To not want my in-laws to know when I go into labour

[PenguinX]

I am due to have my first baby next month, my PIL said today they want my husband to let them know when I go into labour. This makes me very uncomfortable but my husband thinks I'm being ridiculous.
My mum will need to be informed when I go to hospital because we need someone to come to our house to feed our pets but for some reason I'm not happy about anyone else knowing.
Am I being unreasonable thinking like this?

Also and I’m not sure if anyone else has this but it often provoked a degree of cross-family competition as to ‘who gets to see the baby first’, particularly between the new grandparents

And out of interest… how do you continue to have a relationship with them? Seems so bleak to have this kind of disrespect and selfishness in your life

The time between labour starting and baby being born can be very long/unpredictable/emotional/messy/scary etc etc. So long as your partner feels able to support you during this time and not feel pressured into providing endless updates to needy relatives.
My husband phoned his mum for emotional support during the nightmare that was our second labour, he ended up slamming the phone down on her because she told him she was disappointed that he hadn’t phoned with better news - she had answered his phone call saying “is it a boy or a girl?”. He was in tears, I’m still angry about it now - that was 16 years ago!

It is. In essence you have to be quite cunning, foresee any dick moves on their part and block them 🤷🏼‍♀️ This time I’m informing the maternity ward that I don’t want visitors and not to let anyone in to see me.

When baby was 6 weeks old and I was really in the thick of sleepless nights, she asked if I wanted to bring her round for the night so she could ‘help’. When I turned up I found 6 of her friends sitting in her living room who, apparently, all randomly turned up at the same time and ‘would love a cuddle’.

I wouldn’t hand DD over to any of them (I’d never met them before in my life!) and MIL burst into tears saying I had ruined the visit.

My point i suppose is…. Why?

to have a relationship with someone that you have to be “cunning” because you know how disrespectful and selfish they are? Well if nothing else, no WAY would I want my children spending time with them in any capacity

Came on to say exactly this.

You can't be "pestered for updates" unless
you choose to be.

You're giving birth, maybe just focus on that and turn your phones off. I believe they also have a "silent" option.

Haven't RTFT;

In laws - damned if they care, damned if they don't care.

Don't see why your parent's trump dh's parents in knowing, disregarding the pet reason.
All seems a bit mean spirited.

Because there are shades of grey - MIL may be sneaky and attention seeking but she’s also a caring grandma (yep, people are nuanced) and I don’t want to deprive DD of a relationship with her only grandmother due to mere personality clash and and a few incidences like the one I just mentioned.

Going NC is a very easy to say and hard to do, I’m NC with my mum for much more serious reasons than anything MIL has done. It’s a last resort, not something to be taken lightly.

I have learned my lessons with MIL and now know how to ‘manage’ her. We even get on a lot of the time - you can’t summarise a person’s entire worth with a few unfavourable anecdotes.

They phone the maternity ward! Or turn up! As countless people have said in previous posts!

I just couldn’t feel comfortable knowing my child ate around someone I saw as “sneaky” 🤷‍♀️

I’ve got 3 sons. I’d be mortified if their partners felt there was pressure on them for me to be told they were in labour, so that it was somehow “equal”. It would be none of my bloody business they were in labour unless they actually wanted me to know. I’d feel I’d failed as a mother if my sons weren’t putting their partner’s feeling first in that situation!

We’re animals, and many animals instinctively seek dark private spaces ALONE in which to birth - obv you’re not wanting to do that, but your animal instincts should be respected. Overriding those instincts under social/cultural pressure may increase your stress and lengthen labour. Everything possible should be done to make a birthing mother comfortable.

Your husband actually doesn’t have the right to know when you go into labour: no one has this ‘right’.

(For context, I’m a mother to sons only and I love my MIL and think fathers are vitally important and grandparents, aunts and uncles matter hugely.)

I don’t believe that every person your child comes into contact with doesn’t have some kind of unfavourable personality aspect, and that they’re all perfect in every way. It’s only in Mumsnet Fairyland that everyone the poster knows is perfect and they would have no hesitation in cutting off a family member who did something annoying but isn’t stealing/violence/drugs/racism etc.

Expecting a baby boy although I also have a DD and I feel the same, about both of them. My ego has no place in this type of event, unless they want me involved of course, but that’s for them to ask not for me to suggest.

Contact? Sure

but close contact? Staying over night? Regular alone time?

With someone I regard as sneaky, disrespectful and attention seeking. Someone I have to be “cunning” with in order for them not to rough ride over me? Not for my children, no

YANBU

It didn't even occur to me (or DH) to tell anyone I was going into labour apart from the people who were going to look after our dog (which happened to be PIL).

That was a long time ago now (DC is an adult) and I still wish we had asked a neighbour to look after our dog...but the reason for that are things I could never have predicted (PIL did some very odd and selfish things on that day), and not because I was bothered about them knowing I was in labour. If I had a second child I would've put some boundaries down that it didn't even occur to me to do the first time.

Anyway, you're not being ridiculous - I would also want as few people as possible knowing.

They phone the maternity ward! Or turn up! As countless people have said in previous posts!

So you tell the ward that you do not agree to any information being given out over the phone and that nobody apart from your DH can be in the delivery room.

Seems easier to just not tell them and have to do all that, doesn’t it?

You wouldn’t know if they did anyway. Presumably they’ll go for sleepovers, stay with friends, go on school residential? Mother in law wouldn’t take DD abroad without me knowing, she’s just the type who if she can twist a situation to her liking and then play innocence then she will. You’re in MN fairy land.

That's a lot more dramatic than just not telling them. As if the staff done have enough to get on with.

I don’t understand.
Why would you not let them know? (unless you’re concerned that they might pitch up at the hospital/your home?)

Depends how regularly your mother and mil is involved I suppose.

akin to a school residential (once every year or two)
akin to sleepovers (my rule here is no more than once a month during term time unless for a birthday party)

or very regularly

the former I would feel comfortable with

the latter, not a chance would happen

But in any event you do know so somewhat odd to then being in scenarios where you don’t know.

if I knew a parent was sneaky and disrespectful… I would not allow my child to have sleepovers there. You would 🤷‍♀️

Eh, you sound controlling and pathetic, not the OP.

You wouldn’t want your DC to meet a partner who won’t tell you when she’s going into labour? 😆 Jeeze. Her labour is actually none of your business. When the baby is born… that’s your business.