To think it's not me who's the weird one?

[yellowflowers]

My mum has just told me she thinks my approach to birth was weird and my sister in law's more normal.

That is I didn't tell my mum I was in labour as I didn't want her to be hanging by the phone or pestering me for updates or worrying if it took a long time - we rang her about half an hour after the birth to give her the good news and she visited me that day.

On other hand my bro and sil gave her a blow by blow account, when waters broke, when contractions 5 mins apart etc.

Doesn't matter, just I assumed my way was normal. Am I wrong/unreasonable?

Op I think you are missing the point your mum really wants to make. She felt left out and like she missed out. It is totally about her and she's forgetting that labour is about tge woman and tge baby.

Of course-because OP, you have only become a mother, whereas you mum, has become the more important GM

If there had been time I'd have asked dh to tell my mum if I needed a cs, but otherwise to me it was a private thing. My mother, as much as I love her, is a flapper and I wouldn't have wanted her near me or hanging on the phone waiting. As it turned out, the latter is what happened! Personally I find it odd to consider telling them when I went into labour, or wanting anyone else bar DH with me.

I didnt tell my mum, and I warned her I wouldn't. She was a bit put out beforehand, but after the birth she said she realised it was a good thing, as I was in labour for 24 hours, and it was complicated, so she would have spent the whole time worrying - or DH would have had to be continually leaving me to go and update her.

We phoned her first though, right after the birth. At 4am.

I went in in the middle of Christmas night - my parents would both have been drunk at home, a couple of hundred miles away from us. DH's parents would also have been at home a couple of hundred miles away from us. There was no point in worrying them at that point, and DD had arrived by morning so they were the first to hear, within 20 minutes both.

The people who might have had an inkling were my grandparents - as I had had dinner in their house and started having contractions almost 3 hours before I could escape. I eventually pleaded exhaustion when they were starting to get a bit more intense. My aunt, new mother of the beaming and wide awake 5 month old on the floor, was sitting beside me on one side, and my uncle, a priest who's seen a lot of labouring and new parents, was on the other side. And in all the group of 15 or so, no one else realised at all (even DH took more than an hour to realise, and I had been trying to signal him for quite a lot of that).

It worked for us, and that was the important thing at that point - we were on our own timetable, no one else's (and even trying to avoid the hospital timetable - although cos I was relaxed, I managed that part :) )

I agree with diddl - one of the (many ) things on Mumsnet that totally amazes me is how intertwined some women's lives are with their own mother's life - perhaps because I do not live physically near my DM we do not have that sort of relationship - we are fond of each other but we have our own lives and respect our own 'space'. . I don't have a DD but when my DS is older I really can't imagine wanting to know every detail of his life.

Why on earth tell people something which may give them cause to worry? Much better to call with the good news when it is all over