We are :wave: and with a similar age-gap too
Toby understands that a baby is coming and that it's currently housed in my tummy
We bought three books for him-
There's a House Inside my Mummy
My New Baby and
Hello Baby
(all from Amazon)
The first one he LOVES
The second he likes to look at the pictures, and the third i have never read to him because it's mainly to do with the birth and tbh i feel it's a bit 'above' him. It's not scary or graphic or gory or anything terrible like that, it's a lovely gentle homebirth story with nice illustrations, but it's a very wordy book and not something i think he'd relate to easily at his age, so i think would be aimed at preschoolers or primary school children even
Most of our family are too far away to be of any help from a practical standpoint. Geographically, the nearest person is my Mum, who drives and would be able to get here in approx an hour, BUT works full time, has two children still living at home (my 12 year old sister and 9 year old brother) and who, it has to be said, is not a very calming presence
We're not fantastically close anyway, and she can definitely be a bit melodramatic, so not the sort of energy we're looking for!
After that they just get further and further away and more impractical. MIL is unwell and doesn't drive on motorways, neither of SIL's drive and both work, my Grandma is fantastically supportive of HB having had three of her four children at home in the 50's and 60's but she's 74 and doesn't drive! Sooo inconsiderate of her! Lol
I felt strongly i didn't want Toby to be "taken away" and then return to find his Mummy and Daddy cuddling a new baby
Particularly since labour may take a while/happen during antisocial hours- he has never slept away from home without us before and i didn't want to be worrying if he was getting on ok, or for him to have a traumatic time and then come home to an even bigger shock iykwim?
So, finally, after lots of worrying- we have a solution...my best friend lives around 40 minutes away, only works part-time and has no commitments other than an OH and a dog
so she is going to be "on call" during October. I will call her when i'm in labour and she'll head over with an overnight bag packed. If Toby is asleep she'll just hang out with us (i have no problems with her being present for the actual birth, she's a very calming person, although a little squeamish!) if Toby is awake then she will entertain him upstairs (i'm planning to labour/birth in the pool downstairs) If he gets very restless or disturbed by the noises i make (i mooed like a herd of cows having Toby
) then she may take him to the park or shops but only nearby. I am keen that he come in and see the baby quite quickly after the birth all being well.
If we need to transfer then obviously she'll stick around and take care of Toby while OH accompanies me in.
The only way the plan will not work is if i go into labour the weekend of my due date as she is away down South that weekend so not available
in which case he OH has kindly offered to watch Toby for us until we can find someone to replace him.
To be honest, i have been fretting SO much about this and how it will work and where will Toby be and how will he cope etc, and then i basically realised- if all our plans fail and my friend can't make it over in time, or everything falls apart, then the worst case scenario is that one of two things will happen- OH will have to take care of Toby while i give birth supported only by the midwives (and he'd have to stay behind if i had to transfer in or else they'd both have to come along, but i'm not sure that's allowed
) OR Toby will have to be present for the birth.
I do have anxieties about him being actually in the room as i'm not sure he's old enough to really process that just because i am moo-ing/crying doesn't mean something bad is happening, and i don't want to traumatise him BUT that said, a friend of OH's came to stay with us recently and when i was mulling it over out loud he said "I was there when my sister was born" Turns out- he was a first baby, stubbornly OP and took a long time coming, his sister, two years younger, was a fast and furious labour, born before the paramedics could arrive, while he looked on. He isn't traumatised and they're very close
so that definitely made me feel better!
So the people I could ask aren't really close and it might be a bit weird. I am considering getting a doula and having OH look after Bun - he is the greatest dad in the universe, but when it comes to birth/pain/etc he's a bit of a stressball. I had to kick him out of my labour room last time as he was panicking a bit and it was really distracting.
