Reply to Is there any expectation on a family member who stays “postpartum”?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Here's the thing. And this is really hard for some people, particularly women, but it's so important, and it's particularly important once you have children:

You have to advocate for what you (and your family) need.

Without apology, equivocation, or being open to interpretation.

If someone wants to stay with you the week after your baby is born, you think about what you want and if that's reasonable/doable. Okay, you only want someone who will be helpful (duh). Given who your MIL is and your history with her, if you tell her, "we would love to have you, but only if you can help with cooking, cleaning, and household tasks" will she do it? If no or maybe or if you're unwilling to ask and state your needs freely, then the answer is, "No, MIL, you cannot stay with us that week."

We told everyone (three sets of grandparents plus aunts and uncles) they were welcome to come when the baby was born but they needed to stay in hotels. And most of them did! (Some opted not to travel.) We invited only my mother and stepfather to come back and stay with us for week three, because we knew they'd be helpful if we asked. No one else was allowed to stay with us during the newborn stage.

Was my mother disappointed not to be able to stay with us that first week? Yup. But I knew what I needed that first week was some space and my husband. Was my dad disappointed to be staying in hotels the first six months after each of my kids were born? Yup. But he is not helpful (I'd call him neutral - makes about as much work as he saves) and that's not what I need postpartum.

For what it's worth, I have a great relationship with my parents, all three of them, and they visit frequently and we visit them and they're all close with the grandkids. But YOU need to advocate for YOUR family. No one else (except your husband, hopefully) is going to do that.

So stop focusing on what they did ("was it rude that they didn't help?") and start focusing on what you did ("You know what? I expected them to just jump in and help and I never said that. I need to remember next time to ask for help or not invite them")[/quote]

The casual dismissal of reality here is really something.

This comment is basically saying women are not only responsible for everything, they’re also responsible for coaching men and relatives through acceptable behavior, even if those people are perfectly able-bodied adults with an equal amount of intelligence and much better functioning bodies. And it ignores how pregnant women are affected by the patriarchy and misogyny.

I have always been a very strong, capable, outspoken person. But from the second I got pregnant I was surprised by how many people attempted to or did bully me: medical professionals, relatives, and even friends. It was shocking to be as physically vulnerable as I’ve ever been and have people respond to it the way they did. I liked being pregnant and love my DC but in some ways was treated like an incubator for those 9 months and the 1-2 years after.

We don’t talk about how our society decides that pregnant women are their property and also somehow no longer capable of thinking for themselves.

As someone who advocated for myself and was branded controlling by my spineless DH who was afraid of everything postpartum, and a b-tch by my MIL, I am pretty sure that most women here already advocated for themselves or considered it and realized how ineffective it truly is.[/quote]

I just posted about being pressured/guilt tripped into traveling with my newborn way before I was ready so my ILs could meet the baby, and being treated really poorly on that trip and really resenting it.

Should I have said "no, I will not travel until I feel physically ready and the baby is older"? Yes. Was I actually capable of doing that while sleep deprived, stressed, dealing with massive hormone shifts, and just generally feeling overwhelmed and isolated, as many new moms do? No, I wasn't. In the first conversation about when we would visit them, I said "I'm not ready" (this was days after the baby was born). The second conversation was a week later and I still stated I wasn't ready but started getting heavy guilt trips, including from my DH. The thing was, he was also getting heavy guilt trips, and he didn't feel he could push back because his dad was sick. He was in a really challenging headspace as a new dad and, like me, struggled to push back. It was brought up again and again and eventually I just gave in and said okay. It was a horrible trip and remains an awful memory.

I did find my voice eventually, when my hormones had settled, I got treatment for PPD, and we settled into life as new parents. It took almost a year.

I believe the obligation in those first weeks and months is NOT on the new parents, who are just trying to figure it out. And especially not on the new mom who is undergoing a massive physical, mental, and emotional ordeal and should not be expected to be some superwoman who can self advocate at every moment or have to suffer the consequences. The obligation is on the people around the new parents to not be selfish jerks, to practice a smidge of empathy, and to have some patience and forbearance instead of thinking exclusively about how important it is that they get physical access to the baby.

Stop blaming the woman you just got out of the hospital, has raging hormones, and has gotten a max of 2-3 hours of consecutive sleep since the baby was born. That person is the only one who is blameless here.[/quote]

I'm the PP of the first message in this thread, recommending standing up for yourself and your family. I'm so sorry for what both of you two previous posters (and several others on this chain!) have gone through.

I want to point out a critical difference between my situation and yours: The husband factor

My husband had my back. With my family, with his family, with whatever. There is absolutely no substitute for that, and probably the time I needed it most was postpartum. A spineless husband afraid of everything? A husband who not only doesn't back you up against his parents when they're asking for unreasonable things, but actually piles on additional guilt? That is completely unacceptable, and would absolutely have made it about a thousand times harder for me to stand up for what I needed. If there is one person who should always be actively look after and backing up a woman postpartum, it's her husband. [/quote]

But my DH isn't spineless. At that time, he was a first time dad with an infant whose own father had recently fallen ill and he was struggling, just like I was. He didn't want to say no to them and he was sleep deprived and worried about living up to expectations as a dad and he screwed up. He has had my back plenty of other times but that was a vulnerable time for us both, and it feels like his family exploited our vulnerability to get what they wanted.

I also think his mom was resentful that her husband was sick which made it impossible for them to travel, and took it out on us since she couldn't take it out on him.[/quote]

It was not spineless of DH. If my dad had been sick, I would have done the same thing and traveled with the baby. And it would have sucked. But I would have felt it was worth it. Maybe it was just a crappy situation?[/quote]

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