I know this probably isn't the right group to post this. I posted it in the right group earlier, but I never get responses in that group and deleted it.

I know this is a long post, but please read it and give me some advice if you can. As a warning, this I will be rambling, but hopefully my point comes across.

Long story short, my dad left when I was around 9 years old, a couple years after my parents divorced. After that, I think my siblings and I saw his side of the family once for Christmas. After that, they never invited us to holidays or other family gatherings. I kind of stopped considering them family after a couple years. When I was in middle school, apparently my dad was living with his parents for a little while because he was struggling. They decided they did not want to help him anymore and sent him to the streets. When I was in high school, my mom let him move back in with us for about a year. Well fast forward to when I was 19. My grandpa messaged me on Facebook asking if I knew where my dad is. Over the years I had heard some stories about my grandpa and the way he treated my dad while he was living with them. In short, he's a selfish asshole. So when he messaged me, I asked him why he cared to know where he was (I didn't even know where he was). I was kind of pissed because after all these years and my grandpa never reached out to me, the first time I hear from him he's looking for information. No hello, how have you been, or anything like that. Anyway, he responded with a long spiel. We went back and forth for a little bit and I ended up cussing him out. At one point I brought up the fact that I haven't heard from him in years and all of a sudden, now that I may have info that would be useful to him, he reaches out. His response was that I could have reached out too, so trying to make me share the blame. He seriously expected a child to reach out and try to be included with the family? After that he and one of my cousins deleted me on Facebook. Oh well. My cousin actually refriended me a few months ago.

So over the last year or so, my older sister has reconnected with our dad and he has come to a couple holidays. I have a harder time letting him back in because he missed out on so much of my life. I'm just used to living a fatherless life. So my husband and I have been TTC for 3 years now (no one on that side of the family has met my husband other than my dad). With the help of our Dr, I will hopefully be pregnant by the end of the year. I am still friends with one of my aunts and a few cousins on Facebook. So I started thinking about it over the last few days. I know when I do become pregnant and post our announcement on Facebook, they will see it and I have a strong feeling they will want to reconnect to be in the baby's life. I really don't have an issue with my aunt and cousins. I'm sure my grandpa has brainwashed them and that's why they don't reach out either. But my baby would be the first great grandchild on that side. There's only one cousin who would even be remotely close to starting a family, but I still don't think she would be getting pregnant any time soon. So this baby would kind of be a big deal.

My dilemma is, when they reach out wanting to be included in my baby's life (which I know they will), do I let them? Part of me thinks absolutely not, because they had no interest in being in my life, so why should I allow them in my child's? Another part of me wants to reconnect so my child can grow up knowing all of their family. I grew up not really knowing my mom's dad's side of the family and it was kind of weird. It made my family so small and I felt as though I was missing out on a whole part of me. Like I said before (I think lol), the only person I really have an issue with is my grandpa, but I think we could move pass it at some point. I'm not going to go out of my way to reconnect, but if they were to reach out to me when I am pregnant/have my baby, I would consider it.

I know I have a bit of time before I would actually have to worry about this (even if I do conceive this month, we won't be announcing until 16 weeks), or it could still take a while for me to get pregnant. I just want to think about this and hopefully have my mind made up before I have to deal with it. I just want to be prepared.