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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/Apprehensive-Knee243 on 2023-07-29 13:45:12.

My wife and I have a 3 year old son and we’re expecting our second child next year. Both our children were conceived via IVF. We spent years trying for our first with no success and it took 4 cycles of IVF to have him. It was brutal on my wife. But we both felt like trying for biological children was the way to go for us. We tried naturally for a second child after our first turned 1 but had zero luck. We were left with the money for one cycle of IVF which we decided to pursue if we didn’t have any luck naturally, which we didn’t.

Around a year ago my wife and I were gearing up to start the ball rolling on our IVF journey when my sister came and asked if she could have the money to try IVF herself. My sister has no bio kids but does have an 11 year old stepson. She has endometriosis and PCOS and has never been able to have a child. Her stepson is not very close to her and they’ve had problems with him since the start of their marriage. Her stepson has always brought up the fact his dad married again too soon after his mom died and how my sister is trying to replace her. He ran away from home three times already. They also had the police and CPS on their door because he tried to get removed from their care. Our main reason for saying no is we wanted to give our son a sibling. But I can’t lie and say that the dynamic in her home was on my mind too. And I wasn’t sure it was a good idea to bring a new baby into their home when things are as bad as they are. She was very upset with me for turning her down. She said she has no kids and we already have one and we’d give her a chance if we gave her the money. I shut her down. I told her my answer was no and it was final.

We waited for my wife to be far enough along before announcing our last IVF cycle worked. We did this at a family dinner. Everyone was so happy for us except for my sister and her husband. She started making snarky comments about how it was no big deal when we already had a kid. I told her given our struggles it was a big deal. Our parents told her she should be happy for us. She then starts ranting and raving about how selfish we are to deny her motherhood and to deny her and her husband the chance to have a family together. Our other sister pointed out about her stepson. She told her she’s not his mother and he hates her guts so it’s not like she’ll ever get any joy out of mothering him. I told her I was sorry she could not have a kid of her own but she didn’t get to demand we sacrifice a second child for her. She then told me I held her stepson against her. I told her I couldn’t say that it hadn’t crossed my mind that bringing a child into what is already a complicated mess would be a bad idea. But that it was beside the point because we wanted another child. She told me I was an asshole for humiliating her in front of the whole family and picking a fight with her. I told her she picked the fight, not me.

But I did engage so AITA?