Woman wants baby shower back gift after miscarriage

A woman has caused controversy online after she asked if it was appropriate to ask for a baby shower gift back after the recipient suffered a miscarriage.

A woman has sparked widespread debate this week after asking whether it was okay to request that her friend return a baby shower gift after she had a miscarriage.

The post, which has gone viral in a popular parenting forum, has raised questions about gifting etiquette, friendships and navigating traumatic experiences, Kidspot reported.

The post was shared to the Reddit Am I The A**hole forum and was titled, “AITA for asking our friend to return a baby shower gift after a miscarriage?”

Straight off the bat, the woman acknowledges that it “sounds awful” and she knows it’s probably “a terrible thing to do” but still wants to use the internet as a sounding board to double check.

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Woman wants baby shower gift back. Picture: iStock

She wrote: “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). 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 husband.”

“Fast forward a few years, Jen and her husband are high earners, both making over six figures. Jen announced she was pregnant again very early on and sent my husband her baby shower registry with her announcement text which was full of high-priced items.”

The poster admits that she thought that this was strange because their friend should still have most of the items from her first kid and didn’t think people did full-blown baby showers and registries after their first.

She also said that she was “surprised” she was asking for gifts while still in the first trimester, “but maybe that’s just because I’m a cautious person who didn’t announce my pregnancy until 20 weeks which I know is extreme on the other side.”

Despite her thoughts on the subject, she left it up to her husband to organise a gift that he thought was appropriate. He ended up spending $400 as Jen is “like a cousin” to him so he felt justified buying an expensive present.

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,” the poster continued.

“It’s been a few months since her loss and my husband and I are 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 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 in the wrong if we asked about getting the gift back? Ideally, we could get our money back but if we can’t then I’d at least like to gift it to someone else who can use it.”

The recipient had a miscarriage. Picture: iStock

When people took to the comments to weigh in on the dilemma, most pointed out that once a gift has been given you can’t ask for it back, especially if someone has experienced something so traumatic.

The top comment, with 8.9k likes, read: “You’re the a**hole. It was a gift. It shouldn’t come with terms and conditions. You gave it away. It’s gone.”

“She’s just lost her baby and her fertility. Don’t kick someone when they’re down. When she’s ready, she will probably sell your gift and use the money for something else, hopefully, something that brings her joy,” read another.

One person then suggested several things that Jen could do with the gift, such as: “donate it, gift it to a friend, turn it into a little shrine.” They added, “You just don’t know what she’ll do with it and it’s none of your business.”

Then another person wrote, “You decided to spend a lot of money on a gift so maybe give less in the future if you are going to feel resentful later. But do NOT add to this woman’s pain so you can get your money back. That’s monstrous.”

And a different user insisted that, “There’s no tactful way to ask for it back without it looking petty and greedy, so just let it go.”

Others agreed it would be the “height of insensitivity and rudeness” to ask for it back.

Then someone summed up the woman’s post by sarcastically saying: “Sorry about your miscarriage, can I have my gift back?”

This story originally appeared on Kidspot and reproduced with permission