my big dilemma

So here’s my big dilemma, I am really struggling with this one…

Now that we are approaching having a date for the delivery – we will have to tell people the date once it’s scheduled.

J and I both feel like we’d really like some time with the new babies alone, before anyone else is around. We went through so much to get here, I think those first few hours and days will be very emotional for us. It’s a huge turning point for us – finally the end of that long and painful journey to have a live, healthy baby. It was a journey that we travelled just the two of us, so sad and emotional and painful at times. And we were in it together – even though other people knew about it, they didn’t experience it like we did. And these first moments with our new babies, they are something that we both feel like we don’t want to share.

But as soon as my mom knows the date, she will book herself a ticket. I don’t think I can tell her not to. She wouldn’t understand. If we were waiting to just go into labor, it might be different – although she’s already said that she would get on a plane as soon as she heard I was in labor. And since we will have a date scheduled ahead of time, there’s no avoiding it.

She can’t be in the room for the actual birth – they only allow 1 support person in the OR, and we don’t plan on asking for more. But she’ll want to be waiting right outside the door and be in the recovery room so she can see the babies as soon as they come out of the OR – we won’t have any time with the babies alone, except for the few minutes we get in the OR before they take us all to recovery.

I had hoped that her trip to Switzerland might solve things – she leaves for Switzerland on the 30th to go see my sister and her new baby. I had said that she didn’t need to come here first, because she’s coming here straight from switz on her way back. But she said “oh no, I gotta get my hands on those babies”. She said she was coming here first, even if it was only for a day. And it’s not about coming to help us – it’s about getting her hands on the babies. She never asked whether I wanted her to come for the birth – it’s just always been a fact in her mind, that she would be here. Because she must see the babies immediately – like she has to be first.

And don’t get me wrong – my mother is an amazing, generous, wonderful person – practically saintly. But she’s very, I don’t know .... Forceful? Stubborn? Opinionated? Determined? Controlling? None of those words are quite right. She tends to not really understand why I would ever feel differently about something than she does – because of course she’s always right. Wanting or believing or feeling something different equates to disagreeing with her. And she does not like to be disagreed with. The only problem with the fact that my mother is practically a saint is that… well… she knows it. And she expects to be treated as such – she expect that you will always agree with her and always want what she wants.

She will be a huge help when she is here for a few weeks in October. It’s just those first few days, or even hours. We feel like those are moments we don’t want to share. We really want that special bonding time alone. We know that handling two babies will be hard, and we really want to accept the help that both our mothers are offering, we just want a tiny bit of time alone with them first.

I just don’t know what to do. I don’t know that there’s any way I could say something to her without irrevocably hurting her feelings. So what do I do? Do we just suck it up and know that we will have a few days alone with the babies after she leaves for Switzerland? Is it as simple as just telling her that while we will love to have her here, it will be important to us to have some time alone with the babies the first few days? Would she respect that? Or not understand it? or dismiss it? Can I just tell her what day we would like her to arrive? I guess maybe I could take that approach – and if we are having the surgery on the 24th, just tell her that we’d like her to be here on the 26th. But she might just say no – that she wants to be here on the 24th. Then what do I do. Oh boy… it stresses me out.

J has offered to have the conversation with her – but I don’t think that would work. She would just end up pissed off at him, and then I’d have to hear about it forever.

We have a little time – since the hospital won’t actually ‘officially’ book the c-section until 2 weeks in advance, we won’t officially have a date until then (even though the doc said we could book any day we wanted). So we can wait to say anything until it’s actually booked.

At my baby shower – my friend brought her 6 week old baby. My mother was not at all interested in sharing the baby with anyone else. She did not offer to let anyone else hold the baby, and you could tell from the look on her face that she was not interested in letting that baby go. Another friend finally just asked her outright if she could hold the baby – and of course my mother couldn’t say no then, that would have been rude. I fear this is how she will be with my babies. I fear that J will hardly get to hold his own babies because my mother will be hogging them. I have been joking that it’s a good thing we’re having two – because otherwise we would never get to hold our own baby while my mother was around, and at least since there’s two there will be one for her to hold and one for everybody else. I joke about it – but really I’m afraid this is what will happen.

And then don’t even get me started about how she’s going to tell us exactly how to do everything…. Because of course she’s the expert on babies.