Pregnant Woman Wants Her Mom to Stop Sharing Her Bump Photos Without Consent

May 28, 2019

As joyful a time as it is, being pregnant occasionally makes women feel like their bodies aren't quite their own anymore—and not just because they have a little resident growing inside them for 9 months. For instance, people in public will offer unsolicited advice and touch a stranger's bumps, and, in the case of one Redditor, her own mother is forwarding photos of her pregnant body to a bevy of friends and relatives without her daughter's permission. The expectant mom took to the Baby Bumps subreddit to explain the situation in a May 27 post that's going viral titled, "My mom has been sending my 'bump' pictures to people without asking my permission first."

The mom-to-be, writing under the handle Cat_Proxy, shared, "Whelp, fair warning to everyone... don't send your family pictures of your bump unless you know what they are doing with them. Don't need any advice, just wanted to vent a little."

She went on to say that she had been sending her mom "the occasional belly bump progress photo every couple of weeks, just to keep her in the loop since she lives 7 hours away, and she's cried a few times over 'missing out' on my pregnancy. She mentioned once off-hand that she was showing her BF my picture, and I let it slide because I kinda figured she'd show him, no big deal. Then the following week she mentioned showing MORE people my pictures, and I came down on her a bit and asked who is she sending my pictures to?"

Her mom told the Redditor that she had been forwarding the images to her two aunts "one of whom I am no contact with and the other who I was NC with until recently, as well as showing her coworkers and random customers who come into her office and ask her how I'm doing and if the baby's come yet. I told her she can't be doing that, she should have asked my permission first, it's not OK. She said 'you can't even see your face, it's not a big deal.'"

The Redditor said she replied to her mom: "How would you like it if I shared pictures of you in a bikini with random people? You wouldn't like it, would you? It's my body, my picture," to which her mother "half-jokingly told me to stop being a bitch and ruining her fun." The poster said she "held her ground" and told her mom "to stop, and that I wouldn't send her any pictures in the future or during any future pregnancies if she didn't listen. She countered with, 'I'll just return all the baby gifts I bought and won't come see you when the baby is born.' 'Alright,' I told her. 'Go right ahead.' Naturally she dropped it when she realized I wasn't budging."

The expectant mom explained that this incident had occurred several days prior, but it was still irking her when she thought about it. "I was supposed to send her a picture today, but I decided not to because I'm still pretty annoyed about it, and I didn't get any guarantee that she won't share my pictures," she wrote.

Commenters immediately weighed in, mostly siding with the mom-to-be and explaining that they've found themselves in similar situations with their own mom or mother-in-law.

Staticstart wrote, "I genuinely feel like if you resumed sending her bump photos, she just wouldn’t tell you about the people she’s sending them too anymore. It’s a shame, but an info diet does seem best to me! That’s a bummer that she tried to be petty and say she’d take back gifts for the baby just because she wasn’t getting free reign to do what she wanted. Good job on that spine though and sticking to your guns about what you wanted!!"

Mrsc519 empathized: "That’s exactly why I refuse to send bump pics to all the extended family members (and my MIL) who ask for them. I didn’t want to, regardless, but I had a feeling my MIL would do something similar. You were trying to do a nice thing for her and help her feel included, and she took that and invaded your privacy by showing something just for her to a bunch of people you never would have willingly shown your bump to. Stop sending her pictures for the rest of your pregnancy, she lost that privilege. She hasn’t even apologized for what she did, so it’s more than likely she’ll do it again. And keep calling her bluffs, there’s no way she’d actually pass up the chance to see the baby!"

HobbitLady shared a hurtful experience that was similar, writing, "But also I totally feel your pain because I had to do the same thing with my mom, and I stopped sending her ultrasound photos because she said they were ugly. Okay, girl. Bye.