Sister thinks I am "unsupportive" of her pregnancy/baby

Archergirl

OK so she has come here with no money to have her baby (has she ever paid into the NHS?) How many times has she been back since she left? It may be clear why she has come back but unfortunately they do not check up....
A Doula is not free who will pay her?
I am so cross for the way she is treating you and she is saying you are the selfish one.......

mrschaucer

Does anybody else feel rather sorry for the baby's father?

Archergirl

mrschaucer said:

Does anybody else feel rather sorry for the baby's father?

Yes it must be hard for him to not see his wife for all this time and then not his baby, makes it even stranger that they chose for he to come over here, I'm sure lots of people have babies there and it would still be able to get a passport (unfortunately in my opinion sorry x)

unforeseen

I wonder whether the father is still in the picture. 

Emmia

unforeseen said:

I wonder whether the father is still in the picture. 

I wondered if perhaps the baby isn't her husbands...

pollyanna24

Only read page 1, but... people do have cats and then get pregnant.... and go on to keep said cat and baby safely born.  

barbiedoll

Your sister couldn't have picked a worse time to travel halfway around the world to have a baby, what was she thinking? I daresay that Tanzania probably doesn't have the same benefits system so if her and her husband are struggling financially, she may not have been happy with the more basic healthcare offered there....we do take the NHS for granted in this country, and it's often a shock to ex-pats living abroad when they discover that they don't get anything like the level of care that they're used to for free.

It was her choice to come back here alone, and it's absolutely not your responsibility to be her support system, especially as you live a fair distance away, and you have your own responsibilities at home. Even if you drop everything to be by her side, you will have to return to your home and work at some point, she's still going to have a good few months coping at your dad's place while mostly alone with her baby. To be fair, is the same for lots of women, not everyone has a partner who can take time off work for weeks on end, and many women have no family in the UK to help them, so she's not the only one going through this right now.

As previously mentioned, there are lots of support groups for mums and babies. Many of them have online Zoom meetings, there are breastfeeding groups, online parenting classes,  and even counselling sessions if she's feeling a bit overwhelmed. I do have some sympathy for her, being pregnant can be a scary time at best, being apart from her husband, in the middle of a pandemic, obviously isn't helping matters. But she's going to be a mum, she needs to toughen up a little, and stop relying on everyone else. Has she checked to see if she can claim anything while she's here? If she's a British citizen, she may be entitled to a maternity grant, or to other benefits. Don't be emotionally blackmailed into buying anything new which she won't be taking home with her, there's no point in her insisting on an expensive new pram or cot which will be left at your dad's when she goes home.

Would her husband not be able to get here for a week or so when the baby is born? You mentioned " visa issues", can he not just come over for a holiday? (Covid permitting)

You can reassure her that her chances of picking up toxaplasmosis from your cat via you is vanishingly small, so there's no need to get rid of your cat (I know that you wouldn't do this anyway, and you don't need to tell her this if it's a handy excuse to keep away!)

Most hospitals will allow a birth partner to attend, but it's often time-limited. Where I work, partners can only stay for a few hours after the delivery and they can't visit afterwards, unless mum is being kept in for more than 2 days. She is right about her baby probably "taking hours" to be born, but she may well be in labour for several days, or she may have several "false alarms", so you may (for example) take a week off work around her due date, only for the baby to be born on the day you're due back to go back.

She sounds like she panicking and mostly just wants someone to put their arms around her and tell her it's all going to be ok. But you need to make it clear to her that it was her choice to relinquish her husband's support, in favour of a NHS birth. She can't have it both ways.

Pollycat

barbiedoll said:

She sounds like she panicking and mostly just wants someone to put their arms around her and tell her it's all going to be ok. But you need to make it clear to her that it was her choice to relinquish her husband's support, in favour of a NHS birth. She can't have it both ways.

Making unreasonable demands of her sister is probably not the best way to achieve this.

MothballsWallet

unforeseen said:

TBH she sounds very selfish. Abandoning her hubbies to come home to have the baby and expecting everybody else to finance it and drop everything to look after her. 

Going from Mrs MbW and I's own experience of the UK visa system, I'm surprised the OP's sister would have got a UK visa if she was taking £0 with her, or was she relying on the family here to sponsor her?

Archergirl

She doesn’t need a visa she is British......and so will the baby be