How do I politely tell my mother I don't want her there?

overtonhayes

All my life I've known that when I get pregnant, I only want the father of the baby to be there for the birth. I don't even want people knowing I'm in labour: I'd rather call up my parents and say "hey, that baby's here!" than "ok, I'm in labour, baby will be here soon". I've never been comfortable with the idea of people knowing when I'm in pain, and I don't see that changing.

My mum wants to come live with me before the baby's born, to help me out around the house when I'm too huge to move and also to give me a hand when the baby's here. Here's the problem: not only do I not want her around because I don't want her to know that I'm in labour, my mother and I really do not get along. She's talking about staying with me for three weeks, which will drive me INSANE!

She's really not the maternal type so I thought she'd understand that I don't want any fuss and I don't want anyone around me, but she doesn't. She's explained that she doesn't want to be there holding my hand during the birth (her words! Told you!), just be around me to help me out, but I really don't like the idea. They flew out for my wedding seven months ago, and they caused me so much stress that I honestly kind of wish they hadn't. I won't need that when the baby's here, and I know my mother will be telling me what to do and aggravating me and GAH, I can feel my blood pressure rising just thinking about it.

What can I do? I get that she has a point, I have no idea what to expect and I probably will want some help. But it's complicated by the fact that she's so far away. There can be no "I could use a hand, can you come over?": we need to be booking flights now, making arrangements now, and unless by some miracle my baby is here on my due date there can be no way of having her 4500 miles away when I'm in labour.

Please don't flame me too much for being so mean to my poor old mummy, there just aren't words to describe how.... Complicated my relationship with my mother is. How can I tell her I don't want her around without offending her? I had to buy some time by telling her (truthfully) that we're not even 100% certain of my due date yet, otherwise she'd have booked flights today.