So, here's my situation: my mother and I are VERY close even though she lives in another state. She was the matron of honor at my wedding, we text and email daily, she attended the birth of my daughter and stayed for three weeks after the birth. I BAWLED when she left.
By contrast, my MIL, who also lives in another state, drives me NUTS. She's dingy and batty, and speaks before she thinks. When my husband and I got married, she asked me if I planned to have a hot meal on the table for her son every night (we were both in graduate school at the time). She's also inquired about our sex life, which one of us is really "in charge" of our marriage, and other ridiculous things. I tense up whenever she's around.
Seems like a simple choice as to who to have help after the birth of this little one in a few weeks, right? But it gets complicated...
My mother has been hard of hearing since I can remember. She wore hearing aids and we all learned to speak loudly and clearly, but she functioned as a member of the hearing community, never needing to learn ASL or signed English. Last summer, though, she woke up and her hearing was entirely gone. This sent us all into a trauma, since now the only way to communicate with her was in writing. She can still speak clearly, but the effect of being with her is to feel as if you yourself have gone mute. You could scream in her face and she'd never hear a thing. The most efficient way to communicate now is to have a laptop in front of you, so the hearing person can type, and then she can respond with normal speech, but it's very cumbersome.
We decided, tearfully, that it would be best if she didn't attend our planned homebirth. She'd want to bend over backwards to help in any way she could, but we decided it would be too difficult to communicate in the moment. The question is what to do after the kiddo has made his appearance.
My MIL has offered to come and stay as long as we want (she doesn't work outside the home and is flexible), but the thought of that makes me squirm. I know I'll need help, but I'm not sure that having my mom around will be help or too difficult. What's really heartbreaking is that my three year old doesn't understand that Gram can't hear her. She speaks to her as she's always done, and Gram just doesn't respond and she starts to cry. This is very hard on my mom too, as you can imagine.
I've got no other family that could realistically provide postpartum support, and my husband only gets 3 days of paternity leave. Should I suck it up and accept MIL's offer or suck it up and try to be the mediator for my sweet, well meaning, and deaf as a post mom and little girl and newborn?
If you've continued reading to the end, you are amazing. Thank you!
By contrast, my MIL, who also lives in another state, drives me NUTS. She's dingy and batty, and speaks before she thinks. When my husband and I got married, she asked me if I planned to have a hot meal on the table for her son every night (we were both in graduate school at the time). She's also inquired about our sex life, which one of us is really "in charge" of our marriage, and other ridiculous things. I tense up whenever she's around.
Seems like a simple choice as to who to have help after the birth of this little one in a few weeks, right? But it gets complicated...
My mother has been hard of hearing since I can remember. She wore hearing aids and we all learned to speak loudly and clearly, but she functioned as a member of the hearing community, never needing to learn ASL or signed English. Last summer, though, she woke up and her hearing was entirely gone. This sent us all into a trauma, since now the only way to communicate with her was in writing. She can still speak clearly, but the effect of being with her is to feel as if you yourself have gone mute. You could scream in her face and she'd never hear a thing. The most efficient way to communicate now is to have a laptop in front of you, so the hearing person can type, and then she can respond with normal speech, but it's very cumbersome.
We decided, tearfully, that it would be best if she didn't attend our planned homebirth. She'd want to bend over backwards to help in any way she could, but we decided it would be too difficult to communicate in the moment. The question is what to do after the kiddo has made his appearance.
My MIL has offered to come and stay as long as we want (she doesn't work outside the home and is flexible), but the thought of that makes me squirm. I know I'll need help, but I'm not sure that having my mom around will be help or too difficult. What's really heartbreaking is that my three year old doesn't understand that Gram can't hear her. She speaks to her as she's always done, and Gram just doesn't respond and she starts to cry. This is very hard on my mom too, as you can imagine.
I've got no other family that could realistically provide postpartum support, and my husband only gets 3 days of paternity leave. Should I suck it up and accept MIL's offer or suck it up and try to be the mediator for my sweet, well meaning, and deaf as a post mom and little girl and newborn?
If you've continued reading to the end, you are amazing. Thank you!
to MIL being anywhere around as someone to be relied on. doesn't sound like she could live up to even your lowest expectations.
