Pregnant (IVF) Worriers Part 3

[Buzzybee123]

Hi everyone,

This thread is for all you incessant worriers out there, not necessarily limited to IVF-ers, although I get the feeling the people who have had trouble TTC are more prone to worrying than others!

[vallinnapod]

Thanks Buzzy!

Mariana- it wasn't the most pleasant experience but like I said, worked for me!

[Buzzybee123]

I was tempted to call it the the Yoni Worriers thread

dildals sorry about the set back, it is best to be cautious, sorry about the book from your friend, not the best time really

shazza oh I had a delightful experience in the pants department , on Thursday I was chucking up with great gusto that the force of the convulsion mad me wet myself a little, needless to say I never go out unless I am padded up

expat I bet the male sales assistant wouldn't know what it was for, you big day must be coming up fast, maybe it is dragging for you

vall it was quite a performance getting her out the flat with all her stuff, she will be totally foul after I have been away for the weekend, although I have organised visitors to keep her company do you have another scan coming up

mariana There was another thing about how to 'pleasure' yourself while pregnant sure when you couldn't reach that far you would just send 'him' to do it

noks honest judge it wasn't me, it was my evil twin

Still no 16 week appointment yet, shall call and kick off inquire what is going on.

[putthecrispsDOWN]

Thanks for starting the thread buzzy, I lurked and was too scared to do it! How are your symptoms at the moment, and sign of a respite yet?

Hi ll, am back from my jollies in Paris (disneyland though so please don't think I am one of those impressive cultured mums who does city breaks with a threenager). Had a lovely time although got back to find that my brother (25yo!) had a stroke...all well now and he is home but obviously upsetting, he had a huge brain injury that took a year of brain rehab to recover from 8yrs ago so it seems to be all related to that, poor thing, why is nothing ever simply good for long without something shitty happening?

dildals Bella is simply beautiful, she looks very serene in her picture!

shazzare tearing...I was terrified when I had dd1. I ended up being cut...at first I refused by but the consultant said 'better a small cut than a tear' (sorry if tmi!) and I just went with it by that point. I think the mws and docs know what they are doing and would avoid it...I didn't find the cut painful at all and I got stitched back up in minutes, and have had no problems since. I know this doesn't sound particularly reassuring but hope it helps...its not something I'm remotely worried about this time tbh. Mih offer DH the chance to massage me though and then show him the YouTube clips, hee, poor boy will be scarred for life!

expat I had a swaddle blanket for dd1 and loved it in the early days. I ended up just using normal blankets in the end but she did really like it. I used to do it fajita style...kind of start out with a diamond shaped blanket, fold the top bit down, put baby's head on the folded down bit, then fold in the left side, then fold the bottom up, then roll the right side over tightly and tuck it in somewhere? Sounds bad to say fajita wraps but DH knew what I meant instantly. I think ours was from boots or mother are but not sure if these places stretch to Belgium?

sweetie congrats on one of each. I really don't mind what ours are but I teach lots of b/g twins and they like having their own 'space' intoning their teenage years with different interests and sets of friends, but are still really close. Our scan is next week. One of our friends (dad to triplets, kudos!) told us a story about his friend who was having 'twins' but then gave birth to triplets....made me a bit. Am going to demand a head count if we get as far as our 20wk scan!

Boring news alert..after lots of moaning last week DH took me to mothercare and bought me new maternity jeans...their over the bump skinny jeans are the most lovely comfortable thing in the world! Shame I have no nice tops to go with them but I can't believe how pathetically happy a nice pair of trews has made me.

Hi to everyone else!!

[ExpatAl]

Crisps, so sorry about your brother. He's so young! It must have been very frightening. I know exactly what you mean with fajita style.

Thanks for starting the thread Buzzy! Apart from popping in for a meeting next Tuesday I've finished work so it seems real now. I'm a mixture of denial, fear and excitement.

[Buzzybee123]

Crisp so sorry to hear about your brother that must have been scary for everyone

[Nokkie73]

crisps so sorry to hear about your brother. It's so young to have that sort of thing happen to you. I hope he's on the mend now. Xx

dildals poor Bella. I really hope she's a bit better today. Have they said how long she will be in hospital for ? She's obviously a fighter and they had to err on the side of safety by stopping her feeds. Fingers crossed that it's only a temporary blip. Xx

vall wtAf is an epi-no ? marinara's hilarious reaction had made me very curious. I'll ask buzz to pop her dirty perving mac on and have a quick look and she can report back to the group. Is it to do with yoni preservation ? As yoni warriors, we have to do all we can to keep them all spick and span so we should perhaps order a job lot rambles

shazz we are doing all the research we can to preserve your ahem Laydee Yoni so don't stress.

Hi to all you other lovely ladies.

Xx

[Dildals]

Oh god, my friend had an epi-no (and still had a tear actually). She 'birthed' the epi-no every day and had to get up to 10cms. It was a bit TMI when she told me this.

Bella was LOTS better today, which is good, because I don't think I could have done another day of her crying her little kitten cry. She did lots of peaceful sleeping, that's how we like to see it! She's getting some proper food now too (as in, 7mls an hr of my milk, she's not on fish n chips yet).

noks they tell you to expect her to be in till term, so we have another 9 weeks of this ahead of us ... better not to think of it because I have no clue how I can keep this up for 9 weeks, so I just focus on day by day.

I also got a talking to from the lactation consultant. She told me that I am not producing enough milk, whereas I thought I was. I am meeting demand at the moment but apparently I should be producing between 700 - 800ml. At the moment I am rendering about half that. So she wants me to get my ass in to gear and step up to a 3hr feeding schedule. But seriously .. I don't know how I can do that and still remain un-zombie-like. I know that if I had a term baby at home I would be constantly breastfeeding, but being at your own home, with a real baby on the boob is a bit different to getting up in the middle of the night and hooking yourself up to a machine and then going in to hospital. My DH thinks it is crazy talk this 3hr schedule. You can also increase the expressing during the day time so that's what we decided on. I haven't got an issue with combined feeding as such, but she's still so teeny tiny that I don't want to have to introduce formula yet.

The lactation lady also said she wants to get Bella in to a routine as from next week to have her out of her incubator 3 times a day to have a little 'play around' my breasts. This involves introducing her to my breast, letting her have a little root around and lick some breast milk, my little kitten ;-). Babies only develop the sucking/breathing&swallowing reflex from wk34 onwards so she won't be able to BF, but this will imprint the breastfeeding behaviour as to prepare her for the 'real deal'. My friend has a kitten that's heavier than my baby, who has not put on ANY weight since birth and she wants to get her out 3 times a day?! I assume they know what they're doing! (I am sure they do). This also means I need to really be at the hospital all day, which is another thing I will need to manage. You really need to find a routine that works for you otherwise you end up in one of those straitjackets munching down on valium. Good thing I live so close to the hospital, so I can still go home inbetween and have lunch or have a nap & tune out. I have only just managed to banish the ICU alarms going off in my head when I go to sleep!

crisps that sucks, massively.

[Dildals]

On another, related, note - this expressing business is making me ravenous! I am eating SO MUCH I think I am going to gain weight rather than lose it! I have already noticed my cheeks taking on a bit of a hamster shape ... oh dear ... Not helped by DH trying to feed me up so I can produce lots of milk! :-)

[putthecrispsDOWN]

dildals so glad Bella had a good day, must have been a relief. I wasn't able to bf with dd1 so can't imagine what expressing all the time must feel like, I bet you are exhausted!

Brother is doing well thanks, it was a small stroke but still scary. Glad they have diagnosed his epilepsy though as they can now hopefully sort it all out. Off to Bristol to see him soon which will be nice.

Am off to google yoni now as I have no clue what that is....

[ExpatAl]

Mariana's reaction had me curious too so I had to take a look. It's dedication a step too far for me.

[vallinnapod]

Crisps - glad to hear your brother is improving. Scary stuff.

Ladies....the Epi-No was not that bad. I had to say I at your friend dildals. 10cm?! I, ahem, kept expelling it when it got to about 3-4cm...I like to think it was my pelvic floor muscles of steel. As I say, worked for me!

Dildals exciting news about getting Bella accustomed to the act of BF. I had heard it is notoriously hard to express the amount of milk that a baby would take from you naturally. I can understand the lactation consultant wanting you to express every 3 hours (as you would if BFing) but you are right, in that without the baby feeding it must be very hard. Plus, you don't know what her natural feeding patturn would be. DS was a snacker. He fed for 10 mins every hour or couple of hours (several hours at night) - clearly just his way. I had quite a strong letdown reflex though so I think I was probably waterboarding him in that time!

[keepitgoing]

oh dildals I am so pleased that Bella is doing better today. The expressing sounds really tough - but surely if she's taking 7mls an hour then what you're producing is enough..? We are all willing her to grow grow grow, and she is such a little cutie. I think you're sensible to take each day at a time, otherwise it's overwhelming. Is your DH still off work with you as well? I hope you have support for you because it sounds like an immense schedule you have going on.


crisps I'm so sorry to hear about your brother's stroke - he's so young. Glad he's doing better, and hope you are ok.


expat when is your date?


I am getting in to the nhs system - have seen the MW, and have an appointment at the hospital for monday, which was very speedy and I'm impressed. I'll be 25+3 at my booking appointment! which is a bit odd, but I suppose they must have seen it all before.

so pleased to hear of all the good scans we've had on here recently.

[keepitgoing]

Oh, I was pleased to read a meta-analysis that suggested very limited if any benefits from perineal massage, so I will be giving that a miss...

[Buzzybee123]

noks The buttons on my mac are straining around my expanding girth so don't stand too close as one might pop off and poke your eye out, it looks interesting, but I would worry about over inflating

keep glad you are back under the wing of the NHS

crisps i hope you are ok after your googling :)

didals glad to hear amazing little Bella is better

I went to my GP today, she told me I was taking one of my meds wrong she did give me more drugs though :) She also said you look and then filled her cheeks with air and put her hands up to each side of face her polite way of saying I looked fat, she then went onto say 'you look healthy' another way of saying you look fat, good job I like her

I also got to hold a month old baby I have now realised that I have no idea what to do with one . . .

[putthecrispsDOWN]

Just popping in to say yoni: wtff?! Won't be googling that again...DH already thinks it slightly odd that I pop onto the iPad to check in with my online lady friends, if he saw me watching perineal massage vids and yoni websites think he may get concerned...

Glad you are getting booked in keep!

[Nokkie73]

That should be known as the epi-how f'king much ?

Or the epi-that ain't coming anywhere near my yoni.

Anything you have to 'give birth to' apart from a child is just weird.

Sorry crisps. Mr Crisps will think you've joined some sort of virtual vagina kibbutz. We should have warned you that googling yoni could be a bit of an education.

buzz your GP is a bit cheeky isn't she ? You should have vomited in her lap.

dildals great news about Bella. I thnk you have made the right decision about trying to express during the day and not at night. You need to strike a bit of a balance and the Tit Man having a bit of a go isn't exactly the most sensitive thing to do. I hope she's had another good day today.

Hello keeps. Welcome back to the shit weather

Hello to everyone else. My here the blazes is shazza ?

Scan in the morning. 20 weeks. I am crapping it a bit. X

Nx

[Nokkie73]

I mean where the blazes is shazza . Bloody big fat sausage fingers.

[Nokkie73]

dildals sorry. I mean the Tit Woman.

Bejeezus, I am a proper clot today.

[Buzzybee123]

noks very exciting/scary about your 20 week scan, you are waiting till you pop it out to know what it is, yes she was a bit cheeky, couldn't manage a good chunder

[fairypangolin]

buzzy thanks for starting a new thread. I think "yoni worriers" is a great name but it is trumped by noks "virtual vagina kibbutz". That just says it all. I don't understand your doctor's comment about your face, do you normally have quite a thin face? It seems a really weird thing to comment on.

And on the hot perineal massage topic, in the Bumpology book it says a study showed some reduction in risk if tearing, but it was small. Also you only have to do it from week 37 or so onwards and then there is no benefit to doing it more than once or twice a week. So shazza and DH can relax for now! Also I have read that when you are in labour you are flooded with hormones that relax everything incl your pelvic floor, so stretching it "cold" so to speak is v different.

Crisps v sorry about your brother- I really hope he recovers quickly. I had epilepsy when I was younger and u was not diagnosed for years so I know how hard that is. To have a stroke as well at a young age is so unfair.

dildals the expressing sounds exhausting. It is much easier with a real baby. I hope you're finding some ways to take care of yourself between trips to the hospital. I watched The Fall, it was a bit slow and the killer only had one facial expression the whole time. Also is his wife the stupidest woman on the planet or what?

Bella is a little sweetie! Such beautiful hair.

noks good luck with the scan tomorrow!

Still on holiday- some very slow walks and 2 hr naps daily. V restful.

[fairypangolin]

Forgot to add, holiday v restful in part because DH has volunteered to sleep in another bed as the cottage only has a v small double bed. So I can actually move around as much as I like especially when I wake up hot and sweaty. dildals I think you said you were hot at night too. I now know it's not the weather because it's cool here, must be those hormones again.

[vallinnapod]

at fairy's naps.

PMSL - just Googled Yoni. Other than being Sanskrit for vag it 'the word covers a range of meanings, including: place of birth, source, origin, spring, fountain, place of rest, repository, receptacle, seat, abode, home, lair, nest, stable'.

I am not sure if I am going to refer to my lady garden as my lair or my repository....

Nokkie - am so excited for you tomorrow!! Give Nokette a wave from us

Buzzy - I would have decked your GP - out of interest which meds were you taking incorrectly paranoid I am doing something wrong

As far as meds go, what have your clinics told you all re: coming off them? For me, I come off everything (aspirin, oestrogen patches, progynova, gestone, cyclogest) at 12 weeks, weaning down the doses for a week before finishing at 13.

[Nokkie73]

Cheers girls. I won't be finding out the flavour tomorrow. I just want to know everything is ok. The nipper is definitely wriggling about now. It's funny - it has really started to move over the last couple of days which is very reassuring.

I rather like the thought of my vag being a 'lair'. Not that it has snared anything lately desperate old hag

fairy glad you are having nice hollibobs. I am well jel of your naps. I bloody love an afternoon nap.

[putthecrispsDOWN]

noks good luck for tomorrow. I remember us being a sweary and shit-scared 6 weeks pregnant not so long ago, we've come a long way!

Virtual vagina kibbutz....awesome. My fb page is completely locked down as I am a teacher and don't want the kids to find out how dull I really am so it would be a nice fb group to join...I'd live to see the look on any kids' face who managed to hack in!!

fairy I also have nap envy. We have a super king sized bed which makes me feel like a celeb off of MTV cribs as DH is 6ft 6 and has to sleep diagonally in anything else. I am appreciative of the bed at the moment! DH bought me one of those noting phallic sausage pregnancy pillows for a small fortune...fucking useless...great for the first few nights and then my big fat belly squished it into submission. Back to a normal pillow then!

shazza wherefore art thou? Give us a wave to let us know if you are lurking!

[putthecrispsDOWN]

Oh and noks make sure you ask to be told when to look away if you don't want to find out....serial scanners like use are quite good at 'seeing' scans, and when I had DD her faloola was very easy to see on scans!