My Mil Changed My Baby’s Name While I Was Unconscious.

The Stolen Identity

My mother-in-law changed my baby’s name while I was unconscious. I made her explain it to her entire family reunion.

My husband, Jester, and I had been planning our daughter’s name for years. We picked Luna Rose after my grandmother who raised me and his mother’s middle name.

We thought including Rose would make his mother, Carol, happy. We told everyone the name at the baby shower.

Carol smiled and said it was nice. However, she kept calling my bump her baby and saying we’d see what felt right when she arrived.

I thought she meant when the baby arrived. I was wrong.

I had a rough delivery that ended in an emergency C-section. I lost a lot of blood and was unconscious for six hours after.

Jester was with me the whole time holding our daughter and making sure I was stable. While we were in recovery, Carol volunteered to handle the birth certificate paperwork.

She said she wanted to help since Jester was focused on me and the baby. She seemed so concerned and helpful.

Jester gave her our filled-out forms and asked her to submit them to the hospital administration. Two weeks later, we got the official birth certificate in the mail.

My daughter’s name was listed as Caroline Grace, not Luna Rose. Caroline Grace.

Carol had scratched out our chosen name and written in her own first name and her mother’s name. She literally named our baby after herself.

When we confronted her, she said Luna was too trendy and our daughter deserved a classic name with family meaning. She said Caroline was a stronger name for a future professional.

She said we’d thank her when our daughter got into college because Luna sounded like a stripper name. She actually said that about the name we’d chosen to honor my dead grandmother.

Jester was furious, but Carol started crying about how she was just trying to help. She said we were young and emotional and she had more experience with these things.

She raised Jester, didn’t she? She knew what was best for our family.

She said the baby looked like a Caroline anyway and Luna didn’t suit her face. The audacity of this woman to look at our two-week-old baby and decide her face didn’t match her name.

We immediately started the legal process to change it, but were told it would take months and cost us hundreds of dollars. We had to get a court order, publish announcements in the newspaper, and appear before a judge, all because Carol thought she knew better.

Meanwhile, Carol started calling our daughter Caroline in front of everyone. She bought personalized blankets with Caroline embroidered on them.

She made a Facebook announcement welcoming baby Caroline to the family. When people asked about the name change, she said we’d reconsidered after seeing how perfect Caroline was for our little angel.

She told her book club we’d asked her to choose the name as an honor to her. My mother called, confused, asking why we hadn’t told her about changing the name.

Carol had called extended family on both sides announcing the real name and saying Luna was just a placeholder until we met the baby. She made us look indecisive and flaky to everyone.

The worst part was she kept insisting she did us a favor. She’d say things like, “Caroline would age better than Luna.”

She said kids would make fun of Luna, but Caroline commanded respect. She bought a custom nursery sign that said Caroline’s room and hung it while babysitting.

When I took it down, she accused me of not accepting help and being too proud. She told Jester I had postpartum depression because I couldn’t accept the name change.

Three months into this nightmare, Carol’s family reunion was coming up. It happened every five years, and this was the first time the new baby would meet all the relatives.

Carol had been bragging about little Caroline for months. She’d sent photos to all her cousins and siblings saying how proud she was to have a granddaughter named after her.

She even ordered matching shirts for her and the baby that said Caroline Senior and Caroline Jr. That’s when I found my opportunity.

A Calculated Truth

I called Carol’s older sister, Ruth, who was organizing the reunion. I mentioned how excited I was for everyone to meet Luna Rose and how thoughtful it was that Carol supported us through the name change drama.

Ruth was confused. I explained that someone at the hospital had accidentally written Caroline on the birth certificate and we’d been fighting to fix it for months.

I said Carol had been so helpful in dealing with the bureaucracy and costs. Ruth was horrified.

She knew Carol had a history of controlling behavior, but changing a baby’s name was insane. The day of the reunion, Carol showed up in her Caroline Senior shirt with the baby in the matching junior one.

She’d insisted on driving separately so she could make a grand entrance with her Caroline. She walked in expecting applause and got dead silence.

Ruth had told everyone what really happened. Ruth didn’t say anything for what felt like forever after I finished explaining what Carol had done with the birth certificate.

I counted the seconds in my head while holding Luna against my chest. One, two, three, four, five.

The silence stretched so long I thought maybe the call had dropped. Then Ruth’s voice came back and she sounded completely different.

Her usual cheerful tone was gone, replaced by something cold and sharp. She told me she was calling an emergency meeting with Carol’s sisters before the reunion happened.

She said Marie needed to hear this directly from me and Carol’s other siblings too. I could hear her moving around on the other end like she was already pacing and planning.