Daughters c section & MIL

[Ohmyohmyohmyohmy]

My daughter had a c section on Tuesday. She had an emergency so quite traumatic for her.
I was waiting for her in the side room, her DP was in with her, and saw her after she had been sewn up. All went well. She wanted me to stay at the hospital. She came home yesterday to find MIL waiting outside in her car. She’d been asked to wait until contacted to visit. They wanted to get settled in. I got a very upset phone call asking me to come round. When I got there MIL was arguing with DDP. He was angry that she had turned up unannounced, she was angry I’d been at the hospital and seen baby first.
My daughter has come home with me and baby, DDP is joining us this evening. She wants to stay here, with her DP and baby. It’s no problem, I have plenty of room.
What’s bothering me is she does not want contact with MIL, but I have MIL constantly texting and trying to call me, demanding to see her grandchild.
AIBU to block her number and ignore her? To me my daughters feelings come first right now, we can sort MIL out in a few days.

You don't have to hate your MIL to not be up for a visit too soon after a caesarean

It often surprises me how bad mother in laws behave after the birth of a first grand child. Why can’t they grasp that the mother of the woman who has just given birth is there to support her daughter not to see the grandchild!! My own mil behaved like an idiot too and had no consideration for me, I felt like a womb with legs. Her concern and interest was only ever for the grandchild.

Your daughter’s mother in law needs to be put straight she really is risking damaging her relationship with her dil and therefore her grandchild with her overbearing ways. I’ve been in your daughter’s position and now have a very low contact relationship with my mil. The birth of our first child is where all our problems began, it snowballed from there.

I hope your daughter is doing OK, try to keep her mil at arms length for now and please tell your daughter not to let this spoil those precious first few weeks with her first child.

I think things like this could be reason why Grandparents are usually closer to their daughters Children.
My nan was to me and my sister. She saw us practically ever day.
She gave up in the end trying to get involved with her son (my uncles kids). As it was always his wife's mum that did everything.
She hardly knew anything about them, really.
Don't get me wrong she always made a huge fuss of them on the very rare occasions that she did see them.

I think some people just see mum as a grandchild producing vessel

^^This

Blue lady. I’ve asked him about this, he says his mother was texting him constantly about when she could come. I gather the text went something like. We are just leaving, let us settle in and I’ll let you know. Probably about an hour. So I don’t know why she didn’t just give them time to get home.

My mil was told I didn't want visitors after emcs.
Guess who turned up at visiting?
Relationship went swiftly down hill and nc when ds was 3 months old.

Totally agree Smallplant. Just about sums it up really!

Is it not more likely that her sons were crap at making plans?

@GreatDuckCookery how do you come to the point that the MIL has been treated unfairly? She was going to see her GC that afternoon but turned up thinking only of her own selfish self kicking off like that! I love my in-laws but if they had done that, the damage would be irreversible for me.

If you think it's hard on the MIL think how much harder it is on the OP's daughter who's priority should be bonding with her newborn after a traumatic birth, not dealing with every other fuckers needs and wants. The OP is there for her DD, not to score points by seeing the baby.

There's an element of BU from both her MIL and your DD here. All MIL wants to do is meet her new GC and she is being shut out, from the other side your DD is traumatised and needs space, and doesn't what she perceives as interference. Can DDP not take baby out for an hour to meet MIL and give DD a rest/time with you? And a daily update perhaps with a picture for her from you, including how dd is? Being sidelined doesn't feel good, she's jealous probably too of the time you are spending with the new GC. Hopefully just a blip and in a week this will be in the past.

Nah, I'm going to repeat the block the number. Anyone who is constantly calling and texting someone who is looking after her daughter after surgery isn't thinking. The last thing the OP needs is to be drawn into being the MIL flying monkey. If she sides with the MIL to be nice, the MIL will use 'even OP thinks I should be there'. If the OP sides with her daughter 'ganging up'. Say it's up to the parents and the calls are distracting you from taking care of your daughter.
Unless constantly actually means *once or twice a day.

The problem seems to be as much your daughters anxiety as MIL's upset over her complete exclusion from the first couple of days of her gc's life.

IME it is still pretty much the norm (outside MN) for very close family members of both parents to visit to meet the new baby if it is going to be in hospital for a couple of days and as a future MIL (in many many years to come), I would be hurt too that my son had had his first child and I was banned from seeing everyone for a few minutes to meet the baby and congratulate them.

I could have done without my MIL visiting after my 48hr induced labour/EMCS with GA/ds being in SCBU for first 36hrs after initial breathing issues, but to be honest I respected my dh and my MIL's relationship with my new baby to get through a 10-15 min visit to meet her grandchild and a quick photo in the hospital of her and the baby to show to her family/friends.

I think you and SIL should keep out of it. Its time for your DD's DP to go and talk to his mum and for some calming down and a little bit of compromise on both sides to sort this out before it becomes an irretrievable mess.

God there's some awful advice given out on this site. "Block her number", "don't reward bad behaviour".. that's her husband's mum!!

No it's not.

It's her daughter's husband's mum.

Maybe try reading the thread again?

Thanks for answering OP. This is very strange... I thought you were going to say that MIL pushes boundaries and is very demanding usually. I can't help but feel sorry for her now.

Of course you're going to have a closer relationship with your DD that goes without saying but this is her sons child too. She's obviously going to want to see the baby and be part of this special time.

I do however feel for your DD and it sounds like she's overwhelmed and possibly in shock after the birth, hopefully things will settle down soon and you can all start to enjoy your new baby.

Her MIL should not be putting this pressure on her or you. She shouldn’t have turned up unannounced especially when her son had told her they would contact her about visiting in the afternoon.

Her MIL should completely understand why you were there, it’s your daughter that is going through a very harrowing experience by having a C-Section, and should in no way be “casting that up” however, I do feel a little bit sorry for the MIL that she is being told to wait to see her grandchild, she will be very excited, but she certainly isn’t making it easy for herself and she is damaging the relationship between her daughter in law and also her son.

It sounds fro that as if MIL didn't trust her son to let her know when she could visit!

Anniehm. Baby is less than 3 days old, spent first day in icu , do you really think that it’s okay to take him away to visit someone?

There is a huge divide on this thread between people who know what it is like to have awful relations, and people who do not.

You don't have to hate your MIL to not be up for a visit too soon after a caesarean

Exactly.

I adore MIL but if she had been waiting outside my home in her car when DH and I arrived home complaining about my mum seeing the baby first I would have been upset too.

Thankfully her concern after I had both my babies was how well I was doing and how she could make our first days at home easier.

It often surprises me how bad mother in laws behave after the birth of a first grand child. Why can’t they grasp that the mother of the woman who has just given birth is there to support her daughter not to see the grandchild!!

This totally- and they don’t get that doing the right thing by the baby’s mum IS doing the right thing for the baby- it needs as calm a mum as possible for feeding to be established etc.
My grandsons other gran is an absolute lunatic whose actions have actually pushed us to involve a lawyer before my DGS was 2 weeks old and still causing trouble now to the point her son is barely involved in the baby’s life as he stupidly takes everything she says on board and has alienated himself from his son and my daughters lives.

I don’t have a brilliant relationship with my MIL but I would never ever have told she she couldn’t come to see her grandchild when my mum could, I do think that’s disrespectful to my husband.

I think if you do say anothing to her you need to make it clear that the decision has come from your daughter and her son otherwise she might interpret it as you & your daughter hanging up against her (which obviously it isn’t).

Stay out of it, I don't think you should be texting MIL about it. It's not your relationship to handle. You are interfering now but thinking you are helping. Back off.
If you don't live too far away from your DD, I would encourage them to go home to their own house. You can go over each day, do some housework and cooking for a couple of hours, then go home. Then do the same thing the next day. Make a pile of dinners for the freezer - easy things for them to reheat.

I don't understand why people think the OPs daughter is being unreasonable! She's just given birth in a traumatic way, she's not going to be sitting there thinking about fairness to other people is she, she's in a state as the majority of women would be. She's trying to deal with her own hormones and emotions.

The MIL wasn't being shut out, she was just asked to give them an hour to get settled at home!! There is nothing unreasonable about that.

OP it sounds like you're a wonderful Mum and doing just what your daughter needs.

I'd leave MIL to the dp to sort out and concentrate on your daughter.

I'll say again to those who thinks it's unreasonable, I wanted my Mum after my emergency section, she made me food I like, went to Sainsbury's to buy me more big pants as my cheapo primark ones irritated me and treated me to new pjs. She helped to look after me so me and my husband could look after our new baby.

Just to add I have a positive relationship with in-laws especially MIL and SIL, but it's still not the same level of comfort you get with your own parents or siblings. I also had PIL and SIL the day after section visit me and baby at the hospital but i asked that SIL's husband not come. Those were my wishes and they were respected which is how family should behave.