During surgery....

 Holy cow, I am so sorry.  I would not want to be that nurse if you come back for a visit, I will tell you what!!!!  (And I don't blame you, either!)

Looking back at my hospital stay, I wish my husband had left my 12 year old son home....lol.... but the little guy would not leave my bedside. He even begged to stay the night to take care of me but I was relieved when the nurses said no.

As much as I appreciated so much all he did for me while he was at my bedside, the little bugger now uses it against me as he imitates me when I was coming out from lala land...lol

Wishing you all the best with your upcoming surgery.

Lynn

 That is adorable!!!!  Luckily my girl is only 4 so hopefully she won't be holding it over my head for a long time.  It doesn't say so on the website but now I'm wondering if they will even let her visit me.  That would be... not good.  :(  

I don't mean to be callous, but listen: Children survive a couple days of separation from their parents all. the. time. Don't worry about it so much.

It might even be WORSE for her to see you in the hospital. There's no way of knowing what the impact of either decision would be for her in advance. You can't assume one way or another.

Try to find some ways of giving her a little exposure to a place like where you will be and some of the non-scary aspects of what your stay in the hospital will be like. Then trust your MIL to be a good grandma and take care of her beloved granddaughter and minimize the trauma she will experience at being apart from you for some days.

Give her the type of information and education that she can handle. Combine it with surrounding her with lots of support and love and comfort. Have Grandmom plan some great stuff to do with her so that she remembers more about the fun stay there than the worry of what's going on with Mom.

I'd be thinking a lot harder about how to handle the impact of you coming home fresh from surgery than I would be about the "necessity" of her seeing you in the hospital.

 Elizabeth, I appreciate your input, I really do!  You'll have to trust me that I know our family situation and my daughter really, really well.  My MIL is not that mobile or able to do fun things with her, and is not a good long term solution for care, unfortunately.  Fine for a day, but not much longer, kwim?  Right now it looks like we will have her here for the day of, then my husband will come back here to be with her that night and they may come visit the next day.   Thank you again though :)  I do know that children are separated from their parents all the time!  If my support system were better it would be a better option for us.  Unfortunately both my parents are deceased and I don't have many options for that type of care.  

Ah okay, I follow you. (And my apologies if you'd already told me all this before.) Yeah, if Grandmom can't provide a real solid, quality safety net, that's a different ball of wax.

Are there any other people in your lives who might be able to step in and help out in some way, so that your daughter has more support system? Is she at a developmental stage yet where she has any solid friendships, where she might be able to spend some amount of time with another family?

How far are you traveling for your surgery again? Is there something else she could do the day after surgery?

I don't know of many ways to suggest thinking outside the box on this.... At the moment I'm thinking about what it will be like for her once you're home from the hospital and in the acute recovery phase. I would think THAT could get awfully tough on her too. Do you have anybody around to help for that time?

I had my surgery on 08/16/11.... I went 2 hours away and told my mother under NO cir****tances was she to bring my daughter up there... I did not want my daughter to see me in the hospital.... I told her even if I was on my death bed I did not want her there.... I was in the hospital alone... I had a couple of visits from a friend but I toughed it out alone and was fine... that pain pump had me out of it for the first 2 days anyway!!  Just my experience!