Hi gals, just joined your thread as it looks so interesting to hear all these pretty voices going on about your life and coming babies!
Good to know there's a few East Coasters around here as everyone else seems to be in the North East area! Think I'm the oldest around here and definitely have another child who is also the oldest amongst your little ones too! So my 2nd one 12 years later is quite a surprise and joy but also a little scary for my age!
Jasmini, Aven and Jojo, believe you guys are all in East Coast? It'll be nice to perhaps hook up together one day and exchange notes and also have a network where the babies can play together once we have them!
Jolene, so sorry to hear of your predicament. It's important that you stay strong and try to relax and remain calm in your condition and when with the ILs. What you need is love and support from the person closest to you, which is the man you married. However, that said, no matter how, your hubby is still their son and thus he is sandwiched in between, regardless of how his parents have treated him. Perhaps you and him can sit down outside the home to have a chat about how best to have a heart to heart talk (gently) about this and also ask HOW he feels about it as well? Remember, it's not all about ourselves too, perhaps, hearing his side of the story and trying to put yourself in his shoes may help you both strengthen your marriage first, which I believe is more important than what the ILs are going about. If your marriage and relationship with your hubby remains strong, then whatever your ILs say or do, you can brush aside as dust in the wind and let go. If I were you, I would let HIM be the one who handles his parents and also be the one telling his parents that your son is yours and his responsibility and thus I agree with Jasmini, that you have 100% charge over him. However, I would suggest that instead of you confronting your ILs, you should have your hubby agree to talk to them as they are HIS parents and you wish to remain non aggressive towards them. The fact is that you are living with them, unless you and your hubby move out on your own or live with your parents, there's no way out and if that is the case, why have confrontations with them? Better to ease out by having your hubby deal with them. That way, you are not seen as the confrontational DIL. Sometimes, that helps and will then not put you in the limelight and direct confrontation with them. It is really your hubby's responsibility to deal with his parents anyway but you have to ask him to do that, nicely.
A marriage counsellor is a good thing to consider as well. But I realize also that if you have a very supportive gynae, you can sometimes have a private session to consult your gynae who will also refer you and your husband to an in-house counsellor from the hospital that you are seeing. My Gynae at KKH is very good at that. I have issues with emotions and diagnos with Bi-polar disorder, so that makes my mood swings go on the extreme. It's hard for me as well as my hubby to cope, and our gynae is very supportive and sometimes gives counselling and also advice my hubby on matters and if he can't handle me, my gynae ends up as a middle man! Not all gynaes are like that of course, but you can ask the support of your gynae as they will then recommend you to someone who can help both you and your hubby come to some kind of compromise. It's hard to be in the line of fire all the time, especially when you are pregnant and should be relax and stress free. So having a middle man helps.
Sberry, I just sent my last maid home as she was extremely "blur" and lazy. I'm due on 7 June, very close to Jasmini and Aven, and decided to re-employ one immediately as we live in a 3 storey house and I have an older daughter who is now 11 going 12 this year! So I prefer to remain stress free, I'm a FTWM but have a lot of flexibility to work at home a lot as well. I chose to have the maid earlier so that they can settle down and get into a routine and familiarize themselves for at least the next 3 to 4 mths before the baby arrives. Just imagine ourselves in a new job, we are given 3 mths probation to get into the swing of things too, so let alone a new maid or even a transfer maid, your home is new to them and there are new instructions and your way of doings things that they have to adapt to. At the end of the day, it's also a bit of luck but really the selection process is very important. You must firstly make sure you set your own priority as to what you want from the maid. Is it child caring, housekeeping or cooking, etc. and what kind of experience you expect from the maid. With a young baby, I do prefer to have an experience maid who has looked after babies from newborn before as I feel safer when I have to go to work. An inexperience maid and fresh one means you have a lot of teaching to do, no doubt they will then have to do things your way, but they will also take months to adapt and if you end up getting your maid much later, they may not be able to cope when the baby comes. Again, it also depends on whether you have any support from your ILs or Parents in helping to look after your baby on the first 2 to 3 mths of arrival. All these makes a difference. I chose an Indonesia/Filipina (she's half half) maid so she can speak both languages. Had experience with 3 boys (one of whom she tended to since newborn) and one who can cook and have worked in Singapore for 3 yrs. She gets every Sunday off as well. There are risks but with experience in having many maids before, it's also the selection process and inteviews that will help you get the one whom you are comfortable with. At the end of the day, if this is a first maid for you, and you have no experience handling a maid, then you may still want to consider a fresh maid with some experience overseas (though dont believe them all if they say they have experience and also remember, their experience in their hometown may be different in terms of operable machines and functionality and modern equipment that you may use in your household etc). Being a first time employer, it's probably important for you to have more "control" over the maid rather than "free will", if you know what I mean. I'm pretty relax with them maid and do have a list of To Dos and Not To Dos etc, and instructions that I print out so that she can refer to them and there are no miscommunication. There's still some reminders every now and then, but once she gets into a routine, you are free. I believe strongly in "treat people well and you will be treated the same in return" and after all, maids are human too, they can have their lifes and lead them the way they one, outside your home. The fundamental rule is that they have to earn your trust, don't get pregnant and be honest about everything. It's the ideal world which of course you may not find all the time or even most of the time, but I have met one or two who are pretty good before, who have erred, but seriously, to err is human right?
In finding a maid, I did try to go online and was more successful in getting the right one than walking into the shop. That's only because I had the criterias in mind and know exactly what I am looking for in the maid. That means I am not confined to one agency but have a few other options as well. At the end of the day, all agencies are about the same but you just have to READ their T & Cs carefully and make sure you ask questions if you don't understand their fees, replacement, tranfer and pre-termination terms etc as these are the most important portions of the T & Cs that you should take note of. You can't really be certain of which agency is the best one out there and the cheapest agency may not be the best nor will they have the best selection of maids and vise versa. Otherwise, the fees are not far off depending on whether you are choosing an indonesian or filipino maid.
As such, instead of confusing yourself as to which agency to pick, I would prefer to choose the maid that meets your critria, interview them first and be satified and then review the T & Cs of the agency that they come from because the MAID is the person who work and live with you, not the agency. If you are satisfied with the T & Cs then it's a done deal!
However, if you stick on to one agency, you may end up with only the choices of maids they throw at you and even though they may be the cheapest, you may not have enough selection to make a decision and then the waiting game starts and that can be quite frustrating. If you have all the time in the world, that's fine too, but maid choices and selections comes and goes very quickly. If you don't have many choices, and even if you do, you will find that at least 75% of what you have selected may already be taken by the next day or two if you are slow in making a decision and those that are sitting there waiting and waiting for you are probably the ones you won't consider anyways! Hope that helps and good luck!

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