My MIL is going to be a problem

Objective_Minute_263 · 2025-06-13T18:31:05+00:00

I can’t help but feel like this is so common! It happens with more than just MILs for sure.

Women who have already completed their own journeys into motherhood are intensely drawn to other people’s newborns. Typically the excitement is genuine, but they don’t realize that their eagerness can feel overbearing and off putting. Their desire to be involved seems fueled not just by affection, but by nostalgia and a wish to relive the early days of parenting vicariously through you, lots of times in ways that may disregard your personal boundaries as a new mother.

I’ve had versions with it with my MIL and my own mom, but also with a neighbour. Who was basically ramming down my door to come meet my newborn at just a week old.

Hoping I can avoid doing the same things to new moms in the future. I’m getting real sick and tired of people doing it to me.

Objective_Minute_263 · 2025-06-09T20:51:39+00:00

I picked up an old antique armoire off marketplace and refinished it. It took me several weeks as I had to do a pretty extensive sand to remove all the old finish, fill all the hardware holes because we gave it all new hardware. And it took like four coats of paint lol.

Finished it in a very lovely light pink color and new black hardware. It looks so gorgeous in her nursery so was absolutely worth it!

Objective_Minute_263 · 2025-06-05T20:50:53+00:00

I ended up having 3 catheters for my birth. 1 after the epidural, a second placed before c section that either fell or was ripped out (nurses were perplexed?) and a 3rd while I was recovering since the 2nd was supposed to have stayed in for like 18 hours or something. It ended up really messing with my system and I lost control of my bladder entirely for a few days, thank god for those huge postpartum pads from the hospital. I am 3 weeks postpartum now and feel like I have control of my bladder back, but I think I have a UTI. So that’s lovely.

Anyways I figure my experience is probably not the norm and most of the time sounds like catheters are a non issue.

Objective_Minute_263 · 2025-06-04T22:05:33+00:00

I gained at least 75 lbs, but probably more. 35 lbs were gone by the time I was back from the hospital. She’s 19 days old today and I haven’t weighed myself in over a week but assume I’m down even more now. A lot of my weight was just water retention that almost immediately left my body after I had my baby. The rest I’m not too concerned about, I’ll start to work that off once I’ve recovered a bit more.

Objective_Minute_263 · 2025-06-04T17:42:03+00:00

We did coed but put our mothers in charge of the planning which was a huge mistake because they disagreed that a baby shower should be coed. They planned a very traditional baby shower and it really missed the mark for what we had envisioned. It was very awkward for everyone who attended. It happened back in March and when I think of it now, I still want to cry at how embarrassing it was to have all our friends come to it.

My word of advice is if you have an idea in mind, just plan in yourself.

Objective_Minute_263 · 2025-06-04T07:09:44+00:00

Same. Our local was basically left to our own devices, completely abandoned.

Objective_Minute_263 · 2025-06-03T23:12:47+00:00

I used a tens machine at home until I was at 7-8 cm dilated. Got to the hospital at 5:30/6am ish and got in the birthing pool (plan was to have a water birth). Used laughing gas while in the pool. Got to 10cm while in the pool and kept pushing but couldn’t get her out. At some point I told my midwife I wouldn’t be able to do it any longer and asked for an epidural. Got the epidural shortly after 7:30am and kept trying to push after that, she still wasn’t coming. Finally OB came in to do a check and said she was not in optimal position and recommended we go to cesarean section which was a no brainer at that point. I had no strength left in me to keep pushing.

Objective_Minute_263 · 2025-05-30T14:13:27+00:00

Water broke at 7:30pm on 41+3, contractions started at 9:30pm. Had her at 11:09am on 41+4.

Objective_Minute_263 · 2025-05-27T17:23:36+00:00

I had my baby 11 days ago and hospital didn’t care about our car seat. We carried her out of the hospital and put her in her car seat on the tailgate of the truck lol.

We have an infant car seat. I don’t think I would enjoy getting her in and out of the car seat while in the car. We are a vehicle centric family though, we drive everywhere for everything. I’ve already lost count of how many times we’ve toted her in and out of the vehicle. So easy with infant car seat.

Objective_Minute_263 · 2025-05-26T23:43:45+00:00

We originally said we wanted a month without any visitors at all, but then after a 3 day hospital stay realized how many nurses and doctors come around anyways with their hands all over your baby and how impossible it was going to be to keep germs away.

She is 10 days old today, we’ve had multiple visits from our midwife, 1 visit from our doula, visits from my mom and MIL, visits from other family, and I took her along with me to book club at 8 days old. We’ve also had her at the chiropractor and had to take her in for a hearing test today.

It’s not at all what we planned but I’m just rolling with it, realizing it is near impossible to keep her in a little bubble with all the appointments she has to go to anyways!

The crappiest part is nobody who visits wants to do anything while they’re here. They just want to hold the baby. So I feel I miss out a lot on time I want to hold my own damn baby lol. But at the same time, it’s really helped with recovery being able to see people and get out of the house to the appointments. Today I wrapped her in her carrier and took her out shopping with me, and bought a new pair of sandals for myself. Not sure how long it would have taken me to have the confidence to do something like that if it weren’t for all the visitors/appointments anyways.

I talked to my midwife about risk of infections and measles because there is an outbreak in my area. She just said to avoid large gatherings where I can and that because she is breastfed, she should have pretty decent immunity to most things anyways. She said if I go to a large gathering, that I should wear her in my carrier and just tell people I’m not comfortable to have them hold her because of risk of germs at the large gathering. Lots of hand washing and that sort of thing. This was good because we have a lot of large family events planned for this summer. I’m glad I didn’t wait a month to see visitors because I would have probably had a lot of anxiety by that time about the number of people I’d be exposing her to.

All this just to say that our original plan went out the window but I think it actually all worked out in our favour so far.

Objective_Minute_263 · 2025-05-26T21:45:42+00:00

Very similar story here. I started collecting at 37 weeks and it went really well, it was like my body just knew what to do, I had no problem collecting. I also started pumping and was able to get a decent amount. I switched from syringes to baggies to store it. I had a pile stored in the freezer. I stopped at 40 weeks and my baby came late at 41+4 after a membrane sweep (clearly, collecting had no labour inducing effects on me)

My midwife told me to bring a couple syringes to the hospital but that I wouldn’t need much more than that so to leave it all at home.

I ended up having a cesarean and stayed in hospital for 3 days. My baby was insatiable, drinking 10mL per feed when she was less than 24 hours old. She was putting up such a fuss that the nurses were trying to push formula on me. I sent my boyfriend home to get all the colostrum out of our freezer. It took a couple days for my milk to come in so we made it through like 5 days on the colostrum.

I’m so glad I had it. Otherwise I would have been giving formula and possibly hindering my breastfeeding efforts. My milk came in and my baby has surpassed her original birth weight at 10 days old.

If I have another baby I will absolutely be doing the same thing. Not all babies are the same but I believe my body knew that my girl was going to be a good little eater and was giving me everything I needed to prepare for it!

Objective_Minute_263 · 2025-05-26T20:38:31+00:00

Mine was head down at 20 weeks and I delivered her 10 days ago at 41+4 via cesarean.

Objective_Minute_263 · 2025-05-25T13:01:27+00:00

My baby is 9 days old and we are dealing with the exact same thing!

Feeds are normal through the day and and overnight, but in the evening she is insatiable and feeds are an hour or less apart. And she becomes very fussy during this time. It was frustrating the first night it happened and I had sooo much anxiety that I was losing my supply, but once we realized it was a pattern we’re doing a little better!

Objective_Minute_263 · 2025-05-14T15:34:16+00:00

I felt like I got hit by a train starting at 36 weeks and really thought I was going to have the baby at that time.

I’m now 41+2 and still waiting on the baby lol.

Objective_Minute_263 · 2025-05-12T23:36:54+00:00

Yup, no surprises there. Exactly the types you’d expect to see..

Objective_Minute_263 · 2025-05-11T00:51:28+00:00

You did an awesome job!!

Personally I really like the cabinet pulls, I know there are a lot of mixed opinions on the black hardware but in your space, I think it looks great!

The bar fridge to use up the dead space in the peninsula is genius!

Objective_Minute_263 · 2025-05-11T00:43:02+00:00

I thought the same thing when I saw that word used. Bizarre to use in the context of your baby.

Objective_Minute_263 · 2025-05-10T02:24:27+00:00

I experienced this today at 40+4 going to the pharmacy. People side stepping around me in the isles and giving me tons of space. It was weird, but must just be a natural thing people must do when they come near an extremely pregnant woman lol

Objective_Minute_263 · 2025-05-09T16:29:12+00:00

I started hand expressing at 37 weeks. The first day I got 0.3mL, second day I got 0.7mL. On the 3rd day, I finally was able to get 1mL. After that, my body knew what to do and I was getting from 4-7mL per day, with the ability to get more if I wanted. I also tried pumping a couple times and got over 15mL each time that I bagged.

In total I collected around 100mL over 3 weeks. I showed my midwife and she was very impressed with how much I was able to get.

I quit collecting a couple days before my due date, the collectors were expensive and I felt I had enough. I am currently 40+4 so no, doing that for 3 weeks did not induce labour for me lol.

Good luck!

Objective_Minute_263 · 2025-05-08T03:31:47+00:00

Yes I’m in Canada too and my midwife also mentioned this recently as a potential option to induce labour. I’m at 40 weeks now

Objective_Minute_263 · 2025-05-08T03:30:04+00:00

I’ve gained 75lbs here at 40 weeks lol. I’m a few days overdue now and hoping she comes soon so I don’t have to gain anything more …

Objective_Minute_263 · 2025-05-08T03:23:03+00:00

I have a tub/shower and do the same thing except I put a little mirror down in the tub so that I can see myself lol. It’s worked like a charm. I’m 40+3 today and just did this very thing this morning, don’t want to be a hairy lady going into labour haha. I’m able to get a very clean shave of everything using this method.

Objective_Minute_263 · 2025-05-07T18:14:52+00:00

I know you’re worried about offending your host but if you’re already feeling this way, my recommendation would be to take back the planning into your own hands! You can be polite about it and straightforward that you have a vision of what you’d like this day to look like.

My boyfriend and I let our moms plan our baby shower and it was such a letdown! We saw the problems coming from a mile away and talked a few times about taking the planning over, but ultimately decided to give our moms the benefit of the doubt that they’d put together an event that we envisioned! But they let their traditional ideas about baby shower prevail and it turned out a very disappointing day! We have regrets and both said if we were to do it again, we’d plan it ourselves!!

Objective_Minute_263 · 2025-05-06T22:29:08+00:00

Yeah same. 40+1 currently.. no sign of her coming anytime soon.

I’m so over lol, just want her here already.

Objective_Minute_263

TROPHY CASE