Some daughters do have them....

Because my FIL is here for Sam's birthday and she's not.
She wanted to come in Sept to be fair, I put her off because I initially wasn't up to visitors, (very sick early pregnancy etc) and because she can be draining.

She's fairly dependent on me, she will always tell me what's wrong with her etc and actually if there's anything going on with me it's all how she feels about it happening to me, so the twin pregnancy she was worried about becaue of my health etc - which is fair enough, but she chooses to offload her worries onto me rather than anyone else, so that rather than be able to share mine, I have to reassure her.

So having put her off in September I then suggested she maybe come when J was going to be away, as actually I wouldn't then also have to defend each to the other as well. They're quite different and while they've never had an argument there's a lot of mediation needed to help them understand one another.

and a 75 year old to look after on top of everything else. FIL would actually drive the boys to school at least.

I never got round to booking her flights because J didn't decide 'til the last minute that he was going and to be honest that was partly a financial decision about whether we could afford his trip with Christmas coming and by the time we'd booked his flights we couldn't actually afford hers too.

She's also said she wants to come and stay to help when the twins are born, but much as she's well meaning and will want to help, she won't help, I'll just have an extra person,  And a 75 year old at that, to take care of and worry about. So if I'm having one of them to stay, my father in law will be of more use, he's younger and fitter and more able to travel at the drop of a hat.

Anyway I mentioned that he was here, she got upset, said she felt like I am pushing her away, I said I wasn't and was sorry she felt that way, and she hung up.

It was about half an hour ago. Normally I'd have called back straight away but with father in law in the room I couldn't so about an hour went by...

So I sat and stewed for a while and thought about all the issues I had with her and with the way things were between us. and then I phoned her, I told her most of the above and then that she'd upset me and that I thought she ought to have called back to apologise.

I also told her that I was sick of her moaning about how far away we live and that if she'd prefer us to live just along the road and be on benefits I'd be very surprised but that this was effectively what she was saying when she went on about it. 

We live a long way away from her, yes, but that's because this is where J's job is.

I told her above all that while I appreciate that she is concerned, what this actually does is to force me to be strong for her when, on the occasions that it's about me it really ought to be the other way around, it would be in any friendship, and should be all the more so when she's my mother.

And then she said that she had been really pleased that all was well with the twins and me and I said that actually, I hadn't said that, I'd said the twins were fine, she hadn't asked about me and actually I was in pain walking a lot of the time, and that trying to do things which involved moving my legs separately - like removing trousers - was actually agony and only looked likely to get worse since the consultant today told me that from the scan she'd estimate the combined weight of both babies, placentas and sacs of amniotic fluid at pretty much equivalent to a term singleton and it's just a case of hoping they can get me as far along as possible before my body gives up, basically.

And we chatted and I invited her to come over in two weeks for Ben's birthday.