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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think being in labour is private time and not a time for keeping people updated?

59 replies

LowBridges · 15/10/2015 20:31

DM will be looking after 5yo twin DCs tomorrow when I am induced (picking them up from school, taking them back to hers for one night or two depending on labour length).

DCs know and understand this. They are excited about the baby and the sleepover.

DM says today please can I keep her informed how it's going so she can let DCs know etc. I said no - that once I am induced I'll not be contacting anyone until the baby is here. I know from previous labour that I will have no wish whatsoever for external contact. I also don't think it helps anyone knowing how many cm I am etc. And also DM cannot keep gob shut and will be on phone to aunties etc with progress report.

Anyway DM thinks I am being unreasonable on this. I think she just needs to tell the kids that I will call when the baby arrives. Also then we should know am I and the baby well and therefore will we be home ASAP or will they come to the hospital to see us.

Gah. Obv I am v v pregnant and cross at the world but we kind of argued about this on the phone and I am now v irritated. Surely she should understand labour is not something to be live tweeted Ffs.

And while I am at it, dB called today and said oh remember to update us how it's going. Er, what, cm by cm?that's what he did for dsil tbh and I found it very weird to know what stage of labour she was in at that moment. Is nothing bloody sacred. If it wasn't for the childcare needed for DCs I wouldn't have told them induction date and whole thing would be a surprise.

Gah.

OP posts:

WorraLiberty · 15/10/2015 21:37

AlpacaLypse, my eldest sister used to think the midwife delivered her 4 younger siblings....as in actually brought us to the house like a postman delivers parcels.

Whenever she was playing in the street and saw the midwife riding her bike down the road, she'd run inside and bolt the front door

LibrariesGaveUsP0wer · 15/10/2015 21:38

Five year olds have no concept of time in that way though . You can say that you think it will be soon and then have it be another three hours and then a decision for a section. And that does not count as soon to a small child.

Whoknewitcouldbeso · 15/10/2015 21:40

I wouldn't have been capable of letting anyone know anything during my son's labour but my DP was updating my Mum pretty frequently throughout and she was passing info on.

poocatcherchampion · 15/10/2015 21:43

Couldnt you just have agreed with her and said you would update as you were able. And then not done much.

That's what I would have done.

Gutterflower · 15/10/2015 21:45

Yanbu!! With my dd the only people that knew about me being in labour was my DH and my mother who I phoned because I felt an overwhelming urge to tell her what a rubbish mother she was because she never told me it would hurt like it did, other than that we didn't tell a soul. My mil was a bit very annoyed when I told her we wouldn't be announcing it, in her head she Was planning on sitting outside the delivery suite with a picnic for however long it took

Doilooklikeatourist · 15/10/2015 21:46

Just turn the phones off
thanks God that mobiles went invented when my babies were born
There's no better memory for me than DH phoning our home , where my parents were looking after DS , then handing the pay phone to me so I could tell my mum we'd just had a baby girl ( and then we all burst into tears )

Ragwort · 15/10/2015 21:51

Doil - totally agree with you, I remember the pleasure in ringing my mum, and DH ringing his mum ................ and that's all we needed to do until we got home and sent out the 'birth announcement cards' - do they still exist?

I hate this modern obsession with everyone know everything immediately.

AlpacaLypse · 15/10/2015 21:52

Worra

I don't remember a time when I didn't know that the new baby came out of mum's tummy, hence the enormous bump that disappeared again when she and baby came home.

I do remember the appalling moment when I first worked out how the baby had got there in the first place though!

sleeponeday · 15/10/2015 21:52

God, it never crossed anyone's mind to update DS when I had DD! He woke up to be told by my mum that she was with him because Mummy and Daddy were in hospital having the baby, and then when he came home from school he met her. I'd called my mum when DD was safely here.

Literally never occurred to us to do otherwise.

purplemeggie · 15/10/2015 21:54

Oh - I sympathise - we planned not to tell anyone when I went into labour, but just to announce the birth when we had something to announce. Unfortunately, that got shot out of the water because I was on the phone to my mother when my waters broke, and she was worrying for news every couple of hours.

Can you say that the hospital doesn't allow mobile phone use, or can you not get away with that anymore?

imwithspud · 15/10/2015 21:59

I wasn't capable of giving updates during either of my labours. Even with my first when I had an epidural I was making full use of the gas & air so I was off my head and it was fantastic. Wouldn't have minded my DP texting his parents/my parents the odd update here and there but apart from letting them know we'd been admitted to the labour suite I don't think he did until either of the DC were here.

I'd never ask someone for updates during labour, it does seem like an odd thing to ask. The last thing on my mind during labour was updating people.

DoJo · 15/10/2015 21:59

I'm going to be induced next week - given that you could be in hospital for three days before anything even happens, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect some sort of progress report e.g if the gels don't have any effect, then you will be sitting around doing not much until they move on to the next step, so I would certainly expect to let the person looking after my children to know that.
I would never dream of sharing the details of my cervical dilation, but there is a world of appropriate information between vag news and updates on whether you are progressing or not.

TremoloGreen · 15/10/2015 22:11

Oh dear, YADNBU. I don't understand people's need to know about these things. THe only exception I can understand is if you unexpectedly had a labour lasting several days, then a quick 'nothing to worry about, just going slowly' might be appropriate. Reminds me of a conversation I had with my very British 'stiff upper lip' father after DD1 was born.

DF: Well, I wasn't very impressed with MrTrem not updating us at all. We were very worried you know.
Me: What kind of updates would you have liked? Trem's just pee'd on the floor? Trem's just vomited in the bath? She feels an unbearable urge to defecate, so we're really excited now??
DF: Um, no, not those.

memyselfandaye · 15/10/2015 22:12

I had fucking visitors when i was being induced!

Aunt and Uncle just happened to have an appointment in the hospital around two hours after the first pessary thing was shoved up my vadge. Midwife stuck her head around the door and said there are a couple of people here to see you!

I wasnt actually suprised tbh, I kind of have thought they would try to see me, but I told the midwife to send them away and thankfully they did go.

Who the fuck would think that was a good idea?

Snossidge · 15/10/2015 22:14

I certainly didn't do any updating, but I'm sure my mum was texting DP relentlessly He didn't bother me about it though.

Hellochicken · 15/10/2015 22:15

Yadnbu
We did pass on information, like if it was approaching evening, telling for childcare reasons (mil) that "not much happening, will definitely be staying another night" but no cms! Or other birth info!

EugenesAxe · 15/10/2015 22:16

Haven't read all; for me (and I'm telling you straight - no particular judgement) YABU.

BUT I think there should be give and take - you shouldn't have to give all details, and this would totally be a job for your DH, not you. I think I would roughly say for a 12hr labour, one update is all that's reasonably needed. That's about an average time; normal people wouldn't be getting anxious.

On the flip side, and having been on the end of my sister's 1) horrifically long labour and mammoth second stage and then 2) labour that started and then stopped, you need to give more updates if things are going on longer. In the former scenario I honestly was thinking 'Why haven't we heard? What if she's dead?' - it didn't help my second stage was 25mins, hers was 5hrs; I was broadly ignorant of what could be happening. My BIL probably didn't think it was going to help, but I would have been so grateful for a quick 'still in labour; proving tricky but no emergencies' text every now and then. And in the second, a prompt communication that everything had slowed up/stopped.

It's a bit dramatic, but people still do die in labour. If there's no news well beyond an 'average' length of time, your mind can start thinking 'what if...?'.

EugenesAxe · 15/10/2015 22:20

PS. I would do none of this for my children, it would all be for the experienced adults that cared about me.

DoreenLethal · 15/10/2015 22:22

I would say 'yes no worries' and then update when the baby is there. Job done. Everyone happy.

JassyRadlett · 15/10/2015 22:23

But "mummy will be having the baby soon they think," is a quick if not so detailed update, surely?

I think that can just make things more confusing to them. What's 'soon' for a small kid? What if it turns out not to be soon at all? What if there are complications, or an emergency section, or the baby needs extra help? 'Soon' to my kid can mean anything from 'the length of a CBeebies programme' to 'after we've got through this traffic jam'. It's vague and moves the goalposts and isn't giving him any information that's concrete or more helpful than 'remember, mummy said babies can take quite a long time, you took absolutely ages, you were really comfy in there.'

imwithspud · 15/10/2015 23:04

I had fucking visitors when i was being induced!
**
Who the fuck would think that was a good idea?

Oh god, tell me about it. My mum turned up on the induction ward at about 10pm when I was being induced with dc1. I was strapped to a monitor and couldn't reach my phone that was in my bag, she was ringing and texting but obviously I wasn't answering so she must have thought I was in full blown labour or something and took it upon herself to turn up, at gone 10pm ffs! I know she probably meant well, but the midwives were peeved and I was mortified. Fortunately she was only allowed to stay for 5minutes before being told to leave. To make the experience even more embarrassing, the midwives assumed that I had called her to come in and tried to lecture me about visiting times on the ward, which wasn't the case at all!

contractor6 · 16/10/2015 07:24

I had easy induction, and was talking and updating friends it helped me deal with contractions, but once they ramped up no one got updates,, until baby arrived and then only my mum. But yanbu to say you don't want that.

seaweed123 · 16/10/2015 09:04

If I was you I would be mentally preparing myself for the fact that an induction might take longer than a day or two. E.g. I was in the pre-natal ward for around 36 hours before even being taken through to the labour ward to get waters broken and drip started, etc. I certainly didn't update anyone from the labour ward, but I did let people know things prior to that, e.g "they won't be checking me again for 12 hours", "they are moving me to labour ward to start later this morning", etc. The doctors had told me to be prepared to be in for up to 5 days without anything happening (i was induced early though), so you would need to update really in that situation.

MrsMook · 16/10/2015 09:17

Second time was quick and over night so only the people looking after Ds1 knew until it was birth announcement time.

First time was a long labour, so I'd already had regular contractions for about 24 hours before I was ready to go in. We got the regular weekend calls at a stage where it was getting hard to pretend that labour wasn't happening, so the news leaked to close family.

The progress in hospital continued to be slow. Overnight, very little happened, so not much to report other than being shattered or in lockdown on planet pethidine. At about the time that people began thinking that there should be news of a birth, things were getting worrying, and that's not the time for updates. By the time Ds was born and we were in a state to announce the news, people were rather worried. Which was why I was happier second time to be able to keep the labour to need to know, and give people the nice surprise at the end.

Hope it all goes smoothly for you OP.

mrsm12 · 16/10/2015 09:22

I think yababitu you don't need to send hourly texts but maybe every couple of hours if it goes on a long time, on both my labours I had my dp update my dm every little while because I knew she'd be worried sick

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