not wanting family members at birth...

Um yes tell her where to go, I read briefly the other posts.

Heres mine to add, when I had Andrew everyone knew I was in hopsital and knew I was being induced on the 22nd. We told everyone that we would call once the baby was here and if at reasonable time they could come up and see us, so long as nothing major had happened. Well the induction took longer than we all thought and so I rang my mum to let her know at about 5pm what wasn't happening. At 9pm I went into labour and at that time my dad rung (he hadn't spoken with my mum as he hadn't gotten home from work) and DH spoke to him on the phone and told him I was in labour now, that was fine my dad RANG. FIL sitting at home had had enough of waiting to hear so came down to the hospital to find out what was happening. He thought he could just walk up to the delivery suite and come on into my room (he works at the hospital so had access to the ward). I was so pi$$ed when a hospital MW walked into the room and said he wanted to come in. I yelled some not very nice words to him and DH went out and told him off for coming up and did he not know how to listen. Long story short I made sure with Josh's delivery that he was to be kept well away from maternity while I was in hospital (the hospital staff did a great job of that).

Give her the job of looking after Bay that'll keep her out of the way.

Thanks for posting all this advise ladies - I have been worried about how I am going to tell my mum that I dont want her in the room with us.

We are very close and I think she is just presuming that she will be there, but I dont want her there, I jsut want it to be DH and me. (and obviosuly m/w etc!!)

I feel much better now, knowing I am not the only one to feel like this!!

Thanks ladies iv got a horid flu now so wasnt on the internet yesterday evening and come back on to find lots of posts!! thankyou for all your advice and stories, im glad to know that im not the only one who doesnt want every tom dick and harry in there!!! and im starting to rethink the whole Bailey being there thing....il have a chat to DH, we have the inlaws who will rush over to get Bay if something happens and i dont even mind if they are in the waiting room the whole time as i now know from experience that they respect me not wanting them in there but my mum would probably try to sneak in!

As i type this i keep on closing the screen down because she walks past the office and being the nosey person she is she will ask what im doing....i feel like a naughty school girl!!!!

We will still be living here when Astin is born because we want to buy after xmas so instead of renting until then wel just stay here plus we are going to aussie when Astin is a few months old and mum is comming with us so we can only get one person to look after her house littlelone another house

With all my moaning about her - she is great with Bay and another reason that we are staying here- so she can help with the boys , i guess thats why i feel so bad for not wanting her there.

I love my Mum dearly but couldn't think of anything worse than having her a our baby's birth. It was just DH, MW and me last time and thats what its going to be this time too.
Once baby is born, I have even asked MIL to just drop off my DD first and not come in herself so we can be a family for the first time without extras, only for a hour or so but to me its important. I think she has got her nose in a bit of a twist about that but I don't care.

It is such a special time, I really hope you manage to keep the extras out without feeling guilty (nothing to feel guilty about) and without them giving you grief.

Cat, I totally respect you guys for your decision for your DH to not be with you. I think there is so much pressure on our partners to be with us and sometimes it is just not the best thing to do. I think it is harder to say no, I don't want to be there and not go than it is just to bow to the pressure and go along.
Tell everyone else to stick it, it's not their business

PS, my DH was with me first time and will be there again but to be honest he was bloody useless (bless his cotton socks)

Cat - my sister and her fiance decided that he wouldnt be able to handle it when she had their son so my mum went in with sis and BIL stayed in the waiting room!! in fact he was soooooo stressed after my sis had to have a SC that when the baby was born he was put in an incubator for the trip in the elevator back to the room and BIL was in the elevator too by coincidence and didnt even realise that it was his baby even though we were cooing over him! LOL!! he was very shocked when we told him that it was his baby! lol

Cat, you will get tonns of people shocked about Dh not being in there with you, but as they pointed out the other night, not everyone is suited for attending a birth, but we 'make' our dh's and 'dps' be there because socciety dictates it at the moment. This is why doulas are becoming more common - and having a student mw will be like having a doula type person there to suport you.

I'm pretty sure there's a lot of DH/DPs who can't handle blood... so he won't be alone!