While staying at the hospital, Chloe found out that her mother-in-law had moved in with them.
The new grandmother promptly took over from the young parents.
Back home, Chloe noticed that the baby bathtub she purchased and the pack of diapers had been shoved onto the balcony.
“Well, it’s great you’re having a boy. I’ve always wanted a son named Bertie! Why don’t you name my grandson that?” Chloe’s mother-in-law chattered happily over the phone.
“Jane, we’ve already chosen a name for him. He’ll be Henry. Henry Thomas sounds great,” Chloe explained, bewildered by the unexpected suggestion.
“You never listen to me! Henry? There are tons of Henries! I came up with a strong and beautiful name for my grandson, and you reject it? Oh, I get it. You’re just selfish,” the mother-in-law snapped and hung up.
“She named her own sons Oliver and James, but couldn’t find anything better than Bertie for my kid,” Chloe thought to herself in frustration.
When she told her husband, Oliver, about the conversation with his mother, he just laughed:
“Remember that dream you had about a fish?”
***
Chloe and Oliver had been married for over a decade, yet they were still childless.
Initially, they had focused on their careers and buying a house, then they travelled abroad.
By the time they approached their thirties and decided to have a baby, they found out it wasn’t as easy as they’d hoped.
They started visiting doctors, undergoing examinations, and getting treatments. Everything seemed fine, but Chloe still wasn’t getting pregnant.
On their twelfth wedding anniversary, they sadly concluded they might remain childless. Oliver quickly wiped away a tear and said:
“It seems we’re not destined to be parents. But I love you and want to grow old with you, no matter what.”
Exactly a month later, Chloe had an extraordinarily vivid and bizarre dream. She dreamed of entering the bathroom to find a huge carp in a tub full of water.
“Oliver, come see what’s in our tub! How did it get here? You’ve never been fishing!” Chloe shouted to her husband… then she woke up.
It was morning. As she hurriedly got ready for work, Chloe shared her vivid dream with Oliver. He chuckled, saying:
“Maybe I should take up fishing since you’re dreaming of fish!”
At work, during tea, Chloe shared her unusual dream with a couple of colleagues.
Mrs. Thompson smiled knowingly and, winking at Chloe, said:
“Oh, Chloe! You’ll catch quite the fish of your own for life.”
“How’s that?”
“That dream means you’ll get pregnant. Mark my words!”
Chloe just sighed. She wasn’t expecting anything this past month, but when she counted the days, she realized it was the fifth day she’s overdue.
The next morning, she was staring, shocked, at a pregnancy test with two bright lines.
The pregnancy progressed smoothly, with only mild morning sickness bothering her in the first trimester.
And then the real challenge began—visits from her mother-in-law.
***
Jane was an active woman who had long been anticipating grandchildren. As soon as she found out Chloe was pregnant, she began giving unsolicited advice.
“You need at least fifty blankets—flannel and thin ones. I hope your iron is in good working order? You’ll need to wash and iron them at the highest temperature on both sides!”
“Actually, I wasn’t planning on using blankets. These days, you can just buy baby grows and bodysuits with diapers.”
“What are you talking about? You’re having a boy! No plastic diapers! They’re like little greenhouses! Only cloth ones! I’ll teach you everything; otherwise, you’ll ruin my grandson’s health from infancy!”
“Fine, but I at least want to choose the colors and patterns for the blankets,” Chloe conceded. “I don’t like very bright prints.”
“We’ll pick them together, don’t worry,” her mother-in-law assured her.
Exactly a week later, Jane showed up with a large bag of blankets, much to Chloe’s surprise:
“I figured you didn’t need to run around the shops, catching all sorts of germs! I managed just fine without you. Look at this quality fabric!”
Chloe was disappointed as she unwrapped blanket after blanket, all in bright colors with enormous ducks, bears, and cartoonish cars.
“Well, they’re bought now. No point arguing with her about it.”
While still in the hospital, Chloe learned that her mother-in-law had moved in with them “for a week or two to help with the newborn.”
Exhausted after the difficult delivery, Chloe couldn’t muster the energy to protest.
“Help will actually be useful at first,” she reasoned.
“Oh, you’re holding him strangely! Give him here; I’ll show you the proper way,” Jane insisted when Chloe got discharged.
The new grandmother promptly took over from the young parents.
Back home, Chloe noticed that the baby bathtub she purchased and the pack of diapers had been shoved onto the balcony.
“I’ll show you how to bathe the baby correctly! You need to put a towel on the bottom of the tub instead of these tricky bath seats! You might dislocate his limbs!”
“His name is Henry,” Oliver reminded her.
“Well, you call him what you want, but for me, he’s Bertie! Let’s go for a swim, Bertie! The bath needs to be nice and steamy, or he might catch cold!” Jane fussed, turning the water up to its hottest setting.
Once Jane had prepared the bath, she whisked the baby away, ordering Oliver not to hold the bathroom door open too long, and carried him off for his bath.
The little boy cried as she quickly soaped him with baby soap. Afterward, she snugly wrapped him in two blankets simultaneously.
“It’s warm in the house,” Chloe tried to protest.
“It’s warm to you, but he’s small; he’ll get cold. Don’t take off the cap, and keep him wrapped like this so he can sleep!”
The night proved restless for Chloe and Oliver. The baby couldn’t sleep on the wet cloth diapers and would wake up crying.
They had to get up, unwrap him, change him, and wrap him again. All these disturbances kept the parents and the baby from sleeping.
By morning, a pile of blankets had accumulated in the laundry basket, and Chloe and Oliver could compete over whose eye bags were darker.
Little Henry developed a rash from the grandmother’s insistence on extra-warm wrapping.
“That’s not a rash!” Jane declared confidently, looking at the marks. “It’s something you’ve eaten that’s giving him a reaction!”
“I’m already only eating chicken and rice!” protested Chloe.
“Well, maybe your milk isn’t right for him! I’d feed him formula,” Jane insisted.
“No way! I’ll feed him myself,” Chloe stood her ground.
Jane clicked disapprovingly with her tongue and left the room. But from then on, every morning at dawn, just as the baby fussed, Jane would burst into the parents’ bedroom and take him from Chloe:
“Mum doesn’t know how to soothe you! Come, let grandma hold her Bertie. I’ve got a dummy here!”
Henry spat it out, but despite Chloe’s protests, Jane repeatedly tried to get him used to it.
The first weighing session showed that the baby was losing weight.
“It’s because Jane keeps taking him away from me when it’s time to feed. She thinks she can comfort him better than my supposedly empty chest!” Chloe realized, and she began to defend her motherhood.
The next morning, Jane entered the bedroom as usual:
“Better cook or get some washing done; I’ll hold the baby! No point in him being attached to your empty chest!”
“No, thank you! He’s still feeding,” Chloe replied firmly, clutching her son close.
“Ha! There’s nothing there!” Jane spat, eyes flashing with annoyance. “Let me carry him!”
“He’ll get enough, don’t worry!” Chloe replied calmly. “You can hold him when he’s full.”
Once Chloe put her foot down about Jane taking her son, Henry began to gain weight steadily.
Jane only sighed in irritation, claiming Chloe was mistreating the boy.
“We’ve had enough of this grandma supervision,” Chloe decided, asking Oliver to tell his mother they were handling the parenting just fine and she should return home.
After the conversation with her son, Jane felt hurt:
“I wanted to stay a couple more months! How will my Bertie manage without me?”
“We’ll come visit you on weekends,” Oliver reassured his mother.
Indeed, nearly every weekend, they went to Jane’s. She would take the grandson from Chloe as soon as they entered and kiss him happily.
“Oh, you two go relax while I spend time with my grandson!” she waved off Chloe and Oliver dismissively. When it was time to part, she clutched her grandson tightly and said:
“You should leave him with me. He feels good here!”
“And what will you feed him?” Chloe teased.
“I’ll find the best milk for him!” Jane asserted happily. “Better than your pale-blue stuff!”
“Alright, Mum, we need to go,” Oliver intervened, sensing that a conversation between his wife and mother wouldn’t end well.
As they exited, Chloe said to Oliver:
“I guess she didn’t get enough of taking care of you and your brother?”
“We spent most of our time with our grandparents,” Oliver admitted.
“It shows. But we didn’t have a baby for her. She’ll just have to accept she’s Grandma, not Mom.”
