My Mil Hijacked My Baby Shower And Labeled Me As The “Surrogate.” She Even Created A Timeline For When I Should Hand Over My Son. Does She Actually Believe This Is Legal?

A New Normal

We brought Kendall home after two days when the doctor cleared us to leave. Margot had already been to our house that morning to make sure everything was ready and checked that there were no signs anyone had been around our property. She’d put fresh sheets on our bed and stocked the fridge with easy meals and left a note on the counter welcoming us home.

The next few weeks were completely exhausting in ways I hadn’t imagined—learning how to change diapers and figure out why Kendall was crying and function on two hours of sleep at a time. But it was also kind of magical because we got to do it without anyone showing up uninvited or criticizing our choices or trying to take over. Trevor’s confidence as a dad grew every day as he learned to calm Kendall down when she was fussy and give her bottles when I needed to sleep.

We took walks around the neighborhood with Kendall in her stroller and went to her pediatrician appointments without worrying that someone would be waiting in the parking lot. It felt like what becoming parents were supposed to feel like, just us figuring things out together without constant interference. Three weeks after Kendall was born, Trevor’s father sent a text asking if he could meet his granddaughter.

We talked about it for a few days and then discussed it with both Kylie and Dominic to make sure we were making a safe choice. They both said that supervised visits with clear boundaries were reasonable as long as we felt comfortable and Trevor’s father had proven over the past months that he could respect our limits. We agreed to have him come to our house on a Saturday afternoon with the understanding that the visit would be short and he couldn’t take any photos to share with Diane.

When he arrived, he brought a simple gift, a soft stuffed bunny, and asked permission before picking Kendall up. He held his granddaughter gently for about 20 minutes, talking to her softly and not asking us invasive questions about our parenting or making demands about future visits. When Kendall started getting fussy, he handed her back to me right away and thanked us for letting him meet her before leaving exactly when we’d agreed the visit would end.

Trevor seemed relieved after his dad left, like maybe it was possible to have some family relationships that worked even after everything with Diane. We waited until Kendall was six weeks old before sharing her birth announcement on social media with strict privacy settings that only let our approved friends see the post. The announcement included one photo of Kendall sleeping in her bassinet and a clear statement that we’d be sharing photos and updates on our own timeline and we asked everyone to respect our privacy by not sharing our posts elsewhere.

Signs of Change

Within an hour, several family members commented with congratulations and genuine happiness, and everyone seemed to understand and respect our boundaries about keeping things private. My parents commented that they couldn’t wait to meet her when we were ready, and Julia wrote that Kendall was beautiful and she was proud of us for protecting our family. It felt good to share our joy with people who actually cared about us and not just about getting access to our baby.

Two weeks after we posted the announcement, Trevor’s father called to say that a letter had arrived at his house addressed to both of us. He offered to open it and read it to us over the phone, and when we agreed, he said it was from Diane. The letter was surprisingly calm compared to everything before, just congratulating us on Kendall’s arrival and saying she understood why we’d set the boundaries we had.

She wrote that she wanted to work toward eventually meeting Kendall under whatever conditions we decided were appropriate and she knew she needed to prove she could respect our choices as parents. There were no demands or guilt trips or threats about grandparent rights, just a simple request to consider letting her be part of Kendall’s life someday if she could show us she’d changed. We told Trevor’s father we needed time to think about it and asked him to hold on to the letter for now.

That night after Kendall went to sleep, Trevor and I sat at the kitchen table trying to figure out if Diane’s letter meant genuine change or if it was just a new way to manipulate us. We called Dominic the next day and then had a video session with Kylie to talk through what the letter might mean. Kylie said that sometimes people do actually change when they face real consequences and lose something important to them, and the restraining order plus the reality that Kendall was a girl instead of the grandson Diane had obsessed over might have finally forced her to accept things.

But Kylie also warned us that change takes sustained effort over time, not just one nice letter, and we shouldn’t make any decisions based on words alone. Dominic agreed and said that if we wanted to leave the door open for future contact, we should make it conditional on Diane doing actual therapeutic work and proving through consistent behavior that she understood why what she’d done was wrong. After talking it over for another week and discussing it again with both Kylie and Dominic, we decided to send a response through Dominic’s office so it would be official and documented.

The letter stated that we were willing to consider supervised contact in the future if Diane completed therapy with a licensed professional and demonstrated consistent respect for our boundaries over a period of at least six months. We made it really clear that this wasn’t a promise or a set timeline, just a possibility if she did the actual work to change her behavior and thinking patterns. We also said that any future contact would be entirely on our terms and schedule, and we reserved the right to end contact again if she violated boundaries or made us uncomfortable.

Dominic sent the letter to Trevor’s father’s address with instructions to give it to Diane, and then we waited to see what would happen next. Three weeks later, Trevor’s father called to report that Diane had enrolled in therapy and had been attending weekly sessions with a therapist who specialized in family relationships and boundary issues. He said she’d given him permission to confirm her attendance with us and that she seemed to be genuinely working on understanding why her behavior had been harmful and scary.

According to him, Diane had even talked in one of their recent conversations about how she’d been so focused on her own pain about losing Trevor that she couldn’t see how she was hurting us and putting Kendall at risk. We told Trevor’s father we appreciated the update but we were going to stay cautious and see if Diane could maintain this progress over time before we made any decisions about contact. Trevor seemed both hopeful and skeptical after the call, wanting to believe his mom could actually change but also protecting himself from disappointment if this turned out to be temporary.