Terribly OT opinions requested...

She has been griping for MONTHS about coming up to help clean and decorate.
I keep refusing because I know that every 10 minutes all I will hear about
is what a horrible housekeeper I am and how terrible my decorating sense is.
We have been in our new house for right close to 5 months, and she STILL
hasn't been in here (because we won't let her mind you).

Ohhh sweetie! Between being adopted and this above (and the not feeling
"good enough") I think either we or our mothers are related! My mom is
wonderful in many ways, but also incredibly controlling and judgemental. She
knows where most of my buttons are because she installed 'em. It's amazing.
Mike has gone back east with me twice before this coming week, and he's seen
it firsthand. I love my mom but I'm very glad for the 2400 miles between us.
It gives me a lot more time to prepare for the next invasion. And trust me,
if she's been Napoleon's or Hitler's general, they's have taken Russia.

I know it's a lot easier to say this than to actually do it, but you need to
develop the art of smiling and nodding when she's around, only
half-listening (keep your ears on, turn your feelings off), and letting it
roll off your back. As long as you and yours are happy with housekeeping,
etc., all is well. My mom's house looks like something out of Architectural
Digest. She also lives alone and has a couple who come and do heavy cleaning
for her. Me, I'm winging it with a reasonably neat man (by man-standards)
and two amazingly oblivious kids. They're trainable but it's slow. G And
we LIVE in our home, it's not a showplace. Big difference in standards. (And
I bet this sounds really familiar, too.)

I suspect that, like my mom, yours really wants to come and help you. She
doesn't understand that her criticism isn't helpful and she doesn't
understand how and why you do things differently. She's probably also
frightened for you deep down because childbirth is alien territory for her.
My mom was a nurse for many years and she still stayed clear of L&D until
she was invited in. She WAS the first person to hold my daughter (I'd sent
my ex out, too) but every time she saw my incision she got teary. Some folks
respond to being scared that way in odd ways, like telling you "it's not so
bad". And I bet she wasn't trying to put you down, but trying to help you
get through it...but in a way that didn't work because she didn't
understand.

I suspect that your mom IS searching for a way to help, a place to fit in to
YOUR family. It's not easy for her or for you. Perhaps if you invited her to
help out with kidlet #1 while you're working on kidlet #2, she would have a
better direction on which to focus.

More luck on ya,
---
KarenK
Desert Dreamer Designs
http://members.cox.net/desertdreameraz/
Ebay Sto http://www.stores.ebay.com/desertdreamerdesigns
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Your body, your baby, your birth experience...it's your decision. If she
continues to nag/complain about it, just remind her that it's not a
reflection on her or your relationship with her, but that you've come to
feel that birth is a private experience for you and your husband.

--

Barbara
www.penguintrax.com

eBay: pnguintrax
Justbeadsenguintrax

0
/O\

Oh boy, I love giving my opinion!!! LOL.
1. You have a perfect right to ask for people, including your Mom, not to
be in the delivery room. She is the one being unreasonable if she does not
want to respect your wishes. Delivery is a very private, intense time.
2. It might be nice if you allowed a brief hospital visit. This is your
mother's grandchild, after all, and she is excited too. But she has to
understand that you, for the most part, would prefer continued privacy. If
she wants to stop for an hour, that wouldn't be so unreasonable. If she
can't be trusted to respect your wishes and need for peace and quiet, then
maybe she shouldn't come. If my daughter would not let me visit her in the
hospital after she had a baby, I would be pretty hurt. However, I hope I
would be sensitive enough to her needs to limit the time and "volume" if she
needed space.
3. Think long and hard about the sterilization. What if, god forbid, you
were in an accident and you lost your children. Certainly this is very
unlikely, but not impossible. We have some close friends who chose his
vasectomy after their second child. Their second child died last year. Now
they want to be pregnant again and have reversed the surgery, however, this
is not always as simple and successful as one would hope. The bottom line
is, they will have to spend about 10,000 dollars for a procedure to have a
pregnancy. Again, no guarantees. They are heartbroken and all the problems
with getting pregnant just intensify their pain.
If you truly are okay with adoption and another pregnancy is dangerous, then
you are probably making the right decision. I guess what I am saying is,
there is no harm is waiting and using birth control for awhile. It's one
hell of a big decision.

Sorry you are going through all this BS with your Mom. Hope you can resolve
it. It does sound as though she needs to back off and let you liveyour own
life a bit more.

KathyH
"Karlee in Kansas" wrote in message
...
Please don't label me as a horrible person for these things, but I would
like the input of anyone that has been a "new
mom" (even and especially if you have been said new mom more than once).

I had a little spat with my mom again. She is upset because the only
people that I will allow in the labor and delivery
room with me while I'm in the process of bringing Ellie into the world is
hospital staff (kept to a minimum....i.e. *no
interns or students) and my husband. I don't want everyone and their dog
stopping by to check on me and seeing me laid
out like a filleted fish. This includes my parents and his parents. (His
mom will be lucky if she gets within 5 miles
of the hospital) I have watched TLC enough to notice the sheer numbers of
people that enjoy watching a baby being born.
I understand that it is truly an amazing sight to see, but I don't really
feel like having the world look at my private
areas....cameras of all types have also been banned (for me at least)
during the birthing process. This is a personal
choice that I'm making here, and I understand that it does not bother some
people, but it bothers me.

Mom has her nose out of place because I told her that she and everyone
else can wait in the waiting room...I don't want
visitors. (*interns and students are part of the cause in how I almost
lost my life during my first experience with
child birth, and a couple of the student nurses I had during my labor were
MUCH less than professional...they giggled at
me when the attending CNM lifted the sheet to do an exam to see how far I
was dilated.) She thinks that everyone that
wants to visit me should be allowed to visit me, that I shouldn't have a
problem with people seeing my neither regions
during the labor process because, according to her, "the doctors and
nurses are going to be coming and going anyway, you
should be used to it."

Second sore spot with mom falls into the post delivery category. For my
duration in the hospital, I only want my kids
and husband in there. I don't want a parade of people. Its time for me,
baby, kidlet the first, and the new daddy. It
is my opinion that they can wait until we get settled at home before they
come visit.

Again, mom has her nose out of place on this one. She wants to be there
to hold Ellie hours after her birth like she
was for kidlet the first. I understand her want, but I am going to want
to rest and get acquainted with the baby
without a three-ring circus going on in the room (Labor is NOT an easy job
if memory serves me correctly). Last time I
was way groggy after the anesthetic and all people did was make noise and
make it near impossible to rest. Staff would
not ask them to leave after I requested that they do so.

The last sore spot with mom (and the biggest I might add) is the fact that
I am requesting surgical sterilization after
the birth. DH is going to get "fixed" as well. Both of us see how hard
pregnancy is on me and neither one of us want
to go through this again. (I have a habit of pre-term labor that is NOT a
barrel of monkeys) Both me and DH love and
adore children, but my risks of having harder and harder pregnancies
increase with each one (according to doc, who btw,
is supporting my desire to have a tubal). We agreed that if we want more
kids in the future, that we will adopt. (I,
for the record, am adopted so I don't understand her issue with this one)

Mom thinks that I will regret this decision and shouldn't do it.

Do you guys think that I should please the planet by letting people see me
in all my glory whilst I feel terribly
uncomfortable? Do you guys think that I should let the outside world turn
my hospital room into a major hub of
activity? Do you think that at 27, after major complications during
pregnancy, labor, and delivery, and two kids, that
I should reconsider my choice to be sterilized?

Opinions are being requested, but flames are not. I'm getting enough heat
from my mom on these topics to last a
lifetime.

TIA,
Karlee in Kansas
--
Visit my web page! www.angelfire.com/ks3/karlee/index.html
Our family page: http://groups.msn.com/brennanfamilypage


--

"Karlee, Your mom needs to take a pill. Or, as I've suggested befo
tranquilizer darts. Slip some roofies in her drink, and let her wake up a
week later, a cast member in the worldwide tour of "Up with People!" :-)"

OMG!! LOL.
KathyH

In what way does a tubal ligation damage one's health? I had
it done 19 yrs. ago at age 27 and have had no after effects at all.

take care, Linda


On Wed, 16 Jul 2003 08:15:54 GMT, "Christina Peterson"
wrote:

But 27 is still very young to be certain that she will never remarry and
wish for children. The biggest consideration is that it might damage her
health.

What I really hesitate to say though, is that coming from a family with such
trauma as she has told us of quite often, limiting children is also a good
idea.

Tina

Vancouver Island, bc.ca (remove 'nospam' to reply)
See samples of my work at: www.members.shaw.ca/deugau

In article WGcRa.8284$Bp2.4521@fed1read07,
says...

snip

I suspect that your mom IS searching for a way to help, a place to fit in to
YOUR family. It's not easy for her or for you.

Playing Devil's Advocate here... this may indeed be correct. Equally likely is
that Karlee's mother is a control freak with severe boundary issues, and only
interested in Having Things Her Own Way. We aren't there, but from some of the
scenarios Karlee has described, it certainly sounds to *me* as though her
mother has trouble accepting her as a separate person rather than a
self-extension.

Unfortunately, the only cure I was ever able to find for that particular
problem was simply shutting my parents out of anything but the most superficial
contact with my life, since nothing about it pleased them because it wasn't
what *they* would have done, and they were constitutionally incapable of
keeping that displeasure (and their recommendations for fixing me) to
themselves.

Celine

--
Handmade jewelry at http://www.rubylane.com/shops/starcat
"Only the powers of evil claim that doing good is boring."
-- Diane Duane, _Nightfall at Algemron_

In article ,
says...

Karlee, I've never had children but this isn't about that. It's a boundary
issue. This is about *your* body, *your* pain, *your* wishes and *your*
choices.

Anyone who can't respect your right to set boundaries where they are
comfortable for you regarding issues as personal as childbirth and fertility
is being selfish and childish. Your mom may be your mom, but you are an
adult, and at the moment she is treating you like property, not like a
thinking, feeling, capable human being. I would simply tell her that these
issues aren't up for discussion and remove them from the table.

Kindly and politely decline involvement in further discussion on these
issues and avoid getting drawn into arguments with your mom about this. It
really isn't her business, and you do not need the added stress at this
time. You have every right to make your own decisions about this and to be
as firm as necessary in making sure those decisions are respected.

Bingo! Laura, you've nailed this one. It's NOT about the pregnancy, or the
labor and childbirth, or the sterilization. It's all about ownership. Does
Karlee own her body and her life, or are they her mother's? That's the base
issue here.

Celine

--
Handmade jewelry at http://www.rubylane.com/shops/starcat
"Only the powers of evil claim that doing good is boring."
-- Diane Duane, _Nightfall at Algemron_

Karlee, this is solely your decision - your mother needs to respect
your wishes for this birth. It's not like she wasn't there before, so
she has had the experience of being there for a grandchild's birth -
let her sit this one out.

Btw, I think your choices are wonderful and absolutely valid - if I
were ever (never! ) to have a child, I would make the same
requests. It's your body and your baby and your labor, not anyone
else's. I think, FWIW, that it's important that you stand fast in
your wishes so that you can have the experience be just like you want
it to be.

I got yelled at by my mom because I was in hella pain and making it known
that
I was rather uncomfortable with each contraction (this is before the relief
of my epidural). Mom said "Quit yelling
about it. It doesn't hurt THAT bad"

This totally cracked me up (in a not-nice way) -- How the hell would she know?
As you said, she never had a kid, you were adopted! Jeeeeez
~~
Sooz
-------
ESBC
~ Dr. Sooz's Bead Links
http://airandearth.netfirms.com/soozlinkslist.html
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I just don't want some nursing student that has never had kidlets to be
giggling at my pain AND my privates like the
first time around. I was insulted, hurt, still in pain, and threw a bed pan
at one of them. No, I didn't miss.

I loooove this. And if you think about it, they were probably giggling because
they were uncomfortable. Screw 'em. Good for you for hurling something at
them. (And hitting the target)
~~
Sooz
-------
ESBC
~ Dr. Sooz's Bead Links
http://airandearth.netfirms.com/soozlinkslist.html
~ Bead Notes: Beading information A - Z
http://www.lampwork.net/beadnotes.html