Yes, once mom is in recovery, the baby’s grandparents and siblings are welcome. But only during certain hours. And if mama doesn’t want company, the nurses are quite willing to play security guard. (when my mother showed up at 7 am after a fight with my husband I seriously considered asking the nurse to keep her out - but I still had one “green bracelet” left and so it was within the rules to let her in. I’m sure the nurse could see me considering it, and she made it very clear she would keep her out if I asked. I should have.)
Hey, someone has to eat up the placenta.
Yes. This is so outside of the realm of my reality and anyone I know’s reality that I am having a hard time wrapping my head around anyone besides husband/lover and MAYBE soon to be grandma there–and I’m not happy about the grandma being there. And NO older sibs, unless it’s like in the movie, Parenthood, where mom has a change of life kid. And really, not even then.
Hell, I wasn’t all that comfortable with so many nurses being there for #1 son. (I was the only pender on the 3-11 shift and the nurses were bored. They congregated in my room. I had lots of help for his delivery). I’m glad I didn’t deliver in a teaching hospital as well.
To send out formal invites is just so self-absorbed. It begs to be roundly mocked and disparaged. We do our poor best. 
Different strokes, different folks. I honestly can’t imagine not getting together for a birth. Not, as I said, necessarily in the actual room, but mighty nearby and for the duration. With some friends that means a small gang of us sitting out in the parking lot playing cards until the baby is born, paying our quick respects when the mom and dad are more themselves, and then leaving the family to bond. With others, well, as described, with those of us not actually in the process of having a kid being more helpful and active.
To each their own. I sure don’t judge anyone for wanting their birth to happen the way that makes them the happiest/most comfortable. And I do think that the OP is a case of a first time mom idealizing the experience. But there’s also something to be said for being able to tell a kid that you have known him since they wiped him down and wrapped him up and being able to describe how his dad and mom looked happier at that moment than you have ever seen them.
It’s not how everyone’s custom, but it’s one I’m glad I was raised with.
Does she realize there’s a good chance she’s going to shit herself in front of her family?
Sure thing - if it makes Mom X happy to have all her relatives, her hair dresser and the dude that delivered last night’s pizza in the room, more power to her. I just can’t imagine it.
I REALLY can’t imagine wanting to have random friends pacing around the parking lot waiting for news and then rushing up to meet Junior with me with my crotch ractched up, sitting on a frozen maxi-pad, having just spent however long in agony; however, I fully admit that I am both old, and crabby and perhaps the young-ones go in for that sort of thing. 
I can completely respect that. What I don’t like is the invitation that sounds like a summons. Just because its important to you to for me to be there (obviously it isn’t) it might not be all that important for me to be there. When you are dealing with a blended family (i.e. you sister in laws), its probably as important to say the “if you want to be there” part as it is to say the “its important to me” part. Even with things more common than a ‘birth party.’ When issuing invitations, its important to recognize that it isn’t always convenient for your guests to attend - and when the invitation is to a birth that is likely to happen on short notice and might happen in the middle of the night - and your sister in law reads Miss Manners…you probably want to be extra careful in how you approach the whole “I wouldn’t mind it at all if you were at the hospital” invitation.
Why does it matter that you’ve known him or her “since you’ve been wiped down” etc?
Does it matter if you see Baby at one minute, one hour, one day old? Baby doesn’t remember and “bonding” happens regardless (or doesn’t, depending on the family member…).
It’s not for me to say that one way is better or not. IMO, neither way is “better”–it’s about what you’re comfortable with and your family/cultural customs. But to use how soon you meet Baby as a rationale for doing so strikes me as bizarre. 
And I have to wonder that if a new DIL gets pregnant and doesn’t want the whole extended family there–what happens then? Are her wishes respected or are they overridden? (this would apply the other way as well, I suppose, although it’s harder to get people to go sit in a hospital waiting room.)
So are the invitees supposed to bring dates?
While I agree that sending out invitations and truly expecting people to drop their lives or call in sick to work just to attend your childs birth (which will likely take longer than the parents think it will) is a bit odd, but I’m shocked at the outrage for having others present during the birth itself.
I’ve been present for 4 births (not counting my own and my sons) and I don’t remember any of them as “gross”. I held my sister’s hand when she was in labor with my nephew and was hurting and scared and I laughed with her during the birth of my neice while we reminisced about my nephews birth a few years prior.
I made half a dozen “bottled water runs” for my cousin who spent FOREVER in labor and just really wanted room temperature bottled water more than anything in the world. I remember holding a cold bottle of water under a warm tap trying to warm it to room temperature because she was sweating and tired and thirsty.
In all cases, we cried together and laughed together and it was a great bonding moment for us as a family.
If I have another child, I’ll likely not have as many folks in the room as they did, but I would definitely want the father, my sister, my mom, and my closest girlfriends with me. That’s not to say I’d freak out if they couldn’t or wouldn’t come (They would, of course. None of us are very squeamish), but they would certainly be welcome.
I can respect that some women would prefer to be alone or just with their husband and the medical staff, but I personally do not enjoy being alone when I’m hurting, excited, nervous and just plain scared out of my gourd.
In fact, my mom brushing my hair, holding my hand and telling me about how it was when I was born was all that kept me from losing my mind when my (now ex)husband had his freak-out-o-meter turned to 11 from all of my crying and carrying on.
To each their own.
I figure that if it requires a formal invitation, the relationship is not close enough.
It’s not a rationale, it’s a result. Because our custom is to be there for the birth, we are able to literally say, “I have known you since you were born.” Which is fun and interesting. Plus, some kids really enjoy hearing the story of their original birth day from someone who wasn’t quite so involved as their mom or dad was.
Oh, and her wishes are respected, of course. That hasn’t come up with my immediate family (for one thing, I’m oldest of 4 and unmarried and the three below me are sisters and mostly date men, so no DILs involved), but the mom’s needs and wants are the most important part of the whole thing after safety issues are covered.
But yeah, I agree that sending out invites is silly and would only be done by someone who doesn’t realize how messy and unscheduled childbirth really is. Oh, that’s another result of being around for births - none of us kids have an idealized image of how birth goes. If your only experience with it is from tv, you’re in for a shock.
I think JD on Scrubs had the definitive statement on birth parties
Warning - vajayjay word at the end of the clip, in case that’s NSFW wherever you are.
*Just to further outrage people, the Mr. and I have identified my Push Present:
I’m usually not a big fan of logo bags, but I really like daisies, and this one is nice and big so I can fit lots of loot in it. 
*I’m assuming outraged based on:
a) getting a push present
b) it being a designer handbag
c) it being a logoed designer handbag
d) whatever else people choose to get outraged over
People keep saying “it ain’t like on television! She thinks it’s gonna be nice like on television… it ain’t!” (apologies for dialectic; I’m reading Grapes of Wrath right now)
I’ve never seen a television birth that was very nice. My mother promises me that it involves a lot less screaming that TV dramas like to show… and my only other reference for television births are the Discovery Health Channel shows, which involve a lot of fear, uncertainty, crying, dropping heart rates, and emergency c-sections.
I mean… when Dooce had her first baby, she (she! Dooce!) felt compelled to tell us that giving birth was actually a lot more pleasant than she’d been lead to believe.
What TV shows are y’all thinking of…?
Oh, the ones where the whole thing is over in less than 5 minutes, and Lamaze breathing actually takes away ALL pain, where mom’s hair and makeup is only slightly mussed, where no poop is present, or water, or meconium or blood, where Dad has enough perspective to make wry comments, and Mom has enough strength and breath to laugh at them (and vice versa), where taxi drivers make better OBs than well, OBs, where C-sections are not suddenly necessary NOW and where deliveries have the requisite Happy Ending with the Perfect Gerber Baby.
Those TV births. IOW, all of them.
Ah, I see you have been watching Discovery channel. That might well be the other extreme. I think most of us were referring to sitcom/prime time TV show “births”.
My labor was 52 hours, with 90 minutes of pushing… that would have been one hell of a party. Add me to the list of “wouldn’t have wanted a bunch of people there”… but honestly, I was so exhausted that I couldn’t even scream and was falling asleep between pushes at the end, so I might not have noticed. Plus it was a teaching hospital so people were wandering in and out the whole time anyway.
Well, there was that episode of **The Golden Girls ** where the daughter of one of them was touring the woo woo birthing palace listening to some woman down the hall scream bloody murder and the slutty one says maybe you should just have it at our house, and the oldest one says ‘yeah, at least you’ve already got the stirrups on your bed.’
I read it correctly as “Birth Party”, but I also thought it was going to be about a Tea Party splinter faction.
interesting. different strokes for different folks. I have 5 kids. By the time I had popped out my first two, i realized that hospital birth had its ups ( few) and downs ( many). My 3rd birth took place in a blow up pool in my back bedroom. Aunts and Uncles Grandmas and Grandpas took care of the older children who were free to come in at will with their assigned caretakers. We were blessed to have twin girls who had their whole family present at their beautiful births. One of my favorite memories is my sweet oldest daughter gently trying to wash some of the vernix off her new sisters head. Totally unafraid and totally accepting of this new creature. My son cut the second babies umbilical cord with assistance from the midwives. He and his sister have a special bond… " I made your belly button"
I had been strengthened by a strong circle of women during my labor at one point surrounding the tub in a wise quorum. I could feel the strength of their good vibes and karma as I dealt with the waves of the contractions.
4 generations in the house that day. Very special.
Like I said , different strokes for different folks.