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Family visits after birth of first baby
I also posted this on family matters, but I figured someone here might have experience with this...
My husband and I live across the country from our families, and we are having our first baby next month.
I know all families are different, but in general, who would you have visit you to see the baby and when?
For my husband's side, his parents are planning to visit for a weekend a few weeks after the baby should be born. They will pay their own way, will probably take a cab/shuttle to our house, and they would stay in our guest room. I think this is reasonable.
For my side, I know my mom would like to be here for the birth and stay a while. But, we have no way of knowing when exactly the baby will come of course, so she would have to stay for quite a while. Plus she cannot afford a ticket, so we would have to spend about $500 and make the trip to pick her up and drop her off at the airport (1 1/2 hours away). Plus, I'm just not sure if I want her to be staying at our house for such a long time?? Is that unreasonable?
I should add - My husband will be deployed early next year, and he has a lot of training to do until then, so I really feel like spending as much time as a family as possible. Also, although we spend our money wisely and make the best of what we have, we would be stretched to cover her ticket... (even though my family likes to glamorize our lifestyle, the military does not pay much and there are other things that we could use that money for - like bills or baby gear).
Also, my sister announced that she will come visit "just for the weekend" -- but it will still be inconvienent to have to make the drive to and from the airport with a new baby twice in one weekend. She has not always been the most pleasant house guest (catty remarks and impossible to satisfy to say the least...) so my husband is not looking forward to it, but I feel guilty I guess. It's a once in a lifetime experience, and I want my family to meet our baby, I just don't want them staying at our house for so long...
Ugh, any suggestions?
*** I'm also very curious how other military families have handled having a baby while far away from home? What worked / didn't work for you?
Re: Family visits after birth of first baby
I don't have kids, but really only you can make this decision. I can tell you that when my sister had her first child, my mom went down to visit after her husband went back to work and stayed for 2 weeks or so, I then went down after my mom left and stayed for about a week. Then I don't think anyone else went to visit a while. My mom was there for the birth of the second child, but she had her own place down there at that time, and she was used to help babysit the oldest child.
If it were me, I would probably plan for my mom to come down after my H goes back to work and book a ticket for about 2 weeks after the due date. for your sister, she's on her own. if she wants to come, tell her you're not sure you will be able to transport her to the airport etc. Does your airport offer a shuttle service? I know some do.
I was in a similar situation with several familiy members wanting to visit after the birth of dd. I asked my dad to visit later than he planned so he could be here while DH was gone for a few weeks. I did this because I was more comfortable only having one set of guests visiting us at one time. DH didn't end up being gone but it worked out better with the scheduling (for me). But we were busy for the first 3 weeks.
I do recall having to guests arrive and depart on the same day. One day we spent a while at the airport dropping off guest then waiting for others to arrive.
Could you ask you mom to come after DH deploys so she can be around to help when you are on your own? You could also ask your sister to do something similar. Or could you see if someone else could pick her up from the airport or pay for a shuttle for her. You could even tell her that you would love to have her but due to DH's work schedule you are not sure if he will be available to pick her up from the airport and does she mind taking a shuttle. You can blame it on having a new baby that you don't want to make the trip with just you and baby.