I'm due to have her first grandchild any day now so I knew she'd want to come visit us to see the baby. I have plenty of family and friends around and feel that I'm a fairly competent individual capable of educating myself and picking up the phone when needed. She insists that I need someone to stay with me. I disagree but would be fine with letting that go since I know she probably really wants to visit with the baby anyway and won't get to see her as much as my in-laws.
The problem is my dad has been having lots of complications from his diabetes lately. He was in the hospital for 5 weeks straight starting in January! It started with an infection in his toe which had to be partially amputated. The fever persisted for over a week and the antibiotics that they put him on caused his kidneys to fail so that he is now on dialysis. Furthermore, he couldn't keep anything down until recently and has lost weight. When they finally let him go home, he had a relapse 3 days later. She couldn't get him to wake up and had to have him rushed to the hospital! They treated his low blood sugar and released him a few days later (earlier this week) but he still needs to go to dialysis 2-3 days a week, have insulin shots, and he has trouble getting around the house by himself! She's in the process of trying to arrange for my aunts, uncles, and church members to take him to dialysis and give him his shots while she's gone. My brother lives with them but between school and work he's gone all the time. I'm a little frustrated that my mom still wants to come stay with us for a week even though I think my dad needs her way more than I do.
There's also the financial burden to consider. The cost of the ticket for her one week stay is a whopping $583. I can only imagine what the medical bills must look like, but I know that my dad hasn't been able to work since late December, and she says she hasn't been working for the past 3 weeks because she's been taking care of him. She has to be back by Mar. 20th (the end of spring break) or she worries she'll lose her teaching job. She's put in several years and is getting close to retirement age so that would be devestating.
I hope this third thing doesn't sound selfish but the truth is I wasn't completely looking forward to her visit anyway. She's an overbearing, perfectionist so we've tended to butt heads before. I've been dreading her comments on how my house isn't clean enough (her house is always magazine cover perfect), I don't iron my clothes every time I leave the house (she puts perfect creases in everything including blue jeans), I don't sort my laundry the ways she does (by such specific guidelines that each load ends up with only 3 or 4 items in it and she has to wash all day everyday), etc. Also, in general, my mom is very concerned with "the norm" and what other people think while I prefer to think outside the box. She's reluctant about the natural birth thing, and I haven't even brought up the issue of breastfeeding.
Fourth, I'm not really sure what she'd be helping with anyway. There's cleaning and holding the baby obviously, but she can't help with feedings. Since I'm breastfeeding I don't really want to introduce a bottle (even for pumped milk) that soon. My mom hates cooking, and she won't be running errands for us because she won't want to drive in an unfamiliar city or heavy traffic. Plus my husband can run the errands. He works in a grocery store in a shopping center with everything we need that is only 5 min from the house.
Of course, I'm new to motherhood so I'm probably not taking something into account; maybe I need her more than I realize. I'm also guessing that my mom needs a break from being nurse since the past 2 months or so have been very hard on her. She seems pretty determined to do what she wants based on emotion even though I think it's illogical. The bottom line is that I think she's determined to spend time with her new grandbaby. I'm not sure that I feel like fighting her on it; I just hope that nothing happens to my dad while she's gone.
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