By many accounts, experiencing infertility when you really want to have a biological baby is extremely challenging, and that's something that a lot of people are very sensitive to. However, there is a difference between being sensitive to someone's infertility experience and completely changing your own life to accommodate it, and one woman recently shared to Reddit that it seems like her neighbor expects her to do the latter.
The woman wrote that her neighbors moved in next door when she was two months pregnant. At first, everything was fine.
The neighbors weren't close, but they would say hi.
"My husband (29M) and I (28F) have been living here for 5y, ever since we married," the woman began. "Our previous neighbours were an adorable couple in their 60’s-70’s, we had a fairly good relationship and was kinda sad when they left. This year I gave birth to my son (6mo). When my new neighbours (lets call them Paul and Anna) moved in I was 2 months pregnant. We weren't friends but we would say hi to each other here and there."
The woman says her sunbathing became a problem.
She explained that she has a sunbathing habit that began in her childhood, and that is relevant to the story:
"I sunbathe everyday, it's something I have been doing since childhood. I was a very anemic kid and my mom made me do it to help with my anemia. I don’t even know if it works, but it is a habit that helps me start my day. This was not a problem until my pregnancy became apparent."
The way their yards are set up is part of the problem, too.
"The left side of the yard has two kinds of fences, one low (1,5m) that used to have a hedge on the neighbour side (that they cut off) and one taller (2m) in the rest of the backyard," she explained. "It's hard to see it from the ground, but they still can see our whole yard and part of our main floor from they second floor."
The sunbathing became a problem as her pregnancy progressed.
"When I was 5 months pregnant Paul told my husband that my sun bathing was making them uncomfortable," the woman said. "I sunbathe in shorts and tank tops, nothing out of the ordinary, I just ignored them and kept my routine. The following month he did it again. Until my 8th month, I was back from a walk with my husband, and Anna was in the front of the house, once she saw me she stormed inside and slammed the door. The following day Paul came to our house and told us that they have fertility problems and seeing me pregnant was making her heavily uncomfortable, and I was a insensitive [expletive]."
Now her neighbor seems upset that the baby has been born.
Things have gone downhill from there; as the mom explained, her son has been born and she keeps him close to her while working from home:
"Currently I am working from home and the baby is close to me in a playpen in the living room, and we have another in the backyard on the terrace. So I can have him close when gardening or just playing with him.
"Well I made his wife uncomfortable again yesterday. I was in the living room playing with the baby when he knocked, he asked me to move from the living room because his wife could see me from their balcony. I told him to tell her to look in the other direction and leave me alone."
The neighbors even asked her to stop breastfeeding her baby in her own yard.
"Today, my husband and I were grilling some meat in the backyard," the woman wrote. "The baby was hungry so I started to breastfeed. When I looked at their house Ana was on the balcony, she went in and a few minutes later Paul was at our door again. I gave my son to my husband and I answered the door. Paul went off on me for breastfeeding in public (again my fenced yard) and being inconsiderate."
The woman isn't backing down.
The woman handled the situation.
"When he finished I told him to leave us alone, don't knock on my door again, and if his wife is so upset over seeing a baby she needs therapy and not him harassing my family. And I will do everything I want in my own home. At the time I felt justified but I was venting with my mom and she told me I was wrong, and I couldn't understand because I never suffered from infertility and I need to apologize."
But now she's wondering: Does she owe anyone an apology?
People say this is not her problem.
From the jump, plenty of people are making the same point: The woman isn't going to stop being a mom, so the neighbor needs to deal with it. One commenter noted, "It sucks for them but are you really gonna stop being a mom at certain view points cause they can’t have a baby … she needs to stop looking at your home that’s it and that’s all."
The neighbors are also harassing the woman and her family.
The behavior of the neighbors is even a little dangerous. "This is harassment," a commenter said. "And extreme entitlement. 'Stop doing things with your kid in your own home because my wife is uncomfortable.'"
In the end, the family of three is just living at their home.
"Does this woman never go in public?" a commenter posed. "Does she see other women with children and scream at them for daring to have them around her in public places? This is your home. Her problems are not yours. You are not dangling a kid in front of her and taunting her. Just living life."
The woman updated to say they're considering legal action.
Now the woman and her husband are considering calling the police and filing a restraining order: "we called our lawyer, he told us to get a few footages, because until now we only have our word and our others neighbors testimony. And if he show up again to record it and call the cops, if he came to my house 5 times to call the cops each time. But still will be hard to get one."
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