Thoughts on Big Sis

As soon as I found out we were expecting, and began thinking about the birth, I knew that since birth is an event that grows a family, that I wanted this birth to be a family event just as our daughter's birth was. New mommy, new daddy, getting to greet their newborn babe into the world. Only this time, the family is a little bigger - so naturally, we wanted very much for our daughter to be involved as much as possible. Now, Cora will be 2 in December, so clearly her understanding of the birth process is not complete, but she has seen us pulling calves, and helping newborn goat kids get cleaned off and nurse - so she's not a complete stranger to the whole idea. So, bearing in mind her age, we very much wanted to have our older daughter present for as much of the labor, delivery, and immediate postpartum as realistic. We figured that she could determine how much she was involved.

She has attended every single prenatal appointment we have had, including the "interview" appointments where we were trying so hard to find a doctor whose views of birth met ours. She saw the ultrasounds, heard each heartbeat. At first she was apprehensive when the nurse would take my blood pressure and would have a "what are you doing to my mommy" look on her face, but she's learned the routine. She's watched a few birth videos with us. She knows where brother is, and wants him to come out :-).

To me, as long as she was quiet and well-behaved, and not uncomfortable with the labor process, it was important to have her present. She is about as excited about her little brother coming as we are! Her world is about to turn upside down with the birth of this new baby, and in my thinking, the more she is involved in that process, the more accepting she will be of him as a part of our family. We hired a doula, and at our appointments, we would go over different comfort measures such as massage, and my little girl was right in there helping massage her mommy's feet and back! She has such a sweet, servant heart, and it would have been so wonderful to allow my daughter to be a part of the birth where she can feel like she's helping and is a real part of things.

Of course, I have to be realistic about my expectations, she is not yet 2 years old, and of course her attention span is not near long enough to allow her to experience the whole thing! She will get distracted, and it will be critical that she have a dedicated person whose sole job it is to care for her outside of hearing range if necessary. There is a chance that she will be uncomfortable with seeing mommy actually laboring, and perhaps the actual delivery process might make her scared. But we very much wanted to have her present at the hospital so that she would get the chance to meet her little brother as soon as possible after he was born. So we were so thankful when a very good friend of ours offered to help us by taking care of our daughter, and was willing to come to the hospital and be Cora's "protector/playmate/distractor." Both my husband and I prefer to keep the birth of our children as an immediate family event, and while both of our daughter's grandmothers were quite eager to care for her during the birth, we both felt more comfortable having someone who was unrelated. That way, no chance of hard feelings between the family sides of who got to see the new baby first. It worked out beautifully with our daughter's birth - both sets of grandparents came at the same time and got to see her for the first time about the same time, and we are hoping to be able to repeat that for this child. Before that happens, though, it is so important that the new baby's immediate family gets some time to meet and bond with him first - Mommy, Daddy, Big Sister.

My labor with Cora had lasted about 6 hours, and while anything could happen, most say that the second child doesn't take as long to birth as the first, so ideally, she wouldn't have to be at the hospital very long at all. She could be in and out of the labor room, and in between times I had prepared some special Big Sis gifts for her: a babydoll in a moses basket with clothes and diapers and other accessories, and a tote bag with new books, stickers, a note pad, crayons, a truck, and a pull-along ducky. We have plenty of snacks packed enough for everyone. We had done so much in preparation for having our little girl at this baby's birth, and we all were very much looking forward to it!

This fall, however, the public has been scared with the threat of the H1N1 flu strain, and as such, several hospitals, including the hospital where we plan to deliver our baby, have put into effect a policy of not allowing any visitors under the age of 18. In many ways, a policy of limiting visitors to the hospital in a time like this makes a lot of sense - newborns are a high risk group, and it is vitally important to protect the new babies from getting sick. However, the policy of not allowing any visitors under the age of 18 prevents the siblings of these newborns from having the opportunity to visit them, tearing families apart for the duration of the hospital stay, which is an unhealthy prospect, indeed! I agree that there is a need to restrict visitors to the newborn babies and their mothers to only healthy people, and even then, not everyone has to see the new family in the hospital (cousins, family friends, etc can wait until the baby is home). But, I wholeheartedly feel that it is a terrible mistake to separate families in a blanket statement as they have currently put into hospital policy. It is important for families to stay together, or at least have the opportunity to be together in the first days of the newborn baby's life. I am very disappointed with the policy as it is, and crestfallen that our daughter will not be able to share in this experience with us.

I have put a call in to the hospital, and they have said that there is a very teeny, tiny, small chance that our daughter might be allowed in for a 5-10 minute visit after the baby is born. It all depends on how busy they are, how much staff they have on hand, and if anyone is sick at the time to just forget about it. I am so encouraged to hear that this is even a possibility, as far as it is from what I would have considered ideal. We'll have to talk to the nurses when we go to the hospital when I'm in labor, and ask them at that time, so we won't know until then whether Cora will be allowed to come or not.

So at this point, even though we had so carefully prepared for what we were going to do with our older child during the birth of our new baby, we are finding ourselves trying to decide what to do with her! As I have said before, both grandmothers are eager and willing to help out, which is such a blessing. One set lives across the street, the other about an hour away from the hospital - both have assured us they are happy to stay with Cora and help in any way they can. We are so grateful to our parents, because we very much appreciate that willingness to help us. The struggle we have is that it is SO, so important to us that we get some time to be a family of four first, that Cora gets the opportunity to welcome her brother with her parents before anyone else does, and I just think she will be such a proud big sister if she is able to show her little brother to her grandma's and grandpa's when they come to visit. I want her to have that opportunity, very very much.

The trouble is - how do we make that happen when the hospital has the policy in place that it does??? How do we keep the grandparents from having hard feelings if they aren't the ones we call on to stay with Cora? How do we help them understand why it's so important to us, and why we're soooo disappointed with the news that Cora can't be at the hospital at all? How do we keep things fair without being ridiculous as far as who gets to see the new baby first? (obviously, we want Cora to see him first....but what if we have to stay in the hospital longer than expected? what if she's asleep when we bring him home? what if both sets can't be there to see him at the same time - will there be hard feelings?)

We are so disappointed that it's not going the way we had hoped, but even so we have to make the best of the situation, and knowing that God wants what's best for us, we have to trust that it will work out that way.