Visiting Hours are OVER! (and they never even started!)

Last week friends of ours had their first baby (after 28 hours of labour...!!!!) and we received the quintessential email introducing their new bundle of joy, Alexander, to the world. What really struck a chord with me was how they ended their message:

"We will be taking the next few days for the three of us to relax but look forward to seeing everyone soon."

Now, if you ask me, that's my kinda email. Basically telling people, thanks, but no thanks. We're tired and we wanna chill, so...

And I can totally respect that. When I was in the hospital with my son I had visitors morning, noon and night. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my family and friends. I really do...but I felt like I had NO privacy at all. Now, of course, there were extenuating circumstances surrounding the birth of my son. First of all, I'm half Italian, and my Italian side is BIG and I think it's a sign of respect to come and visit the baby and mother in the hospital. I get that. But when your family is as big as mine, the room has a tendency to become a revolving door of Nonnas, Zias and Zios, second cousins once removed, etc. You get the point. Needless to say, there wasn't a lot of time to catch my breath, or take a pee (and trust me, after a c-section, it takes about a hundred years to make one's way from the craftmatic bed to the bathroom). I don't want to sound ungrateful, because I'm not at all. I just think that next time, I'll ask la famiglia to wait until we get home to make their "visitas".

In addition to just having a big family, my grandmother was visiting from Italy and she obviously wanted to come and visit the baby. And who could really take that away from her? There's only so many opportunities to meet your great-grandchildren, right?

My son was also the first grandchild in both my husband's and my family, so of course, we had lots of visits from both of those sides too. And, it doesn't help that I worked across the street from the hospital that I delivered in, so we had many well wishers who were "in the area". Granted, mine wasn't just the regular 24 hour hospital stay that those lucky vaginal birthers get. I had a full blown 5 night, 4 day stay at the Radisson Mt. Sinai. Four of those nights were shared with a woman who spent the evening crying because her husband left her on her own with a cesarean and no help. So, with no rest at night and days filled with loving and wonderful visitors, I felt like I needed to get home just to get a break and a wink of sleep.

This time around I have a feeling it won't necessarily be the same experience. The novelty has worn off. Plus, both immediate families will have their hands full sharing toddler babysitting duties (although if I could pick any visitor in the world to be at the hospital with me, it'd be my baby #1!)...So without sounding rude, ungrateful, disrespectful, unappreciative, ungracious and all the like, please...let my family rest in the hospital. There will be plenty of time to fawn over my beautiful beaner when we get home, trust me! But if I'm lonely in the hospital, don't be surprised to get a phone call. You'll be ready to jump in the car, right?