Thanks for the replies; sorry I am taking so long to reply. I was a mixture of busy with the baby, work, and not sure how to respond. I didn't mean to imply that they are not good parents; as she grows I notice the bond my friend has with her grow stronger. Also, in the course of her one month, i've only been there for half of it, at separate times, so i'm not living with them. The complications occur when I am there. I will say, as the trip progressed it was almost as if all I needed to do was write this post because things almost instantly started getting better. She seems to get what kind of role I want (like the fun and crazy aunt), and I'm seeming to get what kind of parenting style she is going for. It also helps that she (the baby) is beginning to seem to know me now. Friend and I also were able to have some girl time away from the baby and it helped a lot because she seemed so much less stressed.


We did discuss my role (per T's suggestion) before she was born and this does involve post death plans and we mostly discussed my presence in her life filling in as a role of things she would want the baby to experience if she were to pass and remain living with her father. To an extent, I'm okay with being free daycare as I would like to be a lot closer to the baby than your (and my) godparents. I think, based on what you said, we should probably discuss in more detail, now that the baby is around, my role as a God parent. Thank you.

Well, I think i'm at fault for most of this. I want to clean to help her because she can't seem to help herself as much because the baby is very demanding. However, after reading this I was able to get in the "let it go" mentality and allow things to remain a mess; this did seem to motivate her to do a little house keeping.

Thank you. This last trip helped me to understand that a big part of why it was affecting me is because 1) I want to be close to the baby 2) I am a bit afraid to handle her, so while I do its makes me very anxious and 3) i'm not sure at all what her mother/my friend is thinking and I am doing a lot of "story telling" about what it is she wants.

No established schedule because I live a good distance away (six hours), but it was established that I would be there the beginning of this month for a while, and it happened that I ended up going up early because her labor was very hard and she was having a hard time coping. Maybe, from here on, we can do that...Stopping doing things that she tends to undo actually made me a lot less stressed. Thank you for that. I, too, eventually hope to love the role as you do.

The only time I was up so that they could sleep was the night I overdosed; otherwise we're all just kind of really up together because the father works in the evening and I sleep in the common area. Renting a hotel room for at least part of the trip seems to be help because it gives me time for myself as well. I will likely make this a new habit.

I really don't think so; I think its just a little confusion on how life flows when a baby arrives. I would like to see them more than just on holidays. But I agree that I do need a break, and I had to simply remind myself that I am not essentially responsible for meeting all of the baby or my friends needs. I think that my dependency on others happiness probably got overly in the way. Thanks for the reminder.

I think perhaps that they haven't asked too much of me, but how they need me maybe open to too much interpretation and I also think that its different in definition for all of us (me, mom, and dad) and that we're all feeling each out on that part.

Unfortunately, my friend was not blessed with such a supportive family and only one sibling was able to make it up for the birth. Since then, she's had to do it all on her own (the father went back to work after I got out of inpatient) and so, I understand that she is stressed and needs a break. As my best friend, I truly wish to be a help to her; its just a measure of finding balance between what my role is and self care.

As i've said, things are starting to improve as I read through you guys post and adjust accordingly (which she then seems to adjust a bit to too), so I really do appreciate the responses. I'm not sure when I will return though, because after this wild month, I think I do truly need to focus on some self care as going inpatient has jeopardized quite a few things in my own life. Still, it feels good to think that thing can get better for everyone.