over my sister in law. My brother stood frozen in shock just asking his wife if she was serious.

I got up and went home. I received multiple texts at this point from them telling me what an AH I am for making this about me. They said things like it wasn’t my sister in laws fault that I was jealous. I didn’t reply to anything and just cried myself to sleep.

This morning my sister in law must have finally let it slip that she is not pregnant. They have now all called me to apologize saying that they just got caught up in the moment. They said I shouldn’t have left the dinner and that it’s my fault I wasn’t clear enough that I was the one who is pregnant. My mom said I could have a redo dinner so I can get it right and they will all act surprised.

My sister in law sent me a message that said that the way I chose to announce was how she wanted to do it if she ever got pregnant. She said that since she is not ever having a child that she just wanted to experience what the moment would be like. She also said I can have my chance at the redo dinner.

I told them no and that I will not be doing a redo. Every single person has now told me I am being selfish and an AH because I won’t let them make it right. To me there’s no fixing this. I will eventually forgive them but I don’t want to do a second announcement so they feel better. AITA?

Commenters overwhelmingly agreed she's NTA. Here are some top comments:

Doggles08 said:

Wow. Definitely NTA but your SIL sure is! Jesus.

[deleted] said:

This is not worth the hurt and distress. Yes it sucks but if you can- be the bigger person. Go all out and get everyone shirts ( just buy cheap ones and use a sharpie)- hand them out at the new dinner. It’s not worth a lifelong rift.

xen0m0rpheus said:

NTA. Screw them all.

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mamabear727 said:

NTA. How would a redo even work.... they’ll all pretend they don’t know you’re pregnant, give a shirt to your nephew and pretend that the last dinner never happened? Also, your sister in law sucks

And mamabear727 said:

NTA. How would a redo even work.... they’ll all pretend they don’t know you’re pregnant, give a shirt to your nephew and pretend that the last dinner never happened? Also, your sister in law sucks

About a week later, she shared this update:

This is an update to my previous AITA post about my sister in law stealing my pregnancy announcement. I’ve had many people messaging me asking for an update so I thought I’d posting one here seemed like a fitting place. It has been four months since my last post and it has been a wild ride. I am now almost seven months pregnant and expecting a baby girl.

After everything happened I tried going low contact with my family. I didn’t want to deal with their drama and chose to instead focus on my pregnancy. That didn’t last long because my brother showed up at my door a few days after the dinner with his suitcase. He needed some time to work things out and I was happy to give him a place to stay while he did.

My sister in law and other family members began calling both of us nonstop during this time. They were begging my brother to talk to his wife. Eventually she convinced him that it was all a joke that just went horribly wrong. I knew this was total bullsh*t and that she was lying.

My brother seemed so lost and broken without her though. He went back home after staying with me for only a short time. Before he left I talked to him everything and told him all my concerns. He said that he loves his wife and this was all just a misunderstanding.

He told me I was cruel for holding a joke gone wrong against her and that we both need to get over it. I couldn’t force him to listen to reason so I just let him go.

After he left I went back on low contact with most of my family and have been much happier since. I realized after reading the comments on my previous post exactly how toxic my family is. I decided to focus on the people in my life that were truly there to support me and my baby. My parents keep trying to contact me but it has become less frequent lately.

Yesterday I received news that many of you had predicted. My sister in law is now pregnant. I found out when I received a invitation to her upcoming gender reveal zoom party in my email. I haven’t responded yet and I haven’t heard any news from any family other than the invitation. I’m torn between laughing hysterically and crying for my brother. I truly don’t know what to think.

And then a few weeks later, she shared this second update:

My brother and SILs gender reveal zoom party took place today. For the last few weeks I had been debating on if I should attend or not. I had been doing well with being no contact with most of my family but I couldn’t seem to let go of the feeling that I was being selfish and not supportive of my brother.

So I decided to reach out and talk. I think I decided this mainly out of curiosity but also loneliness. It’s hard being pregnant, alone and stuck in lockdown.

I reached out to them online. My brother and his wife are definitely pregnant. They started to try shortly after he returned home from staying with me. My SIL told me that my brother changed his mind about having children after a long talk they had about their future. I personally think there is more to this story but I don’t have all the details on this yet.

They did tell me that they were sorry about what happened with my pregnancy announcement. My brother asked me if we would all just move forward and if I would come to their gender reveal. I agreed and decided to let it go.

I also started to speak with my parents again. My parents did not apologize for their part in what happened at my pregnancy announcement. They didn’t even really acknowledge that anything had happened at all between us at all. They don’t ask me much about my pregnancy or my baby.

They have only been interested enough to ask two questions. They asked what my child’s last name will be since I’m a single mother and what the gender is. I told them I will not be sharing the gender of my baby until the birth.

Today was the gender reveal zoom party. We were instructed to wear blue or pink depending on what we thought the gender would be. I chose to wear pink since the only dress I own that fits me right now happens to be pink.

As all the attendees logged onto the zoom call everything seemed to be going rather well. My parents were in head to toe blue and said it was because they are excited that my brother is finally “carrying on the family name”. My SIL and brother were dressed opposite in all pink. Everyone seemed happy and ready to celebrate.

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My sister in law had chosen to pop a large balloon filled with confetti that will reveal the gender. She popped the ballon and out came a cloud of blue confetti. My parents began to cry and cheer at the announcement. My brother and everyone else was smiling and clapping. My SIL on the other hand was not.

The next few moments were filled with all of the guests say their congratulations. My SIL stayed perfectly silent throughout all of it. She seemed somewhat emotionless until I piped up to say my congratulations. I had said to them both “congratulations on your little boy. His cousin can’t wait to meet him”.

My SIL went insane. She began screaming that I was trying to steal the spot light away from her by mentioning my baby. She said that I was being jealous and petty over my birth announcement disaster. She than asked me “what are you f***ing having anyway?”.

She demanded to know the gender of my baby and began asking if it’s a girl. She than said that I must be having a girl since I’m wearing a pink dress. My parents and other family members did little to stop my SILs melt down.

I chose not to fight with her or to try to reason with her. I just exited the call and let it go. I don’t know what my SILs problem is or why she is behaving this way. I don’t care and I’m not going to let things like this bother me anymore. It was a bad idea to break no contact.

A month later, she shared this third update:

I have posted on here a few times before. I apologize for this rant but I just need to get it off my chest. I wish I could say that things have calmed down since my last post. Unfortunately my sister in laws drama just seems to progressively get worse.

My sister in law found out that I am expecting a girl about two weeks ago. She found the gender by logging into my amazon account without my permission and looked through my private lists. I had given my brother the login information for my prime account so that he could watch a show he wanted to see.

I had not expected her to login to the main account and view my private wish lists/ past orders. I was extremely hurt and devastated that she went this far. She took another special moment from me because she went ahead and told the rest of my family the gender.

She seems proud of herself for doing this and thinks she is justified because I was “keeping secrets”. She actually thinks that this is a funny story and blames pregnancy brain for any of her poor behaviour.

I finally snapped and told her what she did was appalling and deeply troubling. I told her that she has ruined every major moment in my pregnancy and that I cannot believe that she is proud of it. I told her she should be ashamed of herself and that I am embarrassed for her. I told that at this point I wont be allowing my daughter calling her Aunt because she doesn’t deserve it.

She had a meltdown after this and accused me of trying to get her to miscarry (she says this kind of thing a lot). My brother and other family members tried to jump in to defender her but I made it clear that I will remove them from my life as well if they continue to defend her. They have since shut their mouths and begun to agree with me.

My SIL gave me a half hearted apology and said they we need to make up for the sake of the kids. I do want to be a part of my new baby nephews life so I do feel a bit stuck in this situation. I agreed to just let it go and try to move on. I made it clear to her and everyone else that they are on very thin ice.

Since everyone now knows now that I am having a girl, I have refused to tell anyone the name that I intend to give my daughter. I want to at least keep that part for me to announce when I have my child. I haven’t even really written it down because I fear someone will find out.

My SIL has asked me many times but I just tell her that I haven’t decided yet. This last week she started sending me girls names that she is calling dibs on. I reminded her that she is having a boy but she seems to be in denial about the fact. She likes to say that we won’t really know the genders for certain until the babies are born.

Most of the names are ones I have no interest in as we have very different styles. She sends me about 4-5 names off her list each day. I generally just ignore her but yesterday she sent the name that I will be naming my daughter. The name is my late great grandmothers name and I have wanted to use the name since I was a teenager.

I won’t be changing my mind about naming my daughter this name. I will be announcing it once she is born. I don’t care of this starts a war as this is the hill that I am willing to die on. I know this is just going to cause an issue when I share her name. At least I have time to prepare for her meltdown this time. I want to be a part of my brother and nephews lives but I’m starting to see that it’s just not worth it.

A few months later, she shared this final update:

My little girl is finally here and doing very well. She is so beautiful and is more amazing than anything that I could have ever imagined. She is a handful already but I am loving every second of it.

You will all be happy to know that I did not allow my SIL to bully me into picking another name. My daughter is named after my great grandmother and it fits her perfectly.

I announced my daughters birth and her name in a message to my family while I was in the hospital. My SIL wasn’t happy about my name choice. She was even angrier when she heard the nickname I chose for my daughter. It’s a shortened version of her name that was also listed on SILs “dibs” list.

She posted on social media about my daughter’s birth and in the announcement she referred to my baby by a different name. She says that it’s her own special nickname for my daughter. Think something like if her name was Grace she decided to nickname her something like Gilly.

It’s very weird and doesn’t even resemble my child’s name at all. I told her immediately to stop and to call my daughter by her proper name or the nickname that I chose. I knew she was only doing it to bother me and that getting upset would just encourage her more. She stopped for a short time but never removed her social media post.

I had my family over to meet the baby a week after I came home from the hospital. That’s when SIL started up with her games again. She purchased a bear for my daughter with “Gilly” embroidered across it.

My family members laughed and told me to stop being so controlling. They told me to get over it and that SILs nickname is cute. They too started to use the “Gilly” name. I felt like I couldn’t even name my own baby and they thought I should just be okay with it.

I realized then that none of them were ever going to change how they treat me. I saw that what I was allowing to happen was just as bad as what they were doing. I was allowing myself to be belittled, hurt and used time and time again. The family members who did nothing are just as bad in my opinion because they’ve never even tried to defended me.

I’ve put up with a lot from my family in the past. I have had to get over so many past issue and pain because I pushed past it in the name of family. Now this was all happening again but this time it was in front of my daughter. What if they started treating my daughter the same way when she is older.

I threw the bear in the garbage in front of them and told them all to leave my house. They are all just as bad as SIL in my opinion. I couldn’t bring myself to yell or scream but I stood firm. I removed my daughter from my mothers arms and showed them all the door. There was a lot of name calling but I stood my ground.

I’m done. I haven’t spoken to them since. They haven’t even tried to contact me. I intend to write a letter or something to them to say everything I feel. I feel like I need that closure. I intend to go no contact with all of them from now on.

I have spoken to my boss and there’s an opportunity for me to move out east to work in a new branch of the company. I intend to accept the new role and move during my mat leave. My plans are not final yet but I believe that a fresh start in a new place could be just the thing I need. I need to do what is best for myself and my daughter.

Regardless of family or anything, I am extremely happy right now. My daughter is the greatest little baby imaginable. I am so overjoyed to be her mother.

Thank you to everyone for all the help and support I received on here. I am extremely grateful for all the advise and kindness that I received but I hope that I never have the need to post on here in the future. Thank you everyone and I wish you all the best!