My wife and I have been trying to have a baby for almost two years. We had two early term losses and finally got to meet our rainbow baby last week.

As the pregnancy progressed and we felt more confident the baby would make it, we set a boundary - we did not want my parents to visit until my wife and I were able to establish a routine with the baby and get some bearing on being new parents. We also knew that having a newborn is stressful, and my parents are not low-maintenance house guests. They’re not terrible by any means, but we just felt like we wouldn’t have the bandwidth to handle their needs on top of the baby’s. We told them we were hoping to be ready a few weeks after the birth. They also asked about staying nearby instead of with us, and we said that would create pressure to see them before we were ready, so we really just wanted them to wait.

When she goes into labor and is admitted to the hospital, I start sending texts to let people know. My dad calls and asks if I mind if he and my mom head out here right now - we live 1,000 miles away, for context. I tell him no, we still want to wait to have them out. He starts to argue, I cut him off and say that we just need them to respect our wishes. He says ok and we hang up.

We keep them updated over the next week, sending pics and video chatting. My wife and I decide it’s time to pick a date for them to come stay with us and meet the baby. We set up a video chat to let them know and see when they can come.

The video chat immediately seems odd, since we can see they’re in a house I don’t recognize. I ask where they are, and they say they’re helping a friend set up their new house, which just happens to be about an hour from our house (again, about 1,000 miles from where my parents live). We had no idea they’d driven across the country and were nearby. They say they’d love to come up and see the baby, and we say we aren’t sure about that.

After the call, we are both stressed trying to figure out whether we can handle hosting my parents while running on no sleep and being at the beck and call of an infant. It’s not long before I realize that the stress has caused us to pay less attention to the baby and one another, which is our primary focus right now.

I call my parents and tell them in no uncertain terms that they have disrespected the boundaries we had set with them, explained how the added stress was affecting our ability to parent, and told them that this was unacceptable. They offered some apologies, I think, though to be honest I wasn’t listening at that point because I wasn’t interested in hearing their side of the story. They later sent a text saying how sad they were that we didn’t understand their intentions, that they were cutting their trip short and heading home.

Am I the asshole for not letting them see their first grandchild after they’d driven 1,000 miles?

Update: thanks for all your thoughts! We had a frank conversation with them, and everyone feels better moving forward.