Professional Advice- email wording

I work as a private tutor and am self-employed (i.e. I make my hours and work directly with my clients). I have 6-8 students at any given time and I travel to their home twice weekly for a total of 2 hrs/ week. I was working 12 hours/ week of teaching time and another 12 hrs. of driving time, so basically a lot of sitting and a lot of break-neck urban traffic. Since the baby is breech and I had severe edema, I haven't tutored for the past two weeks.

I told parents that I had an appt last Monday and one today (Friday) and I would contact them and let them know what my tutoring hours would be after meeting with my midwife. So this past week I had two of my student's parents call me and attempt to pressure me into tutoring their children even after I told them I wouldn't know anything until Friday. One wanted me to computer and tele-conference with her 17 yr old son, another wanted to bring her 2nd grade twin boys to me 2 hrs a week instead of me coming to them. I was horribly offended by both moms...I had just told them that the baby is breech, I might have to have a c-section or version, and on top of that my legs weren't working due to swelling...and all both moms could think about is how to get tutoring for their kids inspite of my need for personal time. And on top of that, when I told them no they continued with their pressure and suggestions while throwing in "but I understand if you need time, I just thought that the edema wouldn't get in the way if I brought them to you" or "you can sit/relax however you need to while teleconferencing with my son, so whatever you need to do because the baby is breech shouldn't interfere".

My appt with the midwife today went well, the treatment for the edema is working, but the baby is still breech. I really don't want to go back to tutoring before the birth because I may have a c-section in 2-3 weeks and would rather relax and prepare myself (we had planned a natural birth).

Anyway, now I need to write a mass e-mail to my tutoring parents and am too pissed and emotional to be professional about it. Basically, I need to say that under the circumstances I will not be tutoring again before the birth, will contact them when the baby is born, and plan to return to tutoring X # of weeks after the birth if all goes well. Except all I want to do is thank 4 of my 6 clients for being understanding and supportive and tell the other 2 to go screw themselves.

Can anyone suggest some pc e-mail wording that will get my point across and still leave me with a job after maternity leave? I am sitting here with a knot in my stomach and feel like a total idiot for not being able to handle this.

Give yourself some time before you write the email. I can totally imagine how pissed off you are right now. Some people are so self centered! I deal with it everyday and swear I am going to get an ulcer! I am not good with words because I would just end up saying something that I would regret. So, take a breath and a moment before writing anything. You need to look out for you and the baby at this point. Don't let anyone pressure you.

Dear Parents,

Thank you so much for your patience over the past few weeks. I know how important your child's education is and I truly enjoy being a part of that.

As you know, I have run into a few late-pregnancy complications that require very little movement or activity on my part. I regret that I will not be able to take on any tutoring obligations between now and X weeks after the birth of my baby.

In my absence, I highly recommend SuzieQ to run lessons that I cannot. Her info is: (Add recommendation of someone who can fill in for you if know of anyone)

I will miss your child for the next few months, but look forward to seeing you again in June (or September?).

Sincerely,
Cheirogloss

WoW! Lisa, you are good!

Shannon

I second dsdavin, you are REALLY good Lisa. That is so much more professional and polite than where I was (and am still) coming from. You should hire yourself out

Aw, shucks! I work for a bunch of assholes, so I have gotten better at BS kindness.

I agree - well done, Lisa!!

We have some talent on this board. Feel like writting one to my wicked step mother?

Great Job Lisa...

One small recommendation, while its a pain, I personally wouldn't send a Mass E-Mail, I would personalize it for each family, you can use a form letter, (like Lisa wrote) and just fill in the child's name, but it will give the parent the feeling that you really are committed to their child and their child alone, mass e-mails aren't very personal.

How much time do you plan on taking off?

I agree that the mass e-mail is impersonal, I was just so frustrated that I couldn't bring myself to send one to each parent. I figured a mass e-mail would prevent me from being a complete idiot. Thanks to Lisa's great letter, I think I will send it to each parent.

I am planning to take 5-6 weeks off once the baby arrives. My due date is March 23, but if the baby doesn't flip we will consider a version at 37-38 weeks. The issue is that if we do the version and the baby goes into distress we will have an emergency c-section right there. If the version works and all is fine, we will walk out and hope that the baby stays head down for a vaginal birth whenever I go into labor.

Since a c-section is now a viable option, we are left reconsidering our postpartum care plans. The baby has been fine the whole time, and I don't think either DH or I considered it being breech. We were so preoccupied with all the other things that could go wrong and didn't that we thought we were out of the woods. DH can only take 1 work week off (i.e. 5 work days) because he is a public school teacher and we don't want to dig in to too much of his sick leave and vacation time incase we need him home for an emergency reason. His spring break is the first week of April, so he will take one week off in March, go back for 1-2 weeks, and then be home for another week. While we planned for family visitors during those 2 weeks that he is at work, we didn't plan to have anyone stay. Now with the c-section looming, we are trying to figure out who can stay, for how long, can we tolerate DH's parents (they are borderline elderly and may not be much help) etc. We also have to figure out who will take care of our pets during the hospital stay.

I feel sort of silly for not making these plans all along, but we had no indication and were so short-sighted. Now we're scrambling. Live and learn I guess

I am not an expert by any means, and I didn't have a C-Section and I have limited experience with friends that have had them, and while the recovery is generally longer than a vaginal delivery, my two friends that did have them, were walking in the neighborhood 2-3 days after coming home, clearly they had an easier recovery than most, but I just wanted to throw that out there that its possible it won't really throw you for so much of a loop. But I agree, you need to have a plan in place.

And you still have plenty of time for the little one to flip, a lot of people don't even know their little one is breech at this stage, because a lot of OB's don't check for that until 36W. My friend went to L&D on Tuesday to attempt to flip her little man, it didn't work, but she is holding out hope that he will flip on his own But like I told her, at least with a C-Section you know what you are going to get (for the most part), you know 30 minutes after they wheel you out, you will be a Momma, whereas with a planned vaginal delivery you could always end in a C-Section and end up recovering from both...vaginal and c-section.

Sending you postive flipping thoughts...

And I can see why you are frustrated with the parents. While I am not sticking up for the Twin's Mom, I am giving her the benefit of the doubt that she was trying to be helpful in bringing them to you, maybe she didn't fully understand the situation and really thought that it was just the driving that was making it hard for you to keep up with the tutoring...the other Mom....can't really come up with anything for her, other than clearly she is terrified her 17 year old isn't going to graduate and ever get out of her house - HA. You need to do whatever is going to make you most comfortable.

If you do end up having a c/s, there's a good chance recovery will be really easy (as easy as surgery recovery can be). I've had 2 c/s and with my last one, I was up walking to the bathroom on my own that same evening! Try to go into as least stressed as possible, I've heard that really helps also. It will hurt to get up and around, but the sooner you can do it the quicker you'll recover...at least that's what I've found. Hang in there, there's a chance LO will still turn!!

Stacey