Yet again she fails to learn her lesson

A certain family member e-mailed earlier this week to ask if she could come visit. Long-time readers certainly know who I am talking about (new readers might not realize that a significant portion of our tension is IF related so a lot has been written on it in the past) ... and despite being rather pregnant, tired, and looking forward to a relaxing final weekend as a family of 3 I dutifully said yes ...

And for the 4th time this year she canceled. This despite the fact that she lives a couples of hours drive away, and has thus far seen her one and only niece a grand total of 3 times in her life. Oh, and constantly espouses to the family that she really "cherishes" her relationship with her niece, not to mention gives lengthy lectures about the status of the bargain baby's boy parts. Her original excuse was a minor illness which I assured her we didn't mind being exposed to (I know, I know ... don't get sick when 38 weeks pregnant, but the fusspot is also in daycare and I ride the subway almost every day now ... if it's going around we're going to be exposed). The follow-up e-mail indicated she probably has too much work to come. And I just want to grab her by the shoulders and shake her: Seriously, SHE has too much work?????? I have a 2 year old, a husband who hasn't been home before 1 am in about 2 weeks (weekends included), oodles and oodles of work to finish pre-baby, and oh, should try to stay well-rested in case I go into labor at any moment ....

Yeah. Needless to say I simply failed to respond to her e-mail because that's just about as polite as I can muster tonight. I was going to post nice and happy things, but hopefully that'll happen tomorrow. JD and I are going to try and go out to brunch on Sunday, and a friend may come visit tomorrow night ... so that should be lovely. I also treated myself to yet another anticipating-post-partum-pudge but not whale-sized-bump shopping spree in the XL clearance section of Uniqlo this week which was super-cheap and super-fun. So hopefully more cheerful thoughts later, but I needed to vent someplace.

And for the record, I really did think that L and D would prioritize the bargain baby's health over the distraction of a toddler. Not only did I bring her stroller so she would be strapped in during my exam, but I was plenty well-stocked with a bag of cookies, crayons and playdoh to keep her quiet for at least 20 minutes. I figured worst case scenario, the fusspot would fuss, but it's a L and D floor, surely they're used to a bit of noise every now and then? And folks, when you walk into L and D and announce "38 weeks and no fetal movement for 48 hours" let me assure you that you bypass the line of women who are actually in labor, and most everybody else. And usually the nurses give such a deep sigh of relief when they pick up the heartbeat that makes it clear that we all know that terrible things happen and NFM is not the ideal label on a triage chart. But apparently, yes, in NYC the no-under-12s-on-the-floor rules trump even those concerns.