My 38th week of pregnancy coincides with Christmas week. I have, perhaps foolishly, agreed to do a fair amount of travelling that week. I have always tried to be fair in splitting time between my family and my in laws.
Essentially DH works/lives during the week in a different city to me, which is approx two hours drive away from our new house. He then travels home on his days off/weekends. Of note his work place is about 45 mins drive from his parent's house, although he does not stay there during the week. He has saved up all his leave (as well as paternity leave) for the six weeks after our baby is due so he can be around after the birth. However, it means that he is working lots of shifts the month before the baby arrives. After that, thankfully he is moving to a job a little closer to home. I don't have much support locally in the city where I live as we have only recently moved here. I think I will feel uncomfortable living on my own so late on I pregnancy. I have therefore have decided for the final month to base myself mainly at my parents house, an environment where I feel at ease, prior to my due date. There I have both my mum and sisters on hand, who I am close to and would feel comfortable having them there to support me if I were to unexpectedly go into labour. They also live in a town with a good public transport network so I can still go about my business without having to depend on others necessarily.
My parents live 100 miles away from our new house but it's a pretty easy journey on the train so my plan is to travel back and forth to/from antenatal appointments/classes etc.
My inlaws live 250 miles away from my parents. I know that they would have liked to spend more time with us in the second half of pregnancy & feel a little neglected but with moving house and DH living away things have been so busy that we have not really seen either set of parents much lately.
It is their turn for Christmas this year, so I'd planned to get the train down from my parents to the nearest station to my in laws on either the 23rd or Christmas Eve morning and staying until Boxing Day. As I also have an antenatal appointment earlier in that week that takes me up to almost 600 miles of travelling, mainly alone on a train, whilst 38 weeks pregnant. Just about do-able but I think it'll be incredibly tiring.
The thing is that there is a landmark birthday in the in laws family that week as well. I'd presumed DH and I would just mark it when we had planned to be there. However they have only just mentioned they would like to celebrate this with DH and I earlier in the week. This would mean that I have to either squeeze in another 500 mile round trip in to that week or I stay down at the in laws for the whole week. The problem is my DH will be working so if I do go in to labour, I'll just have my in laws around and feel really awkward. They also live in the middle of nowhere so I would be dependent on them for lifts to do anything.
DH has already replied yes to his mother, without discussing it with me, presuming I'd travel down after my antenatal appointment & base myself with his parents the week before Christmas instead. This potentially would mean less travelling overall and he can't see the issue as I'll see my parents the week before and after xmas week. I've made it clear that I don't want to do this.
He's now back tracking to his
DM but it's clear that it's me that has put the kaibosh. Everyone is now upset and had I not been so heavily pregnant, I could perhaps understand why it may be seen as offensive to my in-laws. I just feel that this is a lot to expect of a heavily pregnant woman.