Help! Anxiouness over people being around the baby.. am I being paranoid?!

[Mango401]

Hi everyone! So I'm currently 7 weeks away from my scheduled section, and its not been an easy pregnancy at all for me or the baby! We have constantly been staying in high dependency with either me not well, or babys heart rate drops. This is my second pregnancy, and the first pregnancy was not easy either, resulting in me getting eclampsia and having a seizure during labour. I was quite protective over my son when he was born, due to us both barely making it. This time around I'm feeling the same protective side coming out. I have a very large family on my mums side, and they are making me very anxious. I constantly get I should be doing this or that, and that they all want to be at the hospital the day little one is born. I'm very lucky to have such a large family, but the last time when I had my son, they were so overbearing they nearly pushed me to a nervous breakdown! My mum understands it as she finds them the exact same way.. but she feels I need better coping mechanisms to stop them being that way, instead of just being sressed the whole time and not replying to messages, and sometimes even knocks at the door I ignore!!. My partners side of the family is very small, he does not get on well at all with his mother and wouldn't have a relationship with her if I didn't keep it going. She has had a very estranged relationship with our son.. she picks and chooses when she fancies seeing him and hardly ever helps us out when it comes to work commitments, but she manages to see her other granddaughter every day (who is only 9 months). She seems to love the baby stage and then cant be bothered when they are older. My partner works abroad and has been away for alot of the pregnancy. She has not been supportive at all and has messaged me once out of the whole time I've been in hospital. Everytime I see her though, she goes on about how she cant wait for the baby etc. Me and my partner are both really anxious about her being round the baby as her behaviour can be very strange and in your face, but she can easily get offended if you point out the behaviours are not appropriate for babies ages. I dont trust her, due to previous things with our son (for example, when I had literally just started weaning him onto solids at 6 months, she fed him super noodles, even when I had supplied appropriate food, and we ended up spending the night in the hospital!). I feel like I'm shutting everyone out, I just dont reply to messages, and I have a constant thought in my head that for the first two weeks I dont want visitors, I just want to get to know my children with my partner, and let me son get to know his sister/brother and get used to the workings of having a baby again! I dont think family will be happy with this though! I'm going to be even more protective over the baby this time. I feel like I can only trust my partner and parents! I have spoke to midwife and she thinks I will be fine once baby is here, but it is all I can think about just now! Has anyone else ever felt like this and how did you overcome it? Am I just being selfish? I am driving myself insane with it all!

[Nin21996]

I totally understand how you’re feeling, I also am very anxious about having too many visitors, I’m 29 weeks pregnant with my first (so I don’t have experience of what it’s going to be like) but after speaking with my husband we have decided we aren’t going to be having any visitors for the first two weeks as it’s the only time off my husband gets and we just don’t want to put up with people while we are getting to know our son (we are both quite introverted) it’s obviously different with my immediate family, so my parents, brothers and my nan who I live next door to will be welcome to visit, but all the distant relatives will be told to wait until we feel up to it, my in laws live far away and only my very grumpy FIL drives so I’m not expecting them to visit more than once, which is one worry off my shoulders. If anyone doesn’t respect your decision they can do one, it’s your baby, and you’ve had a very stressful pregnancy from the sounds of it, you’re entitled to take however long you want to spend as a family, if anyone tries to tell you any different ask them if they were there when the baby was conceived, if they weren’t then they’ve no right to make any decisions relating to that child x

[Mango401 in reply to Nin21996]

Thankyou so much for your reply, made me feel a ton better and less guilty!! I'm fed up of them saying that I'm just going overboard and I'm too much, but they dont understand how overwhelming they are, even though I have explained to them a million times! I dont want to hurt anyones feelings but I just need time to adjust! X

[Nin21996 in reply to Mango401]

Stick to your guns, if it hurt their feelings to saying that you’d appreciate a bit of time alone with your new addition then they clearly don’t have enough respect for you as a new mother, it is a completely normal thing to need the space to adjust.

I’m lucky that my husband is happy to be the one turning people away, he’s using his 2 weeks paternity as the excuse, maybe your husband could do something similar and tell any of the family that you don’t want there, that he would appreciate them giving you guys a bit of time as a family before he goes back to work? They’re less likely to say anything if it comes from someone on the outside x

[Mali-jay]

When my sister had her second baby she announced his birth two days after he was born as they just wanted to spend time as a family. I love my sister so I totally respected her decision.

I don't have any children yet (we have been trying for 10 years) I think that if I did fall pregnant I would want to spend the first few weeks of babies life without my extended family around

[Hidden]

I would explain to everyone about your anxieties (understandable after your first) and ask them to give you and your husband space. Explain that you don't want them all at the hospital and would rather like it for it to just be the 3 of you for the first couple of weeks. Just say that you really struggled last time and would like to have the chance to not do so this time. No need to say they are overbearing. Good luck with all. Remember you, your baby and your husband are the most important people here. Xx

[Kata89]

As it’s an elective section either tell them the wrong date or that you haven’t got one yet. We told our immediate families and no one else. Just that it was at 38 weeks. That worked well for us. I also made sure everyone knew that we didn’t want visitors straight away, although different situation and we ended up inviting people over within a couple of days. I insisted my partners neice and nephew had first visit and any siblings who didn’t make it to the hospital.

You don’t have to be honest about dates etc, they can’t hold that against you, well they might try but then they aren’t worth it.

Good luck with the section, an elective is pretty relaxed. Enjoy the baby and I hope your older child likes being a big brother

[Major2116]

You're in no way selfish! I was the same when we had our little boy. We said we'd let immediate family come to see him in hospital so like parents/brothers/sister's/our grandparents then everyone else would have to wait until we're ready and we'd go to them so we could leave when we wanted rather than having people not realise we needed to rest because they'd be so excited over our boy.

There's only a handful of people we'd trust with our son n it's been like that from day 1. They're the only people that we'll ever ask to watch him if need be.

It's your child and people need to respect that. Just tell your family you want a few days to settle in and will get back to people reguarding visiting.

If they've had children then they'll know how overwhelming it is xx