(longish rant) We had a bit of a test run...

.... and it didn't turn out so well. Not that the "test run" was on purpose.

On Thursday night at about 5:30 pm I started having light but regular (every
3 minutes) contractions, lasting about a minute each. They were still going
two hours later so I made sure I was packed and called the hospital. As I
suspected, they said not to bother coming in, could still amount to nothing
as the contractions were light.

So I called my mum and told her what was happening, that I was NOT going to
the hospital but that knowing that she likes to stay up to 3am I'd just like
to let her know what's happening so she gets some rest rather than stays up
half the night as she usually does. Mum sounded a bit stressed and started
telling me some story about how my sister had her car, blah, blah, blah. I
said that there is no need for her to come over now, I'm just letting her
know that maybe in several hours' time we may need her to babysit Matthew.

Mum continued going into meltdown. She started telling me AGAIN that my
sister had her car and that she can't take my car (Dad's borrowed my car
since his is in the shop being repaired after someone drove into him)
because Dad needs it to go to work. To which I replied "At 7:30pm???? Matt
gets up at 6am. We can give you the baby seat when you get here. You would
most likely be up by 6am and can have Matt in the car and be home by 7am
even if you feed him breakfast at our place". Mum kept up some
incomprehensible babble about driving my sister's kids to pre-school. To
which I again firmly pointed out that Matt gets up at 6am and that there is
plenty of time to do everything before people will need cars or to be driven
anywhere. More drivel and dribble on the other end of the line. I gave up in
disgust and hung up saying I will call if anything changes and I actually
need her.

I decided we now should go grocery shopping as I felt stupid pacing around
the living room and it's still too dark to go for a walk at 7:30pm. Even
though the street lamps were on I figured "heartbreak hill" that's just down
the street would send me into full-on labour more from fear of never getting
back up the hill than from the actual physical exertion. So off we trooped
to the local Coles to get some bread and milk and to let me walk up and down
the aisles.

And wouldn't you know it the contractions stopped when I hit the 3 hour
mark?! In the meantime, I got a call from my sister asking if it was OK for
her to go grocery shopping because Mum was in an absolute panic and had
called her house 2 times and her mobile phone 5 times in the 3 minutes it
took for her to drive back to her place from Mum's.

To make a long story short, my sister is now my middle of the night
babysitter and Mum has been relegated to be the daytime sitter only. It was
just disappointing to learn that I could not rely on Mum to help and that
she had an absolute meltdown when there wasn't even an emergency, merely a
hint that perhaps something might happen in several hours' time. I haven't
told Mum that I will no longer be calling her when I go into labour, unless
it's the middle of the day and even then I will wait until I'm almost ready
to go to hospital and not tell her in advance.

Oh, well. You live and learn, I suppose. LOL

Kasia

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Matthew 21 June 2005
DD EDD 06 Oct 2006

Check out our family at
http://www.geocities.com/engram_au/

Engram wrote:
... and it didn't turn out so well. Not that the "test run" was on purpose.

snip

To make a long story short, my sister is now my middle of the night
babysitter and Mum has been relegated to be the daytime sitter only.

Oh, too bad.... although I suppose it's better to find out in a
non-emergency situation!!

Em
mama to Micah, 11/14/04

that's a shame, to feel you cannot rely on someone you trusted, I had a
similar moment when my friend who was supposed to look after my son said she
was going away for a week when I was past 37 weeks....she had misunderstood
and thought that my parents were staying with me the whole of that week,
which they did in the end and no baby appeared that week and she was perfect
when the time came the following week.

look at it as a good thing that you had this warning and have been able to
make other arrangements.

Anne