MIL and impending birth

[Greywalls12]

I'm very pregnant, due in 2 weeks and every couple of days for the past week she's been asking me if I've 'had any twinges' which is really starting to grate on me.

I'm more of the mind of trying not to think every little feeling is the start of labour, cause I just get dissapointed when it's not! It's our first baby so chances are I'll probably be late, and I'd just like to get on with things rather than be reminded how nothing's happening yet!
AIBU to be annoyed?
And AIBU to either ask her, or get DH to ask her to stop asking me about it?
No one else asks me, it's just her!

By 38 weeks I was ready to take the head off anyone who looked at me funny

It's ok to be pissed off at anyone and anything at this stage. Block your mil temporarily on your phone and let dh update her.

She just sounds excited and possibly not sure what to say but wants to keep in touch as much as she can. I’d prefer that to constant texts of are you in labour/is baby here yet as you’re bound to get from friends and family in the near future. It’ll all be over once baby comes im sure it won’t hurt to accept her checking up on you until then as annoying as it is she just cares and wants to be a part of it.

I went 16 days over last time and wanted to kill people who kept asking me. Clearly I would tell people when I had given birth! I don't think people realise how annoying it is tbh. I was probably guilty of such stupid questions before. Am 32 weeks pregnant now and dreading going over due again.

I understand how tedious it is in the last few weeks to keep being asked for an update. I remember it well. I guess it depends whether you’re ok with potentially offending MIL as to whether to get DH to ask her to back off. Is it worth it? Obviously I don’t know your MIL and how she would take it.

You could drop it in the conversation that your friends are constantly asking how you are and that it’s getting you down and see if she takes the hint.

I get that it's annoying but I fail to see how it's stressful.

Vlad
You may get someone like my DB as a SonIL. He regularly tells his MIL to butt out and if she turns up unannounced tells her she's not coming in. He And my SIL are still going strong after 25 years despite him telling MIL to get back in her box.

Not all SonILs will just shut up and go along with what a MIL wants.

Is this her first grandchild ? I think you’re just understandably irritable. When my first grandchild’s birth was imminent, I didn’t sleep, had weird dreams, my stomach was churning the whole time. It’s nerve wracking. Cut her some slack, don’t cause upset over something so trivial.

When my first grandchild’s birth was imminent, I didn’t sleep, had weird dreams, my stomach was churning the whole time. It’s nerve wracking.
Yeah but more so for the mother, I imagine, so all the more reason for the MIL to back off.

She's showing an interest, give her a break. You say she's the only person asking these questions, so if that's really the case then surely you can cope with one person showing a not unreasonable level of interest jn the arrival of their grandchild. You simply just need to reply, 'nope, not yet' and move on.

YABU, she's just excited. If it's bothering you then just ask her to stop - she's been pregnant before, I'm sure she remembers how irritating everything felt in the last few weeks

Same here namechanger2019 and it was so miserably stressful, especially when I was back and forth to the hospital for monitoring and worried about induction. I know my friends and family were just showing an interest but God did I not need repeated "any twinges yet? any signs? do you think anything's starting yet? gosh have you STILL not had that baby?" from multiple directions every bloody day.

People probably don't realise how annoying and stress-inducing it can be, but all the more reason to politely and kindly tell them it is so they can back off a bit, not to suck it up for the sake of everyone else's feelings.

I remember decades later how annoying it was and it was everyone I knew. I remember thinking if one more person says “Still not had it, then?”, I’d decapitate them. Particularly once I was overdue.

She's just making conversation. Just say, no not really anything yet.

My own DM did this. My due date was at the end of March. She texted me on 1st March saying "you're having a baby this month!" And asked if there was any movement every day. Baby was born on the 4th of April Luckily my MIL was more politely interested and didn't torture me.

Frankly, better now than after the birth, when the really bad MILs come out to play. It took DD and DSIL nearly six months to modify his mum's behaviour, and then when they moved she had to be disciplined all over again. She's actually a very likeable woman, but one who decided that matriarchy was going to be her thing. Like that was going to work with DD, a woman who has won every argument we've had since she was eight.

I never get the posters who expect very pregnant women to manage the emotions of every fucking person but themselves.

I never get posters who think being pregnant makes you a special snowflake. It doesn't.

No it makes lots of people hormonal, emotional, irritable, anxious, vunerable and often uncomfortable and or in pain and anyone with any amount of fucking empathy would understand that.

I'm with Blessingsdragon1. No, being pregnant does not make you a special snowflake, but nor does it put you in a position of moral obligation to capitulate to everyone else's delicate little feelings over and above your own. Nor should it override the material point: that haranguing people over and over again with the same question isn't going to produce a quicker or different answer. It's harrassing them, to put it plainly.

'Mothers must be unselfish and their needs come secondary to others') is the kind of misogynistic rhetoric that has tainted the experience of motherhood since time immemorial. Mothers must be unselfish. Mothers must always always come well down the priority list, once everyone else's feelings and wellbeing have been taken care of. That's aside from the fact of whether they themselves are ill, or exhausted, or hormonal, or very heavily pregnant.

No. Just no.

I was 9 days overdue with my second and by the end I was so bloody irritated by everything and everyone I probably would have bitten someone’s head off for so much as offering me a cup of tea.

Yanbu. She is probably just concerned for how you are but its annoying to feel checked up especially if it’s stressing you out. I found it hard to hear of how mine and dh’s family were all so excited for the birth when I was bloody terrified. It made me feel like all anyone cared about was the baby and not the person actually having to give birth to it. Hormones really don’t help matters.

I’d just send a message back to mil saying something like ‘no, nothing yet but we will tell you as soon as anything happens. I’m feeling a bit stressed about it all at the moment so I’d rather take my mind off it’

YABU it's irritating, that's all.

Since you're not a special snowflake I'll come sit in the back of your car and go 'are we there yet?' repeatedly on every journey, and you'll be fine with that, right?

My MIL and GMIL were the same, after a week of saying “nope not yet!” I said “nope not yet, don’t worry I’ll let you know/you’ll be the first to know when something happens (lol)”

I don't think YABU. I went 22 days over and by the end felt very frustrated at constantly being asked 'any news'. Worse, MIL would tell her SIL ifbi had a midwife appt so they would then also call to see how I got on (hint: I'm answering the phone so obviously nothing is happening).

By child 2 I was very vague about the due date and gave everyone a date a couple of weeks later than I was due! DD was induced about a week before my due date so I avoided all the pestering.

Yes she is just being kind and you probably should just grin and bear it but I totally understand where you are coming from.

When baby does arrive though I promise this will all pale into insignificance 😀