Woman Asked SIL to Consider Letting her Adopt Her Baby Instead of Getting an Abortion

Here's a tip: If a person has experienced unimaginable tragedy and is currently steeped in grief, maybe don't ask to keep the baby they plan to abort. A woman recently posted to Reddit's "Am I the A-hole?" probably looking for validation because she very politely asked to adopt the baby her sister-in-law doesn't want to have in the first place.

And believe me, when you hear the whole story, you'll see why her request is inappropriate no matter how nicely she brought it up. She explains that her younger brother and sister-in-law had been married for just over a month when they were involved in a serious accident in November. Her brother died, and her SIL survived "with minor injuries and mild brain trauma." She now suffers from trauma-induced epilepsy.

On top of all that, the SIL just found out she is nearly three months pregnant with her late husband's child. She confided in OP that she can't fathom being a single, widowed mom right now. It's only been a couple months since the newlywed lost her spouse, and she's dealing with ongoing health consequences of her own. It would be extra traumatic to bring a baby into this situation. 

OP didn't tell her parents, partly because her SIL swore her to secrecy, and partly because "my brother was their favorite kid and they took the loss hard, especially my mother. I think if she found out [about the abortion] it would absolutely tear her apart." Then she says she and her husband have a young son and were thinking of trying for a second kid, so that's why she thought she'd ask her SIL "if she would be open to the idea" of letting them adopt her child. 

"I thought this was reasonable," OP wrote, going on about her and her husband's stable household. She was very surprised when her SIL was taken aback by the proposition and "almost angry" she would even suggest it. "I told her I'm not forcing her into anything, but she accused me of guilt-tripping her because I briefly mentioned that 'my parents will be so happy to meet their grandchild.'"

Maybe she thought she was being guilt-tripped because she absolutely was! The SIL was fuming at the suggestion that she "carry her own child for a year just to hand it over to 'almost a stranger.'" If that's the sort of relationship these two have, it seems even more out of line for OP to suggest it in the first place. 

OP sent an apology text after her SIL left, but she still thinks she handled the situation "as sensitively as possible," never considering the actual sensitive thing to do would be to support whatever her SIL wanted to do and not try to force a grieving woman to have a baby she doesn't want to keep. 

Commenters hit the nail on the head when they pretty universally expressed that she was wrong. She gave no thought whatsoever to how having carrying the baby for months and handing it over to be adopted would affect the SIL at all. She was only thinking about how much her parents would love the grandchild and her own desire for a second baby. That's not how this works. 

"I honestly am baffled as to how you don't see what you did wrong," one person wrote. "You not only pushed your own views about abortion onto her despite how subtle you think you were, but you ASKED HER FOR HER BABY? I am stupefied that you would ask a woman who is terminating her pregnancy to go to term and give the baby to you. If  you want to adopt, adopt, this is like some Twilight Zone stuff I am so confused." 

"Yeah," another person replied. "If someone wants you to raise their kid, they'll bring it up. Don't ask — it's not a spare." She really doesn't seem to understand how insane it is to ask another woman if she wouldn't mind having the baby because she'd like one. It isn't like picking up an extra carton of milk at the store. 

Some thought this post was suspicious because if the SIL was treated in the hospital for her injuries after the accident, she probably would have been tested for pregnancy at the time. A doctor chimed in to say that it could have been so early in the pregnancy that it showed up as negative. 

Even while there's a debate about the post's veracity, there is no debate about OP's behavior. No matter how sensitive she thinks she was with the matter, there's no agreeable way to say, as one commenter put it, "Please ignore your physical and emotional trauma whilst you carry your dead husband's baby, give birth to it without him, and then hand it over and watch as it is raised by someone else just so the family can have a piece of his DNA."