My wife and I have been trying to have a baby for the last 4 years. It’s been a really difficult process and we’ve had one miscarriage. We recently started IVF after saving up enough money. One of the things that needs to be done is my wife has to take certain medications including injections.

My mother had the audacity to say my wife didn’t deserve a baby because she “wasn’t strong enough to carry one.”

I remember standing in our tiny kitchen when she said it. My wife had just excused herself to the bathroom because the hormones were making her nauseous. I was pouring tea for all three of us, trying to keep things civil. Mom just blurted it out, matter-of-fact, like she was commenting on the weather.

I didn’t even know what to say at first. I just froze, teapot mid-air, and stared at her like she’d grown a second head.

She doubled down. “I’m not saying it to be cruel,” she added, sipping her tea calmly. “But you should’ve married a sturdier woman. One who could handle pregnancy.”

I was shaking. Rage, disbelief, shame—it all slammed into me at once.

When my wife came back, I didn’t tell her what Mom said. Not that day. She already looked pale, and the last thing I wanted was to put more stress on her. But I knew something had shifted. I couldn’t keep dragging my mom into our lives like this.

The truth is, my mom has always been a little… sharp. She’s the type to call you fat to your face but say it’s because she “cares.” When I was younger, I believed it. I thought that’s just how tough love looked. But now, with my wife—Anara—I saw how damaging it really was.

Anara grew up in a gentle home. Her parents passed when she was young, but her grandmother raised her with quiet affection. She was the first person I’d ever met who made love feel easy. There was no drama. Just trust.

So when IVF started, I did everything I could to shield her from stress. I took on extra shifts. I handled the grocery runs, meal preps, clinic appointments. We were in it together. It wasn’t always smooth—we had fights, especially when the meds messed with her mood—but I never doubted she was giving it her all.

A week after that awful tea incident, my mom called to “check in.” I told her gently that maybe we needed a little space while we went through the next stages. She didn’t take it well.

“Oh, so now she’s turned you against your own mother?”

“No, Mom. I’m just trying to make things easier for Anara.”

“She’s milking this, darling. Pregnancy isn’t that hard. I had three of you with barely a complaint.”

I bit my tongue. I didn’t want to argue, but every part of me wanted to scream. Her constant comparisons, her refusal to understand—everything felt like salt in a wound.

I told Anara about the comment two days later. She didn’t cry. She just sat very still on the edge of our bed and nodded.

“Thanks for telling me,” she said.

That was it. No drama, no breakdown. But I could tell something inside her had cracked a little.

The IVF didn’t work that cycle. And it hit us like a truck.

She sobbed into my shirt that night, kept saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” like it was her fault. I hated the universe for doing this to her. And I hated myself for letting my mother get in her head.

We almost gave up then. The money was gone, and we couldn’t afford another round. We went quiet for weeks. We didn’t talk about babies or hormones or anything future-related. We just worked, came home, and tried not to fall apart.

Then something strange happened.

My younger sister, Nyla, called out of the blue. We hadn’t spoken much since she moved to Vancouver with her fiancé. But now she was suddenly chatty, asking about Anara, asking how we were holding up.

After a few minutes of small talk, she blurted out: “I need to tell you something, but you can’t tell Mom.”

Apparently, our mother had been saying a lot more than I realized. She’d told the extended family that Anara was “playing the victim,” and that we were “blowing money on fake science.” She even told Aunt Reesha that she’d be better off raising a child herself than letting “that girl” ruin my chances at a real family.

I saw red. I couldn’t believe it.

But here’s the twist: Nyla wasn’t calling just to gossip. She said she wanted to help us.

She and her fiancé had been saving for a wedding, but decided to push it back and offered to help fund one more IVF cycle for us. I couldn’t believe it. I told her we couldn’t accept it, but she insisted. “I’m tired of Mom poisoning everything. Let’s do one good thing, together.”

That call changed everything.

Anara cried when I told her, but it was different this time. She looked hopeful. We started again with a new clinic—this one in a neighboring city, with better reviews and more empathy.

I stopped calling my mom completely.

Months passed. We did the shots, the appointments, the monitoring. Anara handled it all with this quiet resilience that amazed me. And then, finally, the call came.

Positive.

I was driving when the nurse called Anara, and she put me on speaker. I had to pull over because I couldn’t see through the tears. We both sat in the car, parked by a grocery store, holding hands in silence.

But just as things were starting to settle, Mom showed up at our apartment.

She hadn’t spoken to me in over five months. But there she was on the doorstep, holding a box of knit baby booties and acting like nothing had happened.

I opened the door, stepped outside, and shut it behind me.

“What are you doing here, Mom?”

She gave this little huff, like I was being dramatic. “I heard the news. I came to say congratulations.”

“Really? No lecture about ‘fake science’ this time?”

Her face tightened. “I was upset, okay? I didn’t mean everything I said.”

I laughed, but it wasn’t kind. “You said my wife didn’t deserve a baby.”

She looked down, then back up. “I was wrong. I see that now.”

I didn’t invite her in. I told her we needed more time, and that I wasn’t sure I could trust her again.

Anara never asked me to forgive her. She just let me lead.

Weeks turned into months. The pregnancy went smoothly, all things considered. There were nerves, of course. Every ultrasound was a tiny storm in our hearts. But the baby kept growing, heartbeat strong.

We didn’t tell my mom the gender or the due date. She only found out when we posted the birth announcement online: a healthy little boy, born on a sunny May morning.

We named him Rayen. It means “flowering” in Mapuche.

The messages poured in. Friends. Cousins. Even people we barely knew from church. Everyone was kind.

Except my mom. She messaged once. “Congratulations. I hope you raise him better than you were raised.”

That was it.

I didn’t reply. But Nyla did.

She wrote a long post about how families can be broken not by distance, but by ego. About how some wounds aren’t visible, but they still bleed. She didn’t name names, but everyone knew who she was talking about.

Something incredible happened after that.

Anara and I started getting calls and DMs from people saying they’d gone through the same thing. Strained mothers-in-law. Judgment during infertility. People not understanding the grief of a miscarriage.

It made us feel less alone. It made everything we’d endured feel like it had meaning.

Rayen is four months old now. He smiles when Anara sings, and he falls asleep with his tiny hand wrapped around my thumb. Our home is filled with soft lullabies, coffee that goes cold, and laundry that never ends. And I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

The other day, Nyla visited. She held Rayen and said, “You know, sometimes family isn’t who raised you—it’s who shows up when it matters.”

She’s right.

I don’t know if I’ll ever speak to my mom again. Maybe one day. Maybe not. But I’ve stopped waiting for an apology.

Some people never change. But that doesn’t mean we have to carry their bitterness.

This whole journey taught me that love isn’t loud. It’s quiet and steady and shows up at 2 a.m. with a heating pad and no complaints. Love is in the hard choices. The boundaries. The second chances.

To anyone out there struggling—with IVF, with toxic family, with doubt—please know you’re not weak. You’re not alone. And no one gets to decide what you deserve except you.

If this touched you in any way, feel free to share it. You never know who might need to hear it today. ❤️