"AITA for snapping at my stepmom when she wouldn’t stop asking to be in the delivery room with me?"

I’ve (29f) always had a good relationship with my stepmom (54f) who I’ll call Sophia. When I was 7 & my brother was 5, we lost our mom pretty traumatically. My dad met Sophia a few years & lots of family therapy after that. I was 10/11 when he introduced her as a friend & it took 2.5 years before they got married.

Sophia has always been great; she never tried to replace our mom, she left all of our family photos up, was never offended we didn’t ask her to come to the cemetery (but came when we did ask). She did my hair for high school dances, watched romcoms with us after breakups, taught my brother to drive, & cried happy tears at both our weddings.

She treats my husband like her own son. She’s truly a great person. Which is probably why I feel like such an AH in this situation. I’m 6.5mo along with my & DH [dear husband]’s first child. Between the hormones & this new chapter of my life, I have been missing my mom extra fiercely these past months, wishing that she was here with me to meet her grandbaby.

I’ve been visiting her grave a lot just to sit and talk, basically cry about how much I wish she was still here. (I know it’s been 21 years but her absence is like a physical ache some days.) It started a few weeks ago when my dad warned me Sophia had been remarking about being in delivery with me.

The next time I saw her, she asked & I gently told her only DH will be in the room with me. Since the first no, she’s taken it as an invitation to change my mind. Every time she brings it up, I shut her down gently with a “I appreciate the offer but I still only want DH in the room, we’ll let family know when we’re ready for visitors.”

Then last weekend a couple of my cousins threw a casual coed backyard baby shower that included both my & DH’s fams. I overheard Sophia chatting with another of my cousins who’s pregnant & Sophia was trying to get her to convince me to have Sophia in the room; my cousin was ignoring her mostly but then I heard Sophia said “a girl needs her mom with her for that.”

I was probably hormonal/tired but I was so upset, I finally interrupted & just said, “yes a girl does need her mother, too bad mine died in front of me & my bonus mom can’t seem to take no for an answer.” I didn’t say it loudly enough for anyone but us to hear, but I was rather harsh & then I went to hide inside saying I needed to lie down.

My dad said he understands my side & supports me no matter what, but that I really hurt Sophia’s feelings by what I said & I should at least apologize for that. I do want to apologize but also believe I deserve an apology for not being listened to. It was also the first time I ever really felt like Sophia was trying to replace my mom & I just snapped a little. Idk I feel horrible so maybe I already know the answer but AITA?

What do you think? AITA? This is what top commenters had to say:

[deleted] said:

NTA. You dished out a verbal crowbar to the face but i do not blame you as all the polite rejections were ignored. Sometimes i wonder if the men who take "No" for "try harder" are raised by people like Sophia.

Beck2010 said:

Sophia’s feelings wouldn’t be hurt if she had simply listened to you and accepted that only you and your husband will be in the delivery room. Instead, she keeps asking and is now trying to get others to intervene on her behalf. It sounds as if you do love her and she has been very good to you over the years. But that does not exclude or support her insistence to be in the delivery room.

You need to have a private chat: first with your father and then with your stepmother. Tell your dad that you love and appreciate all Sophia has done, but her persistence in asking is causing you (and the baby) stress. Tell him that her asking your cousin to intervene was out of line and it needs to stop now. Then have the same conversation with Sophia.

And tell them both, in no uncertain terms, that giving birth is NOT a spectator sport and you’re tired of being asked when the question has been answered. You may want to go as far as telling them that each time the question is asked you will delay their meeting the baby by an unspecified or specified period of time. NTA.

shinylittlethings said:

NTA because you’re allowed to have/not have anyone in the delivery room that you want to and your stepmom needs to let it go. It does sound like she’s been wonderful to you though, and you owe her an apology for that comment. Way harsh.

And OP responded:

Yeah, it was pretty harsh and I definitely didn’t mean to be because she really is wonderful; my brother asked her to share the mother son dance with him at his wedding in 2019 and they put a slideshow together that played during the dance that were all the photos we had of my mom and brother together before she died.

And when my husband’s suit pants ripped 45 min before our wedding ceremony Sophia patched them up so well and quickly that I didn’t even know about it until the next day. Sophia is not a bad person at all and I know she is coming from a good place.

I will definitely apologize for what I said and how I said it, maybe she can tell me why it’s SO important to her that she’s stomping all over my boundaries for the first time in our relationship. Thank you for taking time to respond, I appreciate it truly.

About a month later, she shared this big update:

Thank you to everyone who commented on my last post - I read through every single one even if I didn’t get to respond. I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to come back with an update but… we became a family of 3 a bit earlier than expected!

I won’t go into boring detail but after rushing to the ER w/ my husband and my medical team being rockstars doing everything they could - our little girl made her big debut a little over a week ago. She’ll have an extended stay in the NICU but doing as well as anyone can expect for being 12wks early!

Onto the update I was asked for: I took the advice given and invited Sophia to have lunch with me via a silly card (w/ a sincerely written note inside) that I left for her at their house, which was a throwback to when I was in HS and we’d hide notes for each other.

We met at one of our favorite brunch spots so we could work things all out - I won’t recount it all verbatim, but to all who said she was was obviously going to turn into a boundary-stomping nightmare - thankfully, you were wrong.

As one commenter suggested, I jumped the gun after only getting the gist of the convo cousin and Sophia were having - and after talking w/ cousin as well, I can confidently say Sophia wasn’t attempting to convince her/me of anything.

I had interrupted her when she was trying to express to cousin that she was too scared to ever give birth and couldn’t have imagined doing it without her mom, that (in her opinion) a girl needs her mom during her first pregnancy and she only wanted to make sure I had all of the support I needed since my mom wasn’t here. (That’s when I interrupted so rudely..)

After some more convo, lots of laughing and more than a few tears, it was like it had never happened at all and she even got to feel Lil Bit kick after dessert (I miss those kicks). Regardless, it all ended up being for naught because Sophia DID end up being my first call after I was admitted and hubs was just as uselessly terrified as I was.

She was calm, collected, didn’t overstep or hover, and when it was time for her to leave the room she had very heartfelt words that I’ll likely never forget and which convinced me that at least a tiny bit of my mom’s love/soul/spirit/energy is living inside Sophia.

Anyways, that’s basically it - sorry it wasn’t more dramatic or juicy but Sophia is truly a gem of a person. pregnancy hormones apparently turn me into a raging monster.

Our sweet girl was given a beautiful name to honor all 3 of her grandmothers - middle name is a derivative of my lovely MIL’s and first name is a beautiful mashup of my mom’s and Sophia’s (real) names. I’m beyond blessed to have such loving, understanding and supportive people in my life.