As the phrase goes, no good mother goes unpunished. A new mom shares her experience of despite having a new baby herself, she volunteered to care for her dearest friend’s baby in order to aid her friend who is dealing with postpartum depression. She had to nurse her friend’s kid herself after realising the friend had not left her with any formula and had not returned her calls or texts. Read the story to know what happened and let us know whose side you are on.
Source: Reddit
My best friend of ten years gave birth to her first child about eight weeks ago. She never wanted kids and she disconnected from her pregnancy and never really connected to the baby after he was born either. She has really bad postpartum depression so I’ve been trying to help, however I gave birth to my second child about two weeks after she had her baby so I’m needed at home with my family.
I could tell she was getting stressed so I offered to take the baby for a day so she could have downtime. She brought him over and we put the babies together. Her son has a really bad digestion problem so he can’t ingest regular formula, only breastmilk or special formula.
She doesn’t breastfeed so he takes the special formula. I asked her if she had packed diapers, wipes, a change of clothes, and bottles in his diaper bag and she said yes. Then she left.
For the first three hours everything was fine, the babies chilled out together, we all played, I put on some music and danced around for them. My baby needed a feed so I fed her and then about thirty minutes later Best Friend’s baby needed a feed. I went to fix him a bottle and realized she hadn’t packed his formula.
When I asked if she had packed bottles she answered literally, but I never specified if she packed formula as well, I thought it was given.
I tried calling her about four times and she kept sending me voicemail so I texted her. She had read receipts so I know she saw my texts. I kept trying to call and she just wouldn’t answer me. I couldn’t go to the store and get a jar of formula because she didn’t leave me his car seat and I only had my infant’s seat.
My older child is seven and doesn’t need an infant seat anymore. I don’t know my neighbors and other than my husband I don’t have family in the area. At this point the baby was crying and screaming so hard I thought he might get sick or hurt. So I sat down and breastfed him myself.
I’m completely healthy, just got a flu shot and a clean bill of health from both my OB and my GP and I have no diseases so the baby was not at risk for anything. Best Friend finally returned three and a half hours later.
I remained calm but told her that she can’t leave her child with someone and not answer when that person calls and texts because it might actually be a serious emergency; and that she also hadn’t packed any of the baby’s special formula. I told her how badly he got upset and how worried I was so I breastfed him myself. She freaked out on me and accused me of some horrible things and then left.
She blocked me on social media, something I learned when a mutual friend told me Best Friend was saying some awful things about me online. I don’t know what to do, I can’t even talk to her about this. I thought I was doing the right thing but maybe I was wrong. Did I go too far here? Am I A Jerk?
Here are a few comments on the story where it was originally posted:
Watch for more: https://youtu.be/kWGdg-OBWzM
