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Baby loss is a heartbreaking ordeal, and we should treat those going through it with sensitivity - that goes without saying.
It must be beyond painful to see any gifts and baby items at home after losing your precious little one, as well as awkward to deal with those gifts that were given to you for the baby you were expecting to welcome - what is the etiquette? What is the socially acceptable way to approach this? Generally speaking, the parents in our community say that the bereaved parent would keep them for a future rainbow baby, or sometimes may offer them back to the person who gifted them. However, we think that it's fair to say that the gifter should never be the one to initially broach the subject, and most of our community wholeheartedly agreed.
However, one Reddit user was considering asking a family friend to return the (expensive) gift they'd purchased and given to her at a baby shower, before the friend suffered from a horrendous late miscarriage. She asked the readers of Reddit if she would be wrong to do so - see the post below...
"I know this sounds awful and I feel like it might be a terrible thing to do so I need some advice.
My husband has a long term family friend named Jen. Jen and I aren't friends at all but we are friendly when we see each other. When Jen had her first kid my husband purchased a fairly expensive item off of her baby shower registry as a gift (around $200-$300 if I recall correctly). I had no issue with the gift or how much he spent, it was a nice item to gift her and we were excited for her to grow her family with her then boyfriend now husband.
Fast forward a few years, Jen and her husband are high earners (both making over 6 figures). Jen announced she was pregnant again very early along and sent my husband her baby shower registry with her announcement text which was full of high priced items.
Personally, I thought this was strange because she should still have most of the items from her first kid and I didn't think people usually did full blown baby showers/registries after their first. I was also surprised she was asking for gifts when she was still in the first trimester, but I'm a cautious person who didn't announce my pregnancy until 20 weeks which I know is extreme on the other side. I left it up to my husband what he wanted to do but mentioned to him that I was surprised she was organizing another shower/gifting event since she already has a young kid and got brand new stuff then.
My husband spent around $400 on a gift for her, fine with me. A few weeks later Jen had a traumatic miscarriage. I won't get into the details but she was devastated and the cause of the loss likely means she won't be able to carry future pregnancies to term. It's incredibly sad and while I'm not close with Jen my heart hurt for her.
It's been a few months since her loss and my husband is now unsure of how to navigate the gift. It's not something she can use for her older kid. Asking her to return the gift seems cruel, like adding a chore onto her grief, and it's probably past the return window anyway. I'm also not sure if she's going to keep trying to have more kids (very risky for the baby and herself) and it seems incredibly insensitive to ask, plus she may not have decided yet. Asking her to pay us back for it also seems very cruel. My husband and I are also decently high earners but $400 is still a lot of money. It's one thing if she's able to get a few years of use out of the item, that's money well spent. But if it's going to sit in a box in her attic for years....that's where we are getting stuck.
So, would we be TA if we asked about getting the gift back? Ideally we could get our money back somehow although it's probably too late. If we can't then I'd at least like to gift it to someone else who can use it (I feel awful just saying that but it's how I feel). However this is such a sensitive subject and we don't want to pressure her if she's not ready to discuss it."
Find the main thread here on Reddit.
Baby showers are usually a time of extreme joy - but what happens if the expectant parents suffer a baby loss after the event? It's something that isn't talked about much, and it must be tricky to navigate.
What was the general consensus?
It's safe to say that the poster was inundated with criticism over their insensitivity as well as her speculation on whether the family friend - who she admitted to not being close to - would or even should try for another baby due to her medical situation. The top rated comment was;
"YTA it was a gift. It shouldn't come with terms and conditions. You gave it away. It's gone".
Another well rated comment was; "YWBTA. You gave a gift. It would be the height of insensitivity and rudeness to ask for it back - whatever the reason. The fact this poor woman had just had a pregnancy loss makes it even worse. Let her re gift it or do whatever she chooses with it. FFS. Have some sensitivity and compassion. And don’t spend $400 on gifts if you can’t afford it"
The poster then provided an update after reading the responses...
"Update: I appreciate the feedback I've gotten. We will not be asking Jen about the gift. We don't want to make her feel worse than she already is. Given her statements in the past regarding adoption I doubt she will find alternative ways to have another child if she is unable to do so biologically. But that's her path to walk. If she doesn't use it I hope she at least donates the item to someone who needs it.
People have also commented on my tone and I just wanted to clarify that Jen is truly only my husband's friend, not mine. We aren't "couples friends" with her and her husband. Jen and my husband were close as kids but haven't been close for years (before I ever came into the picture), sort of like a cousin you grew up with but only talk to at major holidays now. I don't hate Jen but we have very different world views so we likely won't ever be close. I'm sympathetic to Jen's loss as a person and as a person who has also experienced miscarriages. But I am not personally devastated by it if that makes sense. If my husband wrote the post the tone would have been different. Given how long they've known each other and how she's so integrated into their family he felt it was appropriate to gift her a big ticket item which I thought was justified. I do wish he had waited to send it because I warned him that it was very early in her pregnancy and anything could happen.
I will be logging out of this throwaway. Thanks."
Our verdict...
We've honestly never seen anything quite like it... There's no right way to ever ask someone who has just lost their baby for a baby shower gift back! It's greedy, insensitive and lacks compassion - the value of the gift being entirely irrelevant. If the poster needs that money back, they should not have spent it on someone who isn't close family, surely? We also find her speculation of Jen's figurative 'future plans' for another baby highly inappropriate, it actually reads as if she is trying to justify asking for the gift back as she is only commenting on the reasons why another pregnancy or adoption wouldn't happen for Jen.
Our overall vibe is that actually, reading between the lines, she dislikes Jen and doesn't like how close her husband is to her, and now it has boiled over due to the value of the baby shower gift, which more than likely won't be used or appreciated now due to the situation.
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