Congrats @sevmom !
Congratulations, sevmom! Grandchildren are so very precious!
Wonderful!
Welcome to the club.
Thanks to everyone! We are very excited to now be grandparents!
Congratulations to the family!
Some NOT so patiently.
My daughter said maybe in 5 years. I told her not to bother as by then I’ll be too old to lift a baby. I know my sister will get a grandchild before me as my nephew and my two are all the same age and all got married this year. Nephew’s child will have 2 sets of grandparents in town and three aunts on the mother’s side. I’ll never get to even hold the baby.
I will only be good for providing baby blankets and the Christmas stocking.
(break out the violins and whiny music)
H is 82 and I’m 67. Neither of us have any idea when a baby MAY appear. When it does, no idea how much energy we will have to help with any kid(s). We do our best to take care of ourselves and maybe we could cuddle a little one so mom and dad can eat and we can read and cuddle but can’t run or ski with them already.
You can check your local hospitals to see if they need volunteers to hold/rock babies. I don’t know if they still do that, but I met a really wonderful woman in the NICU 35 years ago who was doing that. I thought it was so cool, because there are a lot of new patients who have other kids to tend to & can’t be at the hospital as much as they’d like to be. You’d get to hold babies!
Our health systems took a break from “cuddlers” during Covid but they have been back the last couple of years. Always a popular gig though so there may be a waiting list! Good idea though!
As I have posted before that D1’s second daughter was an accident. But it has been good for both GDs. GD2 lets her sister hug her and play rough with her without any complaints. Tonight GD1 said to her, “we are sisters.” Not sure if GD2 understood because she is only 4 months old.
Congratulations @sevmom!
I didn’t know if it would happen for me but I’m now at 4. They are all under age 3. I think this is it but I’m not 100% sure.
One of mine was an absolute no so I was shocked when she told us. She loves being a mom but she said she is one and done.
Both my younger sisters have multiple grandkids. One sister was 42, the other 48 when their first GKs were born. They each lost a son, so I’m happy they get the joy of enjoying their grandkids and being active in their lives.
S2 and DIL want kids, but war makes it complicated.
Congrats to all who are anticipating new grandchildren – may the moms and kids have an easy and healthy outcome.
On Saturday morning, we got an early call from D asking us to come over ASAP. SiL was at work and D had the stomach bug that was whipping through her school. We went and hung with grandson while D slept. We had blast-- we did a walk at our favorite place near their house and then went to lunch.
You needed a ‘super baby mom’ like DD1. At a one-on-one lunch before she got married, I tried to encourage her to wait maybe 3 years so they as a couple could get to know each other as H and W, also have freedoms to do things before they had children. No, they had to have a baby right away. Later DD said she thought she might have issues and it might take a bit of time to get pg --I only had one ovary working correctly, but that was not something she should expect. Within a month she was pg, and now is expecting baby #5 a few months before the oldest turns 7.
Honestly you won’t be too old to hold a baby if you fear you will have trouble lifting.
DD2 says she plans to wait until late 30’s (like DH and I were, after we were married 15 years had DDs the years we turned 38 and 40).
Instead of being age 60 with the birth of the first grandbaby, we would have been 20 years older if she delayed like DH and I did.
I have friends that long so badly for a grandbaby.
My mom was 20 when she had my older sister, and mom was ‘upset’ when she was 50 and was not a grandmom. But mom didn’t have to wait too long as grandchild was ‘on the way’.
My daughter’s NICU (29 years ago) didn’t have volunteer rockers and the problem was actually the reverse - too many people in the NICU at once. Other hospitals in the area did have volunteers to come in but that all stopped with covid and I’m not sure it ever started again. A group I’m part of used to stuff gift bags to give to every new baby (diapers, clothes, books, blankets) and even the stuffing had to stop during covid, even though it wasn’t anywhere near the babies (a room in the basement).
While I could rock a baby, I really want to play with them, make the Halloween costumes, go to the movies. I want the fun.
I think I’m odd.
Neither kid or spouse for one has had an easy time getting pregnant. My daughter, I will be a nervous wreck the entire time she is pregnant with her health issues.
I will be very happy if she and her husband have a child. But if it doesn’t happen, then life had another pathway and all I ask for is for her health. And the baby’s if she’s able to have one.
I have lots of conflicting emotions.
I don’t think you’re odd at all @deb922. I just want my kids to be as healthy as possible, especially since both kids have had some chronic health issues and D has a pending surgery that is pretty serious for this summer. Babies and children are fine and dandy when the couple decides that is what THEY want. If my kids decide that’s not something for them, I have great nieces and great nephews to spoil, as well as some neighbor children. I want my kids to lead the lives they want. At this moment, those lives don’t include little ones—not sure if they ever will.
One reason that many hospitals have been able to return to having cuddlers is that instead of the giant open room with many many baby isolettes + nurses + docs + equipment of a couple decades ago, now many NICU’s have more private mini rooms- more privacy go families BUT there are also some studies showing that the “isolation” for long term NICU babies CAN result in delayed language development because they are being exposed to less language/sounds. This why now when families can’t be there, it can be helpful to have a volunteer cuddle or read aloud in the room!
My daughter was in the NICU for 89 days. The first few she was right by the door and every time it opened and was noisy she was startled, so we moved into one of the 4 private rooms. We liked it that way. Quiet, cozy. She actually spent all day sleeping and was active at night. Yep, raising me up a college kid right from the beginning who would sleep all morning and be up all night.
One day I walked into the NICU and her room was closed and dark. I panicked. Where was she? They’d moved her out to the general area (little sections that had 4 to 8 areas). It was horrible and I was squished into a single chair next to her isolette and people kept talking to me. They moved her back two days later, mostly because they thought I was going to have a breakdown (my mother called Sr. Maryann, the hospital director, who called the head of the NICU, and we went back to the Princess Suite).