To not want anyone there whilst in hospital with DS?

[PayingMyWayYouSay]

Apart from DH of course.

I don't want MIL/SIL visiting whilst I'm there. It's against my wishes tbh. I want House visits only.

DH is a bit at me but that's how it is. I will be in quite a vulnerable position, regardless of how easy or not so my birth ends up.

I would 100% have my Mum there when DS is born but, she lives too far away, and she won't be able to straight away. She will also be visiting once we're home.

Wombling - that's exactly how I was left from 10pm until 8am the next day when a horrified midwife found me ill and delerious after not having so much as a sip of water after giving birth then having surgery. I was in a disgusting state. It was a really awful experience. Needless to say baby#2 was born in a different hospital.

I mean you have your baby in the delivery room or operating theatre, and then you are cleaned up and sent to the post-natal ward, right? Where you get tucked up into a nice clean bed, with clean nightie or pjs, baby wrapped in a blanket and cuddled or put in a cot?

You must have had well-behaved lochia.

it's upto you but to exclude in laws is so sad. Ring them and explain perhaps first day just you and dh but please let them visit .They must feel totally rejected and this is making a massive statement that you don't wan't them. Can't blame them if they back away when you come home. So difficult for your dh to bar his family from the hospital .

I mean you have your baby in the delivery room or operating theatre, and then you are cleaned up and sent to the post-natal ward, right? Where you get tucked up into a nice clean bed, with clean nightie or pjs, baby wrapped in a blanket and cuddled or put in a cot?

I have to say that is exactly how all my deliveries went. Yes I was sore, I had stitches, lost a lot of blood with two of my dc but it wasn't the drama that many of you are making out on here.

Unclench Pengggn. You're very uptight.

Not overly keen on your attitude tbf. You come across as very self absorbed and highly strung.

I am appalled at the number of people who think the MIL should be allowed to visit, when the OP doesn't want her to. I shall be giving birth soon and the absolute last thing I want is my MIL in the hospital.

They can visit when the baby is home. It's only a few days at most. Why is that considered leaving them out?!?

I've not managed to read the whole thread but as someone who gave birth just last week myself, the OP YANBU.

Mil didn't see the new baby for a good three/four days after I got out.

I had a really straightforward birth as well but when you're rough as fuck, sore and feel like your insides are falling out, whilst simultaneously trying to bond with a new baby and establish feeding/personality etc nobody feels like ok-ing people coming to visit and poke about beforehand. See how you feel and if you're up to it let them visit.

Well I was in recovery on oxygen and a drip to contract my uterus for 5 hours after I gave birth, taken up to the ward around midnight. At 6am when the nurse came to remove my catheter and get me to stand up, my bed and nightie were absolutely covered in blood. I had had no sleep or food for at least 36 hours and felt rough as fuck. Thankfully the first visiting time wasn't until 2pm that day so I had a bit of time to pull myself together. If I'd given birth at a different time of day I doubt I would have been fit for visitors.
Everyone's birth experience is different and everyone feels differently afterwards, I'm not sure why that's so hard for some people to understand.

If you're feeling rough and not up to it then its to be hoped any due visit can simply be cancelled via a quick and simple message/phone call. A partner or friend can do that

There are not many times in your life when you are genuinely entitled to put your own feelings before that of everyone else, but this is definitely one of them.
Do exactly what you need to do to make yourself relaxed pre-birth and in control/happy post birth.
For a couple of days at least, you and the baby really are all that matters.

I think many of the posters are missing the point - whilst in hospital op is a patient - doesnt matter how easy / difficult the birth is - how well you get along with ils etc as a patient it should be up to you who visits and when - there shouldnt be any pressure on the mother to have xy and z there just because they have a genetic link and want to have first dibs!! There is nothing wrong in having a preference to want own mum there either which is a seperate rationale to showing preference to one set of grandparents as usually maternal mother would be there in a supportive role not just there to meet the new baby. The only right answer is that whatever the new mum feels comfortable with whilst in hospital and first few days at home so that recovery and bonding can happen more quickly and naturally

If you're feeling rough and not up to it then its to be hoped any due visit can simply be cancelled via a quick and simple message/phone call.

Far better to manage expectations in advance so that guilt-tripping/disappointment is managed, and if you do magically feel like it (and who knows, you might), it comes as a pleasant surprise.

Don't understand why the default for so many seems to be 'woman who has just given birth, please put yourself and your needs and wants second to people who haven't just done that.' If you're not the sort or person who likes hospital visitors, that's valid, and the fact that you've just given birth doesn't make it any less valid or less reasonable to say 'hey, I don't want hospital visitors, and as the baby will be staying with me /can't be taken off the ward, we'll introduce you when we get home.'

How ridiculous to say that grandparents would feel justified in not getting invovled with the new baby because they were asked to prioritise their daughter in law's well being for a day or two.

Bloody hell, I honestly didn't know that. Lots has changed over the last few decades it seems.

I think that's where a lot of incredulity on this thread is coming from. Even 20 years ago, the battlefield scenes of horror that some of you are describing just didn't happen. I accept your experiences, but sneering at my description doesn't make it less factual. That is exactly how I and my peers were treated. It's not my unicorn fantasy, it was our reality.

I think a lot has changed wombling. My mum incredulous that I'd been left to look after a baby by myself when I couldn't stand let alone lift him out his cot and couldn't believe I was only in for 2 nights.
She was in for 2 weeks after she had my brother and I (both emc's), someone changed us and handed us over to be fed every 3 hours. She was given regular bed baths until she was fit to shower herself, a nurse dried her hair for her etc.
Unfortunately they're so short staffed now that it took me 3 hours of buzzing and breaking down in tears for someone qualified to come and help me feed my baby. That was in high dependency!
That said i personally didn't mind visitors the following day. It was the constant stream at home I found hard to handle.

It was my reality, too, WomblingThree. Only a few years ago and after a crash c section I was safely tucked up in a clean bed with a clean baby in a clean cot immediately after.

Perhaps this isn't about visitors at all, but about the atrocious maternity services in some hospitals. I wouldn't have wanted visitors if I had been naked, bloodied and ignored. Let's concentrate on that, not on the MIL.

Why can't the father and everyone else wait a day or two? Well we wasted our time back in the late 60s early 70s getting hospitals to accept dad in the delivery room. Now he has to wait a day or two.