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• Death by 1000 cuts, 1 month ago

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Two words. Information. Diet.

I would not tell her anything until you are two weeks postpartum. You and DH need that time to get into a rhythm and for your body to heal before you have to deal with her.

All of this. Everything everyone is telling you to do, DO. I’d also suggest giving hospital security her picture.

*hugs*

Let's play it by ear I don't care about waiting I'm your mother -ill just wait in a corridor or downstairs I promise I won't sneak in (wink wink) and put me down as your partner encase your husband faints

"That's good, because if you did that, the first time you meet LO will be the day they leave for college."

I don't mind I'll wait

"I mind, so no, you won't."

waiting hours? Just try and let them stop me

"They will stop you. They will call security to escort you out, and I will let them, because you are ignoring my boundaries"

Set those boundaries in stone and make sure the L&D crew know that no one - especially your mother - is allowed to visit. My understanding is they love being given carte blanc to boot out fractious family member.

And shut down the staying with you to "help".

She is going to be butthurt. Accept that now and consider it an acceptable price for your sanity and autonomy, and tell your parents that if they don't accept your boundaries, they won't be allowed to have a relationship with your child.

Good luck!

If it's a C-section, lie about the date. If it's normal, don't tell her you've gone into labor. You can notify them a few days later or when you are already home. Remember that you are not obligated to have your mother at the birth or have visitors.

Oh yes, you can also notify the maternity ward that you don't want anyone other than your husband in labor and the maternity ward will do the job of stopping them.

If mum isn’t respecting your rules right now, she’s not going to respect your rules later. You will eventually have to have a conversation about her respecting you as a mother now not a child under her wing and especially your partners role as a father.

My mother was the same, she did show up at the hospital and the hospital kicked her out thankfully. She kept snatching the baby from my partner even when he said no he was fine with holding out LO, and that was the last straw for me.

It's time for a sit down with your DH to work out, between you two only, how you want visiting to be once baby arrives. Then you email/message/text everyone that this is how it will be - no exceptions.

The list could look something like:

• The following list applies to everyone - no exceptions!
• No visits at hospital unless we call you & ask you to come - no call = no visit. If you show up, you will not be allowed in. No one will know when OP is in labour.
• No posting photo's of baby or their arrival on social media. Our baby, our announcement.
• We will not be hosting overnight visitors at our house or having anyone stay to "help".
• Visits will be limited to 30min - 1 hour, once or twice a week, at a mutually agreed time at least 48 hours beforehand. If you arrive late, the visit still ends on time. No exceptions.
  
• All drop ins, unannounced visits or "I thought I'd pop in as I'm in the area, have food to drop off, need to use your bathroom" excuses will be met with a locked, closed door and your next planned visit cancelled.
  
• No kissing baby. Anywhere.
• All vaccines must be up to date before visiting.
• No feeding, dressing or bathing baby without our permission
• If you are holding baby, and we ask for baby back, baby will be immediately handed over. No walking off with baby to another room or out the front door
• We will be following what our medical team advise. We will ask for help, or for advice from you if we feel we need it.
• We don't mind if you don't agree with this list, but we do mind if you don't respect them. Anyone found trying to break/bend/skirt, or just not accepting these boundaries, will have their visit/phone call ended immediately. Complaining or arguing will result in the next scheduled visit cancelled. Arguing beyond that will result in a time out from our family for 2 months. We know people are excited for our baby's arrival - we are too! - but your excitement does not trump our new parenthood experience.

Starting from now, take longer between answering calls or text messages. Stretch it out so no one can guess when you're in labour and turn up to the hospital. Tell people you are taking a break from social media/texting/phone calls/visits in these last couple of weeks to spend time as a couple before baby arrives, so they shouldn't expect immediate texts or phone answering. And of course you'll tell them when baby is here, so they don't need to call to see if you're still pregnant.

Then don't call anyone when you're in labour.

Let people know that baby is here, after you've had your golden hour. If Mum or Dad say anything, tell them you're not doing this now, and hang up. Don't explain, don't justify, don't argue or defend your actions.

If you're not wholly comfortable hanging up or not saying anything, speak to your Dad and tell him that this moment is about you, & your needs, not your mother's wants or expectations. So no, they won't be in the waiting room, your husband isn't going to faint, so she won't be in the labour room on the off chance, and you will not be telling them when you go into labour. And she will not be staying with you afterward. There will be no more discussion about it.

Ensure Location sharing is turned off for all family and friends.

a couple extra paranoid suggestions: make sure she's not tracking you or DH on your cell phones; make sure she hasn't stuck any air tags on your cars or luggage; don't park your car in the hospital parking lot where she can drive by and see it. in fact, leave your car at home in the driveway and get a friend (or Uber) to take you to the hospital.

There's a thing called "crotch watch" where interested parties will call or message routinely near the end of the pregnancy, and the naive couple routinely respond rather quickly as they have been trained by their parents. When the routine message is not responded to as usual, they know that the parents-to-be are likely at the hospital. They will then swoop in even uninvited. 

Don't answer messages or calls routinely or right away anymore.   You're busy and don't need to answer to anyone.   

Register as private with your hospital. Tell the labor & delivery nurses that you don’t want any visitors. Tell them your MIL is stomping this boundary. L&D nurses will NOT put up with any BS from MIL!

Idk about where you are but most hospitals have some kind of protocol for keeping unwanted people out. Call and find out what you can do to limit your room to no visitors. Then it doesnt matter if she shows up. Shes not getting in.

DO NOT CALL ANYONE WHEN YOU GO INTO LABOR!!

Your husband will be there to support you and you will be surrounded by medical professionals. Your mother's "help" is not wanted and nor is it going to be necessary.

Don’t tell her when you go into labor. In fact, wait until you are home and rested before calling her

Yeah my MiL has spent years trying to get me out of the picture so she could move in with my wife and raise our kids in my stead. She has no savings (literally the worst at money management I have ever seen). She is close to retirement and likely assumes she will be moving in once she no longer has income and can’t afford an apartment. The sad thing is she nearly succeeded. Pushed wife and I to the brink of divorce, but we rallied with a lot of therapy and hard conversations. I know that being this close to giving birth you are likely not at your emotionally strongest, so no advice I can give will really help. Future comments like “if husband faints” should be shut down when and if you feel able, as it’s disrespectful to him to joke that he can’t handle the birth of his child and to stay strong in support of you during your time of need. Your mom is trying to usurp his role here from how this sounds, which you admit yourself. I would maybe tell her one last time “I said no, I am not going to say it again because it is causing me stress during a time that is not healthy for me or the baby. Either respect my answer or don’t come see the baby at all. It’s up to you.”

Please do not tell her when you've gone into labor. Don't tell her which hospital unless she already knows.

Make sure all of the hospital staff are aware of your wishes. Ask them to keep everyone but your husband out of your room.

Lie and say you almost had the baby in the car on the way and there was no warning and no time to call. It can happen, happened to me! Maybe you will almost have your baby in the car and won’t have to lie! Maybe you forgot your phone at home. Maybe you were having such strong contractions you mentally went to another universe. Maybe they gave you morphine and it knocked you until until you were pushing. Who knows. Your mom won’t. Enjoy your peaceful labour alone with your husband! Wait a couple hours after you give birth to tell anyone too. The nurses will cover for you, they love that stuff

Tell her nothing. Tell the hospital everything: you don't want her there, she is pushy and interfering, no she can't send Dad in either. If husband is on your side, he can be there. Don't tell her when you are discharged. Once home, keep the door locked until you are well enough to deal with her, and to have hubby throw her out when you're tired or fed up. If she has a key, decide whether you want to get new locks or a door chain or both.

This is your home, your baby and your sanity. Now it's your rules.

flat out tell your mother that if she shows up at the hospital, or any other place you don’t want her to be, it will be 6 months minimum until she will be able to see your child, in person. Say this forcefully and then stick to it if she shows up.

If you don’t start being in control of your life and newborn, your mother will absolutely ruin you new born experience. Don’t let her.

Don’t tell them when you go into labour. They don’t need to know until you’re ready to see them.

Don’t tell them you are in labor.

Start now by turning off, or ignoring phone calls and texts for hours or days at a time. At different times not always consistent.

Because otherwise she will assume that since you aren’t answering, you are in labor.

So, throw her off guard. Stop sharing info.

I agree with all the others, take extra precautions. I would add sending a very clear text in a group chat with your spouse and both parents. Something along the lines

"mom, I know you are holding out hope that you will be in the hospital room during my labor. I'm worried you are getting your hopes up for no reason. Hubby and my medical team are the only ones who will see me or the baby in the hospital. This will not change, for any reason.

While I cannot tell you where you can and can't go, you should know the hospitals labor and delivery area had very tight security. Unless you have authorization to be there, you won't be granted access. Hubby is the only person who will have that access to my room.

I am about to be a new mom and I'm going to make a lot of decisions, some of which you might not agree with. That's okay, but I expect you accept that these are our decisions to make. If you continue to push me to change my mind on decisions I've already decided on, then I will need to limit our time spent together until I figure out this parenting thing. I do not want this to happen, but I don't need to spend this much time and energy convincing you to approve of my decisions nor argue back and forth. I want this transition to be full of peace and joy, I hope you want the same. "

I mean, how’re they going to be there if they don’t know you’re there? So many of these people forget that they literally can’t just inform you of how things will be because the only way they’ll know you’re in labour is if you tell them. So don’t. I really don’t like how both your parents are already makes excuses and looking for loopholes on her being in the room. There’s no “LETS play it by ear”, because it’s not a group decision. You said you don’t want her there and they’re already ignoring you, this absolutely looks like her plan to get in there one way or another 

My husband is a fainter at blood and he did just fine

"Ok dad, if you can control mom, start doing it now or I'm going to take a break from you both until I'm out of the fourth trimester and feel adequately ready to deal with Mom's shit again".

Let the hospital know who you want there with you. Tell them you do not want anyone else around. Tell the staff at the hospital that no one is to be told you are a patient and that you do not want ANY visitors before, during or after delivery. They deal with situations just like this all the time and are very good at respecting you wishes and guarding your privacy. If your Mom pull the line "but I am her mother! I need/deserve/am entitled to know what is going on!", she will be shut down. When you go to hospital, you are the star of the show and you are the director, your wish is their command. Take a deep breath and know they will follow your plan unless you tell them differently. Congratulations and good luck!!

You need to start dramatically reducing the frequency that you text her. Don’t respond for hours and steadily stretch it out to 24-48 hours, or more. Otherwise she will suspect immediately if you go into labor and don’t tell her. Start setting boundaries now and let her know explicitly she should not take time off. It sounds like your intuition is already strongly telling you she will hinder your birth and recovery. Listen to that and keep her away! Good luck OP.

Don't tell her when you go to the hospital. Make sure that you inform the nursing staff that your parents might be a problem and you do not want them there.

Fainting in the delivery room is something from old time TV, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, not reality.

Don't answer your phone---let the hospital know no visitors unless on a specific list. Ask to be admitted under an alias which they can do so your mother will get no info.

Put her on an info diet---make sure you also don't give info to any flying monkeys who will give her info.

Make sure you and your partner sit down ahead of time and discuss boundaries and have your husband mute her in his phone so he does not feel pressured to answer her

They really want your husband passed out on the floor. 🙄

I hope he knows he has to be the opposite of your weak enabler father and keep his family protected during this important and vulnerable time.

If your mom is used to you answering your phone right away, a delayed response time when you go into labor might tip her off. Start now to not answer her calls the minute she calls. Don't answer her call for half a day when you are just relaxing at home and see if she assumes you are in labor and she races to the hospital.

"toxic positivity" is a brilliant term.

Ooof!

Your hospital should be able to register you privately. Ideally,  this means that they won't even confirm that you're there, and they won't provide status to callers.  You can also add to your birth plan that nobody is allowed to visit who is not on the approved list. And call out that your parents are specifically NOT approved,  and should not be permitted anywhere near you or your child. 

After you leave the hospital,  you'll need to hold a very firm line,  or she'll be right down the middle of everything.  Keep your doors locked,  make sure that she doesn't have access to a key,  and get a doorbell camera,  so that you don't need to approach the door to check who's knocking.  Keep her visiting schedule limited to whatever you can deal with, and if she shows up uninvited,  don't answer the door.  

Also,  tell her in advance that due to your new baby, you're going to be keeping your phone on mute,  so that you can focus on getting everyone's sleep schedule settled. The last thing you need is to have to be juggling constant calls and texts while you're trying to get LO fed, or down for a nap. Not to mention sleeping yourself. 

OP, You are right, your Mum is going to be a right royal pain, to you, your DH & the hospital staff. If you are in the US, & I will assume in Western Countries,  your overly excited Mum can be kept away from L&D, first by the L&D nurses, then hospital security can trespass her from the hospital.  

So I suggest you get a really good photo of both of your parents, give copy #1 to your OB/Gynies office, copy # 2 to the admitting clerk, copies  #3& 4 to the desk & the nurses who will take care of you.  Register no visitors/restricted visitors.

Good luck OP, has your Mom's tried to suck your life events into herself before?

You need to put her in her place (via text and NOT via phone call) and tell her you will not be tolerating any visitors while in the hospital and that if she shows up she will be escorted out by security. If she throws a tantrum, ignore her. Don't answer phone calls. Block her if necessary.

Make it clear to her, and set consequences.

"We will tell you when we are ready for visitors. Any attempts to visit before we are ready will result in you waiting two weeks longer. As it stands now, I will be giving security your photo and telling them that you are not welcome to visit us in the hospital."

If she tries to get into the room, call security. If she shows up at your house, keep the door locked and tell her to leave. If she refuses, call the police. The only way she will learn is if she faces consequences for her actions. I would also warn your father that she is in danger of ruining the relationship if he doesn't get her under control.

Don't tell anyone when you go into labour; keep it to just yourself and your husband. And tell the medical team that no-one is invited in to the labour ward.