My mom is jealous of my MIL

I’m an only child and new mom to an 8 month old baby. She came 6 weeks early and we spent about a month in the NICU. While in the NICU we learned she had two heart defects which just got repaired a month ago. In the midst of all of this my MIL was going through a devastating divorce and my husband recently started a new career as a lawyer. To say it’s been an emotionally draining year would be an understatement.

My parents live out of state but close enough to do weekend trips. They have been coming up about once a month for a night or two to visit. They aren’t super helpful when they’re here but I know they are showing up in the only ways they know how, and I’m ok with that. When they aren’t here we call, text, FaceTime, and send pictures/videos fairly regularly. We typically spend most holidays and birthdays together too. I haven’t gone and visited them yet given my daughter’s medical issues, but they are now fixed and she’s doing great so we’re planning to go visit them for a week at the end of the summer.

While in the hospital during my daughter’s surgery it was my mom’s 70th birthday. We usually go and visit but obviously given the circumstances we couldn’t do that. I gave her a call to wish her a happy birthday, but didn’t get around to sending her anything which I realize I should have done, but just didn’t have the bandwidth to think about. She did have a celebration with family and friends at home.

Two weeks after we got home from the hospital it was my MILs birthday. We were able to go over to her house to celebrate and my husband picked up a house warming gift as she just moved. She lives much closer and regularly helps out with the baby so we do see her a lot. My mom found out and told me she was hurt that she didn’t get anything for her birthday, and that she feels overlooked often. Although I can understand how she would feel that way, it was frustrating to hear as she knew what we were dealing with. I shared my frustrations and she got super defensive saying things like “well I guess I just won’t tell you how I feel” which obviously is not what I want. I was just trying to express that it didn’t seem fair to put that on me with all that we were going through.

I think she’s just jealous of my MIL and all the time we get to spend with my husband’s family. Has anyone else dealt with this? This is all new territory and I’m not sure what more to do to make sure my mom feels included.