Any pregnancy should be celebrated and should be a joyful time. I was subjected to pressure after pressure from my mother-in-law.

First there was the constant expectation that I must give birth to a boy. On one occasion she pulled my top to the side and looked at the colour of my nipple.

She was very happy and told me the colour of my nipple meant I was having a boy.

Then she discouraged me from eating too much as, in her opinion, the smaller the baby, the easier the birth.

She tried to discourage me from going to ante-natal classes. She has the belief that the less you know about childbirth, the better it is.

I was told from the moment I was pregnant that I wasn't allowed to bottle feed the baby and I wasn't  allowed to use pacifiers.

I didn't find out the sex of the baby, but there soon followed the naming of the baby stress which I know many women go through.

Just because my mother-in-law wasn't allowed to name her own children, she thought she could impose the same authority on me.

I do feel sorry for her sometimes, that she has to validate her existence by trying to control me. It shows how difficult her own life was. 

But there comes a point where I question whether she is actually doing this for my own good or whether she just enjoys knowing she can be a tyrant.

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