Apologies if this turns out long, but I prob need to give all the background to make sense! Also should mention I’m an only child for context, we have an almost three year old and I am currently 36 weeks pregnant.
My parents live about 1.5 ish hours away from us; they used to live in another part of the country (where I grew up) but dad ended up in same area as me for work, however they bought a house that far away from us (and work and nearest large city) because they wanted a massive garden as a retirement project. That was about 13 years ago, when they were both in good health. We’ve always visited fairly regularly although they came to us as often, and we did alternate Christmases pretty much.
However mum’s health has declined rapidly over the last few years, and she was diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) almost 2 years ago. Dad is now basically a full time carer as mum isn’t very mobile and has falls often, and they can’t come to stay with us any more because mum can’t manage stairs. We do try to go up regularly but we can’t all stay over with them either as there aren’t enough beds now since they got rid of some in anticipation of moving, and replaced one with a hospital bed which mum refuses to sleep in.
They (well dad mostly, really, as mum struggles cognitively as well now) decided to move somewhere closer to us with a smaller garden. They accepted an offer on their house in Feb/March but they’ve struggled to find somewhere suitable that’s disabled accessible as there’s just not much coming on the market. A couple of properties fell through due to survey issues or dad getting cold feet at last minute - he’s really worried he’s doing the wrong thing moving mum especially as she’s deteriorated since they started this process. I want them to move as it’ll be easier for us to visit each other frequently (and mum see plenty of grandchildren) without wanting to stay over, they’ll be less remote from local facilities, dad won’t feel he has to spend all his time keeping on top of the garden, and we can sit with mum to give him a break more easily.
They have finally found a property which seems a good fit about 25 min from us. However dad is worried about the moving process especially how mum will cope as the house is packed up, and wants her to stay with us for a couple of nights until he can take her to the new house. Their buyers understandably want to complete by end of September and this seems possible at the other end of the chain too. However from my POV it’s terrible timing as I’ll have a maximum 2 week old baby and I’m worried about looking after my toddler and the new baby and mum. DH will still be on leave which will help, but I’m still basically worried about the responsibility. Of course she can’t get up our stairs so would need to come up with some solution for her to sleep downstairs and I can’t think what would work. She won’t use the hospital bed if we got it brought to our house, and she struggles a lot with beds that are the wrong height otherwise. Also she’s liable to fall in the night and will need help getting to the toilet.
There has now been mention of her going into respite care very temporarily instead, but I know she doesn’t want this and I feel awful for potentially not looking after her in her hour of need.
Am I being awful? Both in encouraging them to move and in worrying about having mum overnight? Really don’t know how best to support them in general to be honest- feel I am not being a good daughter. And I feel bad that we moved a year ago and didn’t prioritise looking for a house with a downstairs bedroom for mum to stay in.