NWR: Baby Related, Looking for Some Insight and Advice

ohmrs2014

banana468 said:

lyndausvi said:

I was thinking about this thread and realized I didn't even tell my mom I was having a biopsy on my right breast.    

Reason?  My  mom and sister both have cysts in the breast.  It's not uncommon to have one of them biopsied after the first mammogram in order to establish what is normal.   It's pretty common in my family to have these cysts.  Since I knew my family history I didn't feel the need to worry people over what might just be a cysts.  Sure enough, it was just a cyst.  Afterwards I told my mom and sister.    The conversation was like this "hey, I had a biopsy on my right breast.  Just like you, I have a cyst they wanted to make sure was a cyst.  Now they want to put that titanium chip near the cyst so they will know it's already biopsied.    Have you had that?  Did it hurt?"   That was about it.  No hard feelings.    

I'm very much a "let me find out the facts before telling others" type person.   I forget who posted the "stop me" thread but I know quite a few people  (including myself) who hears some symptoms and runs to google to "research".     Even though I have a family history of cysts in the breast, some people will hear biopsy and decide I have stage 4 cancer.  

 I would be like "slow down those horses people.  Let's find out first before you start picking out my new boobs after my double mastectomy."  Nope,  I don't think it's condescending  to wait to know the facts before releasing some information to people.  

That's the point I was making with my labor experience.

When you're having a baby, it's extremely rare to have a labor experience that's what you see on television.   It's often a long process, doesn't "feel" like something intense from the start and especially with a first baby, it can take a LONG (meaning days) time.   

So looking back, I could have called my family to say, "Labor is starting!" on Friday morning.   It would have been nearly a day before baby #2 was out.   And it isn't like the family didn't know that things were happening because I was over due.

I needed the quiet time to be able to focus on making things progress. 

They definitely don't need to know when my labor is starting.  You could be in labor for a day before needing to head to the hospital or birthing center.  My parents just requested a courtesy call when I am admitted to the hospital for labor so that they know to expect a call about a birth in the future.  Which is completely fine with me, because I know they aren't driving up to wait at the hospital.  

DH and I have been working on our birth plan and part of the plan is to labor at home for as long as possible with the hope that I am not in labor and delivery for hours and hours, but I can't predict what will happen so all of that is very much still up in the air, especially now with the possibility of being induced earlier is on the table.

The other part of the birth plan that we have come up with in terms of visitors is that I want at least 4 hours in the postpartum room with just the three of us before even entertaining the idea of visitors, because again, its all going to depend on how I'm feeling and what the labor is like for me.  But I am still hoping that I will be able to call people when I'm ready and not have people in the waiting room hounding us to come in and visit.

mileybangerz

This thread is crazy long.  Good grief.  I was hoping that there was quality drama going on in here ... like BSJB came back or something. 

YogaSandy

bostonbride2015 said:

ohmrs2014 said:

I would never do anything to cut any grandparent out and my MIL could very well be feeling like that.  But it is true, as a female, I tend to run to my parents first.  

And the way I worded the no visitors for a week was more like "I would prefer to bond and such on our own with no outside interference, but things may change.  For right now, this is what I  want."  My parents weren't too happy, but they understood because when I was first born they had visitors that first week and it drove them crazy so with my sister, they learned and basically did what I would like to do.  His mom and sister were so upset, but DH agrees with me on this.  Right now, there is a little bit of an understanding that if anyone comes to visit, I will be the sole one to be with baby.  His mom looks at it more like, if there's laundry I'll come grab it, if you need dinner, I'll bring it or cook it, which is great, but these are also things I would like to try to manage on my own while taking care of a baby.  But I would never "ban" either set of grandparents.  Its just what I would prefer right now.  

My MIL during wedding planning had the mindset of "what you want or need, let us know and we will help" which was great because it was my parents that were the overbearing, I can't deal with them right now.  It seems now the tables have turned.

So your mother in law is offering free food and housecleaning while you're recovering from childbirth, and you're rejecting that offer?

I'm sorry.  I will never understand this mentality.  I get that you want to manage things on your own.  But you will have years to do that, and the vast majority of that time you will not be managing a major life transition while simultaneously recovering from an incredibly physically and emotionally strenuous experience.  Your IL's family is offering you help.  You will more than likely need it.  This is what family is for.  Accept it.

After this baby is born, you will be sleep deprived.  There will be all sorts of crazy things going on with your hormones.  You may or may not be recovering from major surgery depending on whether you have a c-section, and even if you aren't, physically you will be recovering from an extremely strenuous experience, and you will likely be sore and in pain.  You will be trying to figure out how to care for this new tiny human in your life.  And on top of all of this, you have an anxiety disorder that will likely make juggling all of this even more difficult.  Why are you turning down an offer to help you with this transition?  You don't get a medal for doing this all on your own.  There's no prize for turning down help, and and accepting it doesn't mean that you're a lesser wife or lesser mother.  You will not bond with your baby less if you let your MIL do a load of laundry or drop off dinner.  In fact, you will probably be able to bond with your baby MORE, because you will be better rested and nourished and thus better able to attend to her needs.

I get that you want plenty of alone time to bond with your baby.  It's totally reasonable to not want a house full of family the entire first week that you are home.  And limiting (LIMITING, not banning) visitors, including family members, is totally fine.  But your position sounds a little extreme to me, and frankly it sounds like you are setting yourself up for a very difficult first few days.

And regarding the favoritism you seem to be showing your mother--please, PLEASE be sensitive to this.  My mother is on the "lesser grandparent" end with my nephew, and it kills me to hear the hurt in her voice when she talks about how hard she has to try to get time in with her grandson.  She's very careful not to be too pushy about it, but it's difficult for her when newphew's parents always seem to run to the other grandparents first and the allocation of time is so unequal.  Don't do that to your FI's family.

I've only read this far so far. I am a firm believer that DS is no one's responsibility but mine and DH. I too wanted to do everything myself. DS was not my mom's or MIL's responsibility. DH and I were the only ones to make the choice to have him, so no one else should be inconvenienced. Of course our families all wanted him.

I lasted about four weeks. I was a wreck - later treated for PPD. DS had colic (oh my god, the colic). DH had a fatal illness (not fatal if treated, but very rare and difficult to diagnose), but we didn't know what it was at the time. I went to my NP because of the colic, because I thought something had to be wrong with him. She told me I'm very independent and stubborn (I already knew that) but it was time to ask for help. I called both my mom and MIL. I was basically just eating whatever I could shove in my mouth - so many cookies (that night I was eating frozen pasta sauce as chilli). My mom moved in with me that night. She asked if things were that bad why didn't I call earlier. I told her because DS was my responsibility and I knew she had other things going on. She told me (as did my dad later) to smarten up and not be so silly. After DH got medivaced out, I moved in with my parents for three weeks. I cried because I thought DS would think my mom was his mom, not me. Again, she told me not to be so silly. On what turned out to be the last night of colic (also the worst) my dad wouldn't let my mom wake me up. He walked and walked with DS. He told my mom, "How in the hell did YogaSandy do this by herself for so long?"

Moral of the story - I get it. I'm the same way. Really though, it only made things much harder on me. Yeah, I had a couple of big issues in there that not everyone has, but you never know what is going to happen. I wouldn't have survived without all the help I got.

As for the waiting room - no. But, I don't think it will cause more anxiety at the time. When you're in hard labour, you're not thinking about anything else. At all. Well, I did have an incredible urge to bite down on DH's finger, like they did in old western movies when someone is having surgery (on a strap not a finger). And I laughed when my doctor told me he wasn't going to tell the yoga teacher how to breathe. Those were my only other two thoughts at all.

themosthappy91

nerdwife said: @huskypupp14 and @redwoodoriginal: I respect your opinions but I just think you should never keep health problems from your family (assuming that you have relationships with them, of course). I think it's kind of condescending to decide that adult family members couldn't handle hearing it, and there are problems with keeping these kind of things from children that are way outside the scope of this post. That's just a fundamental disagreement. 

BOXBOXBOXBOXBOXBOX

If and when you do return to this thread, nerdwife, I think the bolded is why you are getting the responses you've gotten. You didn't say "I would never keep health problems from my family" or "In families with relationships like mine we don't keep health problems from each other"- your statement was considerably more bold, saying that "you" i.e. general you i.e. everyone should never keep health problems (which in this case is really a way of saying, anything happening with you medically, as you acknowledged that "health problem" was not the appropriate phrase) from their families. 

It may be your opinion that no one should ever do that, but it is also factually wrong. It is a fact that anyone is perfectly within their rights to not tell anyone else personal medical information, and there can be a myriad of reasons why that is the right choice for them. Maybe they aren't close, maybe their families would overreact, maybe the stress of having others know would worsen their condition- valid reasons for not telling your family something about your health go on and on and on. 

It's totally fine to say to the OP "I don't think it's a good idea to not tell your IL's when you go into labor because what if something goes wrong"- and that's truly what I believe you were trying to say. You just got into trouble when you started making statements with broader applications than the specific scenario in front of us right now that we're all weighing in on.