To think that just because DH doesnt come to appointments midwives shouldnt assume hes a waste of space?

[Dirtydishesmakemesad]

I have had alot of appoitments this pregnancy, I have been in hospital numerous times and had many scans. I have gone to them all alone. Dh and I have our own company and we also have 4 children 7 and under with no babysitters and no car to easily transport us around to hospitals/clinics.

I have no problem with going to the appointments alone, this was obciously gogin to be the case from the start - they are boring and i am perfectly capable of travelling in a taxi the 15 minutes to the hospital and back again.Dh HAS to keep working (he works at home) he cant take time all the time, there is no sick pay, no holiday pay etc if he doesnt finish the work there is no money. He is also more use to us looking after the other children than cluttering up a hospital waiting room along with the youngest during the day.

Everytime i go to the hospital especially the midwives and sonographers have made comments about dh isnt very involved in the pregnancy or asking if he is the babys father or the best one yet "did he want a vasectomy instead of a baby then" which was from a midwife on the labour ward. Volunteers were sent to visit me on the ward because dh didnt choose to stay all day after bringin my overnight bag - it was pretty humiliating to have two elderly women who i had never met sit with me...they were lovely but i felt a bit ridiculous.

He will be there for the birth - and i have met these people multiple times over the last few months so they know me by name and i have explained why he doesnt come so really is there any need for this?
Im starting to feel a bit angry with it all but i cant decide if im angry at them or just angry that i have had to be there so much and taking it out on them?!

AIBU to actually ask them to stop mentioning it/commenting now. I have another appoitment today and i can pretty much garuntee it will be brought up again.

yanbu
At my first (booking in) appointment the midwife ran through a load of questions from the computor. I was on my own and the midwife/computor asked if I had been in an abusive relationship. I queried the question and she said it was because she'd ticked that I'd come alone and if I'd been with a partner it wouldn't be asked.
I did ask why it didn't just ask if my husband was at work.

It was my first meeting with her. Surely the idea should be that if they consider the baby to at risk of some sort of abuse they'll make up their minds about that over several meetings with me during the 6 mths or so.
But no, it seems to be a different midwife each time I go anyway.

It never actually occurred to me to get partner along to midwife appointments. We were living in separate cities until three weeks before DD was born so obviously it wouldn't have been practical, either. If I were pregnant again now that we actually do live together, I can imagine he might come to a scan appointment if it were at a convenient time, but not to anything else. Nobody ever made any comments to me about him not being around, though now I do recall being asked the abusive partner question, like Sandalwood.

YANBU at all! The only appointments of mine DH has been to are routine scans, an emergency scan when I started bleeding, and a middle of the night triage session when the baby stopped moving which would have been a bit awful by myself. It would have been a total waste of time for DH to come along to routine appointments, and it would have felt weird to take him along in some joined-at-the-hip manner. It's none of their business, frankly.

How incredibly intrusive, I would be pretty annoyed too. DH came to my scans with DD but no other appointments as he was at work. He didn't come to DD's birth as he had found DS's birth so upsetting and I didn't have any comments at all about it.

Dh came to:

Dc1- booking in, both scans, the birth. Glad he came to the booking in b ecauseI didn't know all the answers about the medical history on his side!

Dc2- one of the scans I think. The birth.

Dc3- both scans. Hopefully the birth, still waiting for that one.

Why should they have to come to appointments? Most of them involve half an hour of waiting to have your urine dipped and your tummy prodded for abour 30 seconds. Dh has a job, he needs to keep his bits and bobs of rearranging time for his own Dr/dentist/hairdresser appointments. Actually yesterday I had a long MW appointment booked for a few things and he rearranged his meeting so he could do the school run and have the dcs instead of my having to bring them both to the MW with me.

If I were you I would ask to see the medical notes. It could be that the first person made some snarky comment on their that the others are picking up on. We had endless trouble after a consultant wrote something inaccurate on dd's medical notes which just totally distorted the situation and made everybody view what we said in a negative light.

correction: on their notes

Maybe its because husbands being there is common in your area? DH has been to all midwife appointments in both of my two pregnancies and there are always lots of men there with their wives/dps when we go in. She was still being rude though.

YANBU and I think they're being really unprofessional saying things like that. I'm on my 3rd with a 3 yr old and an 18 mth old and DH gets the time off work to take them somewhere if I've got a hospital appt, I take them with me to MW appts. I've not had any comments about him not being there and I would be really angry if they suggested some of the things they've said to you!

YANBU. DH came to my three scans (needed a growth scan at 34 weeks due to my ridiculous blood sugar results) and the birth but that was all and nobody said a word. I don't even remember being asked about DV despite the MW telling me she would ask me about it at my booking in appt. Even when I was admitted after I fainted during a physio session at 35 weeks he didn't come up, there was no point him trying to find someone to take his class and coming and sitting with me while I waited for a blood test to come back.

Nobody ever said a word about anything and there were never any other husbands around during any of my appts or (four) trips to day case unless there was something seriously wrong with mother/baby. IME they take up space, have little interest in you having your wee dipped and belly prodded and could be more use elsewhere!

Actually I wish he hadn't come to the third scan as it turns out he knows my consultant so when the discussion came up afterwards about me being induced he got the dates changed to fit his social diary!

YANBU; it is wildly patronising of HCPs to assume that all pregnant women need the father of their baby at their sides all the time at appointments, and even worse to assume that if the father isn't in constant attendance he is somehow less of a father.

Tell them. Especially the vasectomy one. As a child being unplanned/unwanted by one parent is considered a risk factor for PND etc I wouldn't let that shit go unchallenged.

I wouldn't have gone to the appointments if I could have avoided it. Hanging around in skanky hospitals and talking to midwives is not my idea of fun.

By the time you're on your 4th you should get a 'Done this 3 times already so do the tests and save the chat' t-shirt.

Sorry, 5th!

I like startails idea. Dh came to scans and that was it. I was allowed time off for antenatal appointments, he wasn't. I'd have been very if it was questioned. Tell them to bog off if it happens again.

YANBU. If I remember rightly DP came to the 20 week scan, took me into hospital in the middle of the night 2 or 3 times and made sure he was there when I went in to be induced. He was there for the birth itself as well.

The trouble is it is all takes so long. Its bad enough we have to sit about for hours for 10 minute consultations or blood tests why use up our partners time as well?

well I went in to the appointment today all ready to say something and no one commented on it at all - typical !
I am certainly going to say something if I do get any more comments though :)

Dh only came to 1 scan for each of our dcs (4 of them), made it to ds1's birth, missed dd1's birth as he was parking the car, was at home for ds2 and didn't turn up to dd2 until she was over an hour old. Never made a booking in appointment or any anti-natal care but I never had any comments like the ones you have had. (small rural area with local midwife team so that may be the difference)

Even when I had complications with dd2 and ended up in MAC for 2 days, he basically managed to get in for an hour a day cos he had the other dcs to look after. Didn't bother me - enjoyed the rest

tbh I would be writing to complain - thats completely out of order

Yanbu

When I was having dd, dh worked overseas and was away for weeks at a time. The kept on at me for attending appointments alone even though dh had been there for two of my scans, she kept asking if he was supportive of the pregnancy and if he had wanted children! Another mw's face was a picture when I did the first day of the hospital run antenatal class solo as he was flying in from the other side of the world. I was the only person without a partner and she seemed most concerned asking me did I need any 'special' support. When he arrived with me on the second day she actually said oh I wasn't sure he existed! Wtf

For the record I am more than capable of going alone to any event, medical or otherwise and IT IS NO ONE ELSES BLOODY BUSINESS

DH came for the 12 week scans for dc1, dc2, dc3, dc4 and dc5. With dc1 he also came to the initial gp appointment, took me to 2 emergency trip to hospital and a follow up scan to confirm a miscarriage. With dc2 he came to the 4 scans, booking in appointment (he was on holiday anyway), antenatal classes and anything after 38 weeks when he was made redundant. With dc3 and dc4 he came to the 20 week scans and also the 2 scans I had in a different hospital because it was miles away and I don't drive. With dc5 he came with me when I had the erpc after the dating scan showed a missed miscarriage.

I never got any comments but I do get comments when I go without dh to the dc's hospital appointments and with the other 2 dc's in tow. At one stage I was going to several appointments a week and it infuriated me that they assumed that everyone can take unlimited time off work and have babysitters available round the clock for the dc.

My DH has attended a lot of my appointments, both with DS and with DS2. But he is a shift worker, so can be around a lot one week and not see him at all the next, so when he is free he comes. He's never had time off work for anything (I even went into labour on his run of off days with DS!!) He also loves my midwife, as does my mum, so they often come to my appointments to chat to her
YANBU though OP, they shouldnt be commenting!!

DP came with me to my 2 scans and the initial consultant appointment. It never occured to me to have him along for the MW appointments and the subsequent ones with the consultant (many pg probs); why should both of us have to sit around for hours and then be asked boring questions, etc. I'm an educated woman in her late 30s and am quite capable of talking to another adult on my own about, er, my own body. Yet I too got all sort of insulting and intrusive questions just because he wasn't there - did I know who the baby's father was, are we still together, was there DV in the relationship... all sorts of presumptive crap. And because I kept seeing different people all the time, they also asked me the same stuff. I complained in the end, but nothing came of it. And, whilst we're on the subject of interfering MWs, the first one I saw actually changed my title to Miss on the NHS system, after we'd had a heated discussion where she told me that I shouldn't be a Ms - which I have been since my 16th birthday - as people would think I'm a man-hater and a feminist (her point being... ?) And I had to ask her to say vagina instead of 'foofoo'. FFS.

Aaargh, occurred. Bastard iPad.