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My husband and I had our 2nd baby 3 weeks ago. He is the cutest! Anyway, my parents live an hour drive from us. My husband's parents are a 4 hr plane ride away. For our first baby, my mother drove to stay with us 3 nights every week for the first month after baby came. She would help with the baby, cook a couple meals, and so on.
Well, a few days after our 2nd was born, my mother found out her dog is sick and could have cancer. She panicked and canceled on us very last minute. The dog needs medicine and has to be taken care of. She did not seem sympathetic at all and will not allow anyone else to take care of the dog for a couple days. Not the veterinarian, hospital, my father, family, etc. She's been saying maybe next week will be better, but then cancels again. She emails me how awful the dog is doing, how she cries and cries.
My husband and I are stressed because we are doing this all on our own and we're so tired. Plus, I'm still recovering. We feel she chose her dog over her family in need. I don't know what to think. I told her how sorry are but is there anyone to take care of the dog part time, 2 or 3 days per week? She refuses to let anyone help and has come up with every excuse possible. She wants to do it.
Do people love their pets over family? Any grandparents out there that can give advice?
Your mother may feel that this being the 2nd baby and you are an "old hand" with kids now - you don't need her as much as the first time. Could your father come help you out? I am sympathetic - but please know that it is a luxury to have family (mother) help after having a baby.
We recently lost our dog to cancer - I know how hard that is on a family - but I find it curious and quite weird that your mom is acting this way about the dog vs. new grandchild.
Your baby doesn't NEED your mom, her dog does. It's not like she's left you in a lurch. Do you think you'll stop being tired in the immediate futurd, and that your mom is obligated to fill in so you can have a full night's sleep?
You and your husband put yourselves into this situation, now find an alternative. And it doesn't matter that it's a dog or anything else... she has a valid reason for not showing up to care for a healthy baby who has two parents there to share the burden.
My husband and I had our 2nd baby 3 weeks ago. He is the cutest! Anyway, my parents live an hour drive from us. My husband's parents are a 4 hr plane ride away. For our first baby, my mother drove to stay with us 3 nights every week for the first month after baby came. She would help with the baby, cook a couple meals, and so on.
Well, a few days after our 2nd was born, my mother found out her dog is sick and could have cancer. She panicked and canceled on us very last minute. The dog needs medicine and has to be taken care of. She did not seem sympathetic at all and will not allow anyone else to take care of the dog for a couple days. Not the veterinarian, hospital, my father, family, etc. She's been saying maybe next week will be better, but then cancels again. She emails me how awful the dog is doing, how she cries and cries.
My husband and I are stressed because we are doing this all on our own and we're so tired. Plus, I'm still recovering. We feel she chose her dog over her family in need. I don't know what to think. I told her how sorry are but is there anyone to take care of the dog part time, 2 or 3 days per week? She refuses to let anyone help and has come up with every excuse possible. She wants to do it.
Do people love their pets over family? Any grandparents out there that can give advice?
I think you and your husband were spoiled with the first baby and by now you both should be able to take care of your own household with the second baby.
You are lucky you had help with the first one and
many parents throughout the years have had babies and been "doing this all on our own" for years now.
You chose to have children so you chose to be tired, figure out the best way to get a schedule of some sort set in place and deal with what comes along.
It has nothing to do with choosing an animal over a grand child but it does have everything to do with you and your husband being responsible parents and taking care of and dealing with the result of the choices (pregnancy) you have made in your lives.
Thank you, I guess. This is our 2nd baby, yes. However, I do not consider myself a pro. Having family help 2-3 weeks postpartum isn't unheard of. My husband works 12-13 hr days and we have no one closeby.
You might want to consider hiring a mother's helper. If your husband is back to work and you are run ragged (which I'm sure you are, as I recall 3 weeks being quite hard and leaving my other child in front of a TV all day), then it might be worth considering hiring outside help, rather than try and convince your mother to come.
Her dog is dying, you are exhausted, but you aren't going to die from it. She cares about the dog, yes, and if you invalidate that, it's likely she won't help with #3 either once the dog passes.
First, congrats on your new baby, sorry you feel stressed. My husband took vac. days when we had new babies but he used them sparingly and we managed fine (we also lived a distance and all our friends had children and we really couldnt ask them as they were in the same boat). When our daughter (and DIL) had children, they also managed fine. There were times it was difficult when our kids were little and they were sick or one of us was under the weather but we got thru it and the children seemed to thrive. W/ our first, we were overseas in a foreign country and I wasnt comfortable driving and didnt even speak the language - calls to the US were very limited, no emails, no cell phones like today, we got a telegram from our parents when our first was born and that was it, lol. IN a lot of ways, it helped us become more independent, thankfully everyone was in good health alth. of course I was a nervous new mother who had a lot of questions.
Do you have a friend or know a teenage girl who could come over a couple of times a wk to play w/ the young child for an hr or 2 while you sleep, maybe that would help (ideally getting the teenager used to your toddler w/h/b better to do during your pregnancy).
These days there are tons of take-out places, some that even deliver, would try that route or even quick soup 'n sandwiches, even frozen food is pretty easy and fast to microwave etc.
When my sisters had children, they also were on their own (more or less) - my folks and the inlaws lived about 4-6 hrs away and driving distances like that were just not realistic and to have them stay overnite would prob. have been more distruptive to the new mothers than how much help they could do (besides, they wanted to care for their own babies esp. in the beginning, they were nursing etc). And they had jobs and when the babies were 6-8 wks (+/-), they were at daycare or babysitters.
Your mother is doing what she needs to do, staying w/ her sick dog, don't take it as a slight to you, it's not really a choice, it's a matter of life and death and most animal lovers would do the same thing given the same situation. WHen one has children, there are times you need to cope w/ unexpected (or expected) things on your own and you just manage. Expecting someone to drive many miles may be expecting too much (am not a big driver esp. in the winter and at nite), as trite as it may seem yrs ago women had babies as pioneers on the prairie and in the boondocks and had large families and did well (thank goodness those days are long gone in most places!).
Last edited by Honeycrisp; 02-12-2014 at 02:34 PM..
My husband and I had our 2nd baby 3 weeks ago. He is the cutest! Anyway, my parents live an hour drive from us. My husband's parents are a 4 hr plane ride away. For our first baby, my mother drove to stay with us 3 nights every week for the first month after baby came. She would help with the baby, cook a couple meals, and so on.
Well, a few days after our 2nd was born, my mother found out her dog is sick and could have cancer. She panicked and canceled on us very last minute. The dog needs medicine and has to be taken care of. She did not seem sympathetic at all and will not allow anyone else to take care of the dog for a couple days. Not the veterinarian, hospital, my father, family, etc. She's been saying maybe next week will be better, but then cancels again. She emails me how awful the dog is doing, how she cries and cries.
My husband and I are stressed because we are doing this all on our own and we're so tired. Plus, I'm still recovering. We feel she chose her dog over her family in need. I don't know what to think. I told her how sorry are but is there anyone to take care of the dog part time, 2 or 3 days per week? She refuses to let anyone help and has come up with every excuse possible. She wants to do it.
Do people love their pets over family? Any grandparents out there that can give advice?
I understand that you are tired and overwhelmed but try to understand that your mom also has things going on in her life and obviously, she loves her dog and it sounds like her dog is knocking on death's door. Do you have any friends that you could ask to put meals together for you so that you have more time to rest and recover?
I side with the original poster. Forgive me if I am ugly, but she "cries and cries" over a dog? As Jerry Clower once said of the response from a person who he had thought was crying over a dog: "man I ain't that crazy."
It doesn't surprise me what I'm reading in the initial posting. Anymore, it seems more & more people confuse pets--dogs especially--as being equally important to actual PEOPLE, and frankly I think it's sick. It's fine to love your pet and to cherish them, but when you start assigning human-being levels of importance to them, I consider that nothing less than a perversion.
I get it--the parents are the ones who are the main ones in charge of the children, but most family members I've known anyway are happy to help in situations like this. "You made your bed, so lie in it" is not what families are supposed to be about, especially if it's not an "enabling" or "bailing out of trouble" situation. There is a difference between someone taking advantage of others & not holding up their end of things vs just legitimately needing help. New parents definitely are a group that needs help, especially in the early days. Further, where I come from, you don't put a dog or a cat or whatever on the same level of importance as the PEOPLE in your life. If the mother was canceling because an important human, especially her spouse or such, was in serious need, then that would be one thing, but when it's on account of a freaking dog or cat etc, that's just messed up I'm sorry.
Frankly I think anyone who would say "you choose to make this mess, now live with it" or whatever should be ashamed of themselves. That's a horrible attitude to have, and very wrong anyway you look at it. Granted, it can be annoying if someone does something irresponsible and then keeps asking for people to bail them out versus owning their situation, but there's a difference between understanding that and just being a grouch with a cold heart. It's not like they're drug addicts wrecking their life always asking for more money, or someone who married a known crook now asking to be rescued every other minute, only to then run back to their crook of a spouse over & over, and then the cycle keeps repeating itself. This is a totally normal situation not born of habitual recklessness, and someone who would say "you made your bed, now lie in it" over a totally normal situation such as this is just a cold-hearted jerk if you ask me.
And so is someone who equates their DOG or cat etc as being as important as the PEOPLE in their life.
OP, I recognize how much you want your mother there for you. I was fortunate enough to have family step in after my 2nd and 3rd were born, and it was a huge help.
But, I also have dogs, and if one of them was dying, I would want to be there for them too. They have given us years of faithful love, and I feel they deserve that much. Putting a dog into an animal hospital would hasten the death, as it causes the dog unnecessary stress.
Please don't hold this against your mother. I'm sure she feels very torn, and would like to be there for you.
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