Submitted by olivekittenz t3_11xuv0s in relationship_advice
Me and my older sister are both pregnant at the same time. Our due dates 17 days apart. This is my first child. This is her second. She's 7 years older than me.
It started when I announced my pregnancy to my family. She announced hers a day later and ever since then it's been about her and her baby. I genuinely think that they forget that I'm also pregnant and having a baby. She herself didn't say congratulations to me and couldn't wait to announce her own pregnancy, it didn't matter about mine. She couldn't bare for that (what? less than 24 hours?) that somebody else was getting my parent's attention because she's so used to having it. I think she knew exactly what she was doing by announcing her pregnancy. She hadn't had her 12 week scan at this point so it really was because she wanted to upstage me.
Ever since then, whenever I try and have conversations with my parents and other sisters about my pregnancy she involves herself. The conversation always has to be about either her pregnancy or her baby. She dominates conversations and without fail makes it about herself or her baby every single time. It's always about her. She will not let me or anyone else talk about my baby.
Then there was the whole thing about a baby shower/gender reveal. Just bare in mind that my parents/family have thrown some kind of celebration for each one of my sisters when pregnant and through their multiple pregnancies. She said to my parents that she didn't want one and because she didn't want one, I wasn't allowed to have one because "it's not fair to do it for one and not the other". But I said that I wanted one as this was my first pregnancy and I wanted the same kind of effort and excitement and celebration for my baby that everyone else has gotten. So they've begrudgingly agreed to do this (which is shitty in itself) but they've said it has to be a joint one so that my sister isn't left out. I had already said that I don't want a joint baby shower/gender reveal for the simple fact of that she's upstaged me at every chance that she's gotten during my pregnancy and I want one day to be about me and my baby. I had also said that I didn't want her there for that exact reason.
To make this whole thing worse, I had a fall the other week when it was snowing and icy. I slipped walking down the steps out of my house and I obviously panicked and went to hospital. (Just going to add in that not one person answered my calls or texts about this when I was scared and upset and my boyfriend's sister ended up coming to the hospital with me as my boyfriend works away during the week). During one of the scans, the ultrasound tech accidentally used a gendered pronoun and revealed the gender. So now I know the gender of the baby. At the time I was just thankful everything was okay (and still am) but I'm upset and frustrated that the surprise was taken away.
So because I know the gender, everybody has said that it's pointless to have a gender reveal now. So now she's now going to upstage me again by having her gender reveal at what was supposed to be my gender reveal when she didn't even want this in the first place. Now it's just completely been taken over by her. It's not even half about me and my baby anymore. No one is going to give a shit about me or my baby (because they're not allowed to if she's around).
I'm just so over it all now. She's ruining everything about my pregnancy. I don't get to celebrate anything because she takes all of those moments away. Like when I felt my baby kick for the first time she "suddenly " got really "dizzy" and "faint". Anything that I buy for my baby, she has to buy bigger and better and more expensive. If I buy car seat, it isn't as good as the one she's bought. If I get a 4D scan, she'll book one too. I got a recording of the heartbeat so she bought one of those machines so people can hear it whenever they want. I've had enough of it. I've never wished that she wasn't my sister more than I have since getting pregnant and I did it a lot growing up. I just know it's going to continue to when I give birth too.
I just feel sorry for my baby because if this is how they're acting now, I can only imagine what it's going to be like once they're here. There's a clear favourite between the two and it's just sad for my baby. I also have a strong feeling that they're going to be the same gender too which will make it worse.
It's really sad because I thought I would get to bond with my mum during my pregnancy as my other sisters did. Me and my mum aren't really close and don't have the best relationship and I thought that this might help but it seems that my sister has always been the favourite and will always be.
TLDR: My sister keeps constantly upstaging my pregnancy and ruining my pregnancy