“I (27F) accidentally had my baby in my friend’s (31F) car. Now her husband & she don’t want to speak to me. How do I fix this?”
I’m very aware this sounds ridiculous but I’m so tired of worrying about this, I need some outside perspective. This all happened almost 2 weeks ago now. I was almost 38 weeks pregnant then.
My partner left for an afternoon to help out her brother (which we were both fine with, she was only a 1,5 hour drive away & neither of us saw this coming) & my friend ‘Alice’ offered to come spend the day with me so I wasn’t alone.
Honestly it was really nice to have her there. We just watched some movies and hung out and even though I was so uncomfortable through the day, I didn’t consider I might actually be going into labor. (I had been feeling discomfort for ages.) At some point we did realise this was the real deal & I called my wife.
We considered waiting until she got back but things started to get real very fast and I asked Alice to drive me to the hospital. (She was fine with this, I think.) We didn’t fully make it to the hospital and I ended up having my daughter in her (husband’s) car. We’re both fine, luckily. I had a few complications which are now okay again.
Our baby is beyond perfect and though my wife is having hard time with having missed her birth, we have a wonderful tiny human to focus on. Things have been really messed up with Alice and her husband though and I don’t know how to solve it.
Two days after all that happened I sent her a message thanking her again for everything she had done and told her (lighthearted but sincere) to please send me a bill for having the car cleaned. She didn’t reply for a while & in the end just ‘liked’ the message.
I’ve messaged her a few times since and she hasn’t replied and her husband sent me a message saying not to message her and congrats on the baby but thanks for messing up his car. I feel so lost and please don’t get me wrong, of course my priority is with my little family right now, but this does keep crossing my mind. This is so unlike her.
Her husband and I never were the closest (I don’t love how he speaks to her sometimes) but still were friendly. I don’t know how to solve this. Did I just traumatise her so much and need to leave her alone? Do I keep trying? I’m so grateful for all she’s done that day.
Here’s what people had to say to OP:
heyitsdorothyparker wrote:
Send her a check. Someone messed up my seat in my new car with body fluids. I was devastated because I couldn’t clean the alcantara. Good details can cost almost a thousand dollars (or more tbh). Get a quote from a reputable place (not mobile) and send the money.
When so much liquid is spilled it can cause mold down the road (heehee pun) because you can’t get it all out of the seats and properly dry them. It’s gonna cost more because it’s a biohazard with blood and goo. To be gentle to you, it’s not your fault, but I wanted to tell you it’s a big deal to them and actually, might even be considered totaled 🙁
OP responded:
I never realised the car might be considered totaled, I feel awful.
Most_Frosting6168 wrote:
Is her husband controlling? With his message, my bet would be he is the one that is pissed with the situation and she might be distancing herself to avoid consequences from him if she stays friend with you after you “messed up his car.”
If you want to try to clear the air with her, maybe doing it in person when her husband is not there (e.g. girls night or group gathering he is not attending) would get you a clearer picture, as he might be monitoring her texts and emails.
DreamBeanSupreme wrote:
As an auto detailer, I will say this is considered a biohazard job and will be very expensive to decontaminate and clean properly, so please be prepared for a fairly significant bill once you find someone capable and willing to take on such a job. Congrats mama, I hope you are doing good and I hope your friend is okay too.. definitely suspicious like the rest of the folks in here.
waffle_s wrote:
I also had precipitous labor at 38 weeks and gave birth at home, thankfully in the bathroom, but still a lot to clean. It’s a lot of liquid, it soaks into everything and a biohazard as well. For a car I think you should offer to pay for a forensic cleaning service and expect it to cost a few thousand dollars. They may need to do ozone treatment to get rid of the smell or to replace the carpet and the seat.
After receiving lots of support, OP jumped on with three consecutive updates.
Edit: Thank you all for the replies, this is quite overwhelming so I hope it’s okay I do this here. I’m going to try and reach out to her again but not through text, or maybe I can ask one of our mutual friends to meet up with her. I don’t know yet, but going to try and check in on her in some way.
Also we planned to pay them back since this happened, no worries. Very aware that I messed up their car in a big way. Thanks for all the replies, truly. I got a lot of great advice/insights & I’m gonna figure out my next steps.
Edit 2: I’ve reached out to her and apologised once again for everything I’ve put them through, both car and trauma wise. And said once more that I’d really like to pay to fix all of this, regardless of the cost, or if they want I can try to reach out to some professionals & try to sort everything ourselves.
Anything to make it right, as well as asking if they want me to rent them something. Though I think my sincerity in my first message (to pay evth) was clear, I don’t want to take any chances. (I will add that any other message I had sent her was very serious/worried, I never joked about paying.)
Thank you all for your comments. I feel awful about what I did to their car. I’ll make it right, as we were planning to, but try to be more proactive about it. This all has been quite overwhelming, but very needed. Thank you for taking the time to reply. I’m gonna sleep now, it’s been an emotional day.
Edit 3: She’s deleted/blocked me now, I’m at a loss. I’ll continue trying to make this right & reach out some places to get some estimates/contact insurance/so on. We’re taking this very seriously, I promise. Though I appreciate all you guys so much for helping me see how badly we dealt with this, I really need to get away from this post for a bit. Thank you all loads & good night.
Here’s what people had to say to OP’s updates.
itsmeamithesmashhol wrote:
A friend gave birth on my living room floor. Yes it was a biohazard clean. No it wasn’t cheap. Did I ghost my friend? No ma’am. In fact I handled the clean and replaced the carpet without saying a word because I could and I refused to detract from her new mom joy. I never mentioned it.
A few days after birth she had a moment of terror where she realized this was probably the case and called to ask what she could do. All I said was it was easily handled and not her worry and it was my honor to be there and deliver her baby, and not to worry. These aren’t your friends.
meudel wrote:
But…you gave birth to a human and didn’t have a choice, I don’t understand the seriousness around the cleaning even if it is expensive, how is it coming before congratulating a woman giving birth alone in a car probably scared for her life. All of this is so cold…I really don’t get it they should have comforted you post partum not make you feel bad for : giving life in a car??!!
iieetron wrote:
How BADLY you dealt with this? A natural & inevitable process? It’s not like you planned this. It’s not like holding in a poop (even if it feels like you’re about to). I’m failing to see why anyone in this situation would make you feel like you did something wrong.
Wash your hands of this. Tell people you gave birth in an uber. Enjoy your sweet family. Don’t let an AH husband and the internetosphere talk you into feeing like you handled birth poorly.
Two and a half weeks later, OP shared another update.
Hi everyone, going to try keep this short & sweet (also v tired so apologies for errors) but saw people were still responding to my original post. Thank you all for taking the time to do so, it’s been overwhelming but so needed & I’ve tried to take your advice to heart.
I saw ‘Alice’ a few days ago. She came to our house unexpectedly (I actually had just gone out, my wife had to call me), this was after she had blocked me. I know a lot of you were upset with her (and a lot of you with her guy, but we’re getting to it) but I was just so damn happy to see her I immediately started bawling, she did too.
She apologised, so did I. We had a long conversation which I’ll kinda try to summarise. Everything that happened had been a lot for her (which is so fair) & she was having a hard time processing it, but she initially didn’t feel upset with me. Her husband had been furious though. He already isn’t our biggest fan so this really set him off, at her as well.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame him for being upset about his car. But I do wish we had had different/better communication. He had been fuming we hadn’t reached out sooner after baby was born & that my first message wasn’t more apologetic.
In her words, over the weeks following everything, she started to feel angry at me/us, because he convinced her to & my messaging/reaching out then was just too much in that moment. After our silence, she realised she wasn’t upset with me but the situation, and should be relieved everyone was okay (& even asked her husband to stop bringing it up as she was sick of it.)
We agreed we really just wanted to be okay again, though she admitted she’d have to build it up slowly, because again, her husband. I also apologised again for everything and how I wish I had done things differently. She even made a small joke that she’s proud to be such a big part of her birth story, which honestly gave me more relief than anything else she’s said.
I hope she will be okay. Don’t love the guy, but I can’t do more than be her friend I think. Luckily, the car isn’t totalled (I was terrified of this and feel stupid for not realising it was an option, thank you all for pointing it out). Only the front seat where I was sitting was messed up (& TMI, my sweatpants took the worst of the mess, I guess).
Car is already cleaned/fixed (before Alice even came), he has it back & we’ve paid back everything. He doesn’t like driving it anymore. That’s all I think. Wife, baby & I are okay. (She’s a month old already, which is WILD.) I realised I do have so trauma left from the whole birth which mostly started to hit me when I wasn’t obsessing over Alice anymore, so gonna work on that.
Thank you all, for the love, the support, but also for helping me realise I should’ve done things differently. Reddit can be overwhelming, but you’ve helped me a lot.
Here’s what people had to say in response to the update:
GwentanimoBay wrote:
Your friend is trapped in a dangerous relationship. Everything you’ve written here indicates she is actively being hurt.
OP responded:
I worry if I push it now, I’ll lose contact with her again. I think rn I just need to be her friend, and I hope I’m right about that.
Ok-Sort6969 wrote:
What a piece of work the husband is. Your friend is in a dangerous relationship.
“He had been fuming we hadn’t reached out sooner after baby was born & that my first message wasn’t more apologetic.”
This would of set me off. You messaged your friend two days after the birth. God forbid you had some time to recover, his car is far more important you know?
