a special collaborative column!
Getting Along with the Grandparents of your Preemie

"No matter what the nurses said, my father-in-law always made a point of telling us how much it ‘pained’ him to look at our baby. He said he ‘knew’ he was suffering - even when he was just a feeder and grower!"

"My mom watches (visitors) like a hawk, and will allow no one that even thinks they have been sick to visit them."

"I hated to let them visit unsupervised. I knew they would quiz the nurses, and the nurses would let them do whatever they asked for, with no regard to my wishes. It had no control over anything, I didn’t even feel like the mom."

"I was expected to let anyone in the family visit him, when I couldn’t even get out of bed to see him myself. It killed me that I was expected to allow my brother’s girlfriend, who I had met once, to see my son. It was such a loss of control over my baby."

"They wouldn’t even give me time alone in my room. I just wanted to sleep and learn how to pump in solitude."

"They would expect to visit him when it was convenient for them, not the baby or us. If we said no, it created major problems."

"They left messages for us to call them with the news for the day. Some days it was more than I could do to relay what had happened. When we did, they kept hounding for more details, some we just didn’t wish to share."

Too far:

"(Their) first comment was ‘are these kids sure they want to take extraordinary measures?’"

"I limited the info I passed on...she always made it sound like it really didn’t matter to her anyway."

Just right:

"When my parents called, they waited for me to offer anything. If I didn’t, they respected my wish to not talk about it."

"Many times I had information overload and they really helped sort it out with me."

"My parents had no problem just watching her and leaving holding time for mom and dad."