My (30M) wife (30F) does not want to celebrate our daughter's (almost 1F) birthday. Need advice on talking to extended family.

My wife and I have been married for 6 years and have one child. It took us over two years to get pregnant so we were overjoyed at first. But pregnancy was rough for my wife (nausea, heavy fatigue, etc) and delivery no picnic either. Our daughter was healthy and we were grateful for that, but it was clear from the beginning that my wife was not in a good place. The plan was for her to take 12 weeks unpaid leave (no paid maternity leave at her job) and then put our daughter in daycare. It was so rough for her that she found a daycare to take our daughter early and went back to work after 8 weeks. She couldn't tolerate breastfeeding after a few weeks and when we decided antidepressants were what she needed, baby went to formula only. My wife also started with therapy. It was a rough road but she was really trying. I did a lot at home to help as much as I could. There were days my wife just couldn't get out of bed and so it was just me and daughter.

Another factor in all of this is that I am white and my wife is not, and from the very beginning our daughter has been extremely white passing. She looks exactly like me and my side of the family. I know this can change over time and I tell my wife this when she brings it up, but I know sometimes she looks at our daughter and thinks "is this child even mine?" She tells me sometimes she gets looks as she takes our daughter to and from daycare. Some nosy moms apparently really wanted to know where our daughter was adopted from, and if my wife was the nanny, stuff like that. I imagine it doesn't help with bonding.

Anyway, my wife has made a lot of progress with therapy and meds. I'm proud of her. She spends more time with baby and it doesn't seem as forced anymore. Sometimes I catch her smiling and reading her a story and it gives me hope.

Now the issue. Our daughter turns 1 next week. Obviously with COVID we're not having a party. But I do have a loud, boisterous family and daughter is the first grandchild. Everyone wants to Skype in and see party decorations, my daughter smash a cake, all kinds of things. My wife wants none of this. She doesn't want to celebrate at all. I'm comfortable hosting some kind of party on my own but they'll all ask where wife is and they are not privy to her PPD. How can we best handle this situation?

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tl;dr: My wife is slowly getting over PPD but doesn't want to celebrate daughter's first birthday. Need to prepare an excuse for my nosy family.

Submitted October 31, 2020 at 04:33PM by Ok-Owl-3862 https://ift.tt/320rnkd