December 2010: Our Christmas Babies are growing but our energy levels are slowing!

[WhatWillSantaBring]

With thanks to the provider of the snappy title (it wasn't me - I think it was Strix)

Link to Stats thread (I hope)

Here

kellestar, sorry about your grandad. DH's grandad died when I was about 6 months gone and DH was really sad that he'd missed a great-grandson so closely.

DF, sorry to hear about your sister's MC.

Had another MW appt a couple of days ago and she couldn't get my 34 wk bloods out! So I have two holes in my arms and nothing to show for it. My veins collapsed this stage last time - wonder why? She's having another go next time, so must drink lots and make sure I'm warm. We're not worried though, since it was just another anaemia test and she doesn't think I'm anaemic.

Baby still breech but now I'm having dreams about him turning. Maybe it all helps towards visualisation? I have a friend who will do some moxa - MW advised me to spend my money on that before a beanbag, but I'm also propping my bum up on pillows. It's so much more comfortable (relatively) than hanging off the sofa, face-down! Going swimming this weekend and will try more handstands.

I have to spend all evening at an NCT fundraiser today and I am NOT looking forward to it. Loads to do, and I am knackered! It's a pampering evening, but not even sure I'll get a chance to try any therapies.

Hello everyone

Firstly so sorry for my extended absence. I can't really explain it I'm afraid. I've been quite busy with work and just life really. I kept on saying to myself that I'd log on tomorrow and I never did!

DF - So, so sorry to hear about your sister. It must be very hard for you both. Um, actually you're the reason I was finally prompted to pop in again. It seems that this isn't the first forum we've been on together - you used to know me as Elvis Minx!

I'm pleased to report that everything is going very well for me in the pregnancy and I haven't had any troublesome symptoms other than a bit of heartburn. Still hoping for a homebirth but if the LO is still traverse breech at my midwife appointment on Monday I might have to go in for a manual turning and if that doesn't work then I may have to go in after all. Having done a tour of the hospital this week I really hope not though!

Hope you're all well and I'm very much looking forward to when the babies start arriving after all this time! I hope you can all forgive me for my massive rubbishness and I won't leave it so long next time.

x

cheryl yes Its my first, I think I'll see how it goes and insist I get an app if I feel ill or anything.

Hey greengeek

max so glad your appointment went well, sounds like a lovely midwife you spoke to. Hopefully now you'll be able to relax a little and feel better about the birth.

Reshape oh that's horrible, I've had that before, 3 attempts and no blood due to veins collapsing. I have small veins apparently and they find it hard to get blood so usually use pediatric needles. I think there is still time for baby to turn, mine seems to be every which way still at the moment and I'm 34+1.

GGG nice to see you back again :) glad things are going well

I packed my bags!! Baby one too, woot! :o DD and DS1 have been feeling what I think is a little foot poking out from my bump just now, they are so excited, DS2 is always pulling my top off and putting his ear to my bump to hear the baby too, especially when we're in shops hehe.

Getting fed up of all these BH's now, very annoying.

thanks C&G congrats on the bag packing too! glad to know it's not just my DD who lives to subject me to a bit of indecent exposure to get to the baby

Hehe :o Oops meant to type pulling my top up not off, obviously he doesn't pull it totally off!

*should read likes not lives

cheese, DS is constantly pulling my top up (and tights down on occasion ) to cuddle the baby. He usually does it in the middle of a music group. It's sweet, though. He's started telling me things about the baby - what the baby wants, what he's thinking, etc. Sort of cute and creepy at the same time. Am beginning to wonder about telepathy...

I survived the pamper evening. It was a blast, actually, and I think we may have made a decent profit. I had a 15 min shiatsu massage which certainly felt very nice. I almost refused to get up when it was over!

glad you had a good night in the end reshape

Oh wow - I had the best night's sleep I've had in months. I pretty much slept for 11 hours bar a couple of trips to the loo. Mind you, I physically couldn't keep my eyes open any longer at 9pm last night.

I thought it was supposed to be sunny down here today? If it stays dry, I might persuade DH to take DD to play crazy golf this afternoon before he goes to work.

What's everyone else up to today?

OMG! Wave to GreenGeekGirl how funny. How are you? I am not sure I even knew/remembered you were pregnant. Congratulations. It's such a small internet world

Thanks to everyone for your sympathy over my sister. I don't want to talk too much about it as she posts here, but she is ok under the circumstances.

I've got so many posts to catch up on and so many things to do here. DH and I just wrote a huge list of things we need to get done but with me being so tired and him playing COD (he has actually booked days off work!!) I have no idea how we will manage to get it all done in time.

Work threw me a little leaving do yesterday, a week early because my closest workmate is not here next week. So now I feel like I have left but still have a whole week left, during which I am going to be training my replacement! Roll on Friday.

maxpower great to hear that you got to speak to someone lovely.

93pjb good luck with the house.

Waves to everyone and sorry to hear some of you are suffering still. Hope all the babies turn to face the way they are supposed to and that all the BH are not too painful. I am still waiting for BH to start.

Happy Weekend everyone !

I like all the cute kiddies hugging bumps stories :) my 3 year old neice is hilarious she shoved a Mr Man toy up her dress and pretended to be me, apparently I must say 'the baby isn't ready yet' quite a lot! Probaby because she is constantly asking me when it'll be out. She also gave me some great advice, she wrinkled up her nose and said, 'I don't think you should call the baby Mr Strong' priceless :)

Just been on my hands and kness sweeping up leaves inside the garage, I'm sure this will seem like a mental thing to have done within a month or so but I quite enjoyed it :) Also I seem to have changed personailty and become a hoarder, which is rubbish as DH is a massive hoarder already. So now its both of us stood in the garage saying maybe we should hang on to this 3 inches of plastic pipe, metal tube, bit of wood, odd shaped plyboard - just in case!

One week left at work for me too but my replacement is on leave next week so I can actually have a bit of time to myself.

Welcome back GGG
maxpower glad you had such a positive MW, I bet it makes all the difference :) and glad the bloods were ok
reshape glad you enjoyed the NCT event in the end - I really want a massage now!

Right, bit of a survey now! Who is getting BH and who isn't? and is it your first/second/third etc.... thought i'd do a bit of research as still no BH for me

Happy Saturday all.

Hello GGG nice to see you back, was wondering how things were going.

C&G well done on bag packing, still not done mine and lucky T-shirt still not found.

Reshape Awww cute, and the massage sound lovely.

max 11 hours sounds like heaven, you lucky thing.

DF hope Friday comes around quickly, I'm sure it will, the weeks seem to be flying by.
Lol at your DH taking time off for COD, took me a while to work out what COD was though!

kitty that enthusistic sweeping sounds like nesting to me. I am getting BH, very strong ones to this is my third pg. I had them with the other two but not as strong. You can have them and not feel them though, when I was in labour with DD I was only feeling every other contraction and CTG was picking up more than I was feeling.

My cooker is fixed woo hoo!
Now to buy a new freezer boo!
We just planned to go to a nice hotel for tea but then realised we don't have the car, DH came home in the van so we can pick the freezer up so we can't go gutted

KittyBump - first baby for me and no BH yet - I am 36 weeks.

notso COD is Call of Duty for anyone who wondered.

I am cleaning like mad. Sadly I don't think this is nesting because I am hating every second

Hey everyone, guess what?!?! We went to the pub with my parents last night, and guess who had steak!?!?! Would have been great but the bloody idiots overcooked it. Having waited an hour for our food I really couldn't be bothered sending it back.

I then spent the rest of the evening debating whether to call mw because of the contractions and weirdness. Everyone is convinced it's a girl and will be born in Nov. I bet it surprises them all and is a boy born late!

C&G, I'm not having a pool. Like you I'm a quick 'labourer' and going on past performances would have given birth before pool is ready. (Again, I'm sure just to be awkward this one will be a pita to get out!)

Kitty, no idea if I'm getting BH. Certainly getting proper feeling contractions in my back, but nothing that matches the description of BH. This is my 3rd and is the 1st pregnancy I've had any kind of contractions before the real thing. So don't worry if you're not feeling anything, not everyody does.

DPs watching qualifying, we're feeling a bit stranded. Even though we quite often spend our child free weekends at home doing not a lot we feel stranded and restless with the lack of car. We've hoovered & polished the inside of our car today, just the outside needs cleaning then I guess sell it for spares or repairs. Blimming stupid on a 9 year old car, but way too expensive to fix. Hopefully we'll have the money in the bank on Monday for our new car, can't wait to get it now but will be very odd having a new car that I can't drive for a good few weeks.

kittybump first for me and no sign of BH yet and I am 36 weeks tomorrow. Though I had a track and trace yesterday and small ones were showing on the chart but I wasn't feeling them.

DF I am raging about the MiL who is helping paint the dining room and is making a poor job of it. I'm sobbing my little socks off at the moment upstairs as I can't bear to ask her yet again to do it properly. I've also started a AIBU thread on the same subject so won't harp on here. I am cleaning and not enjoying it, but there is a need to clean that I can't seem to do anything about. Like an itchy nose you try to ignore.

Spent 6 hours going through tests, specialists and waiting rooms to be told, we will check again in 6 weeks. Uhhh I'm due in like 4???? They didn't seem worried about that. After all the fuss they blooming made and worry they've put me through they've changed their minds. One of the specialists was complaining about the poor notes in my book and they were her own. Good job I type my own out on my Ipod Touch when they are talking to me. I'd packed my bags and everything as they'd intoned that I'd be in until LO arrives.

Notso so glad to hear your cooker is working again. We managed 6 months on a baby belling camping stove until we saved enough to buy a new cooker. Which I burnt myself on within 20 minutes of using it for the first time :)

I've calmed down a little and now feeling like a woman full of unfulfilled vengence. DH is not having a hot cooked meal tonight, he can go over his mothers for all I care. I'm ordering in Chinese, all my favourite things that he doesn't like. Then I'm climbing into the middle of our king size bed and sleeping there all night. He can spend the night in the spare room that has no curtains and the council replaced the bulb in the streetlight that shines into the room. Feeling like my vengence maybe slightly fullfilled. May have to stick on a chick flick just to piss him off. [My plan is so cunning you can stick a tail on it and call it a fox smiley]

Happy weekend everyone.

Hi to GGG welcome back and glad you are getting on ok.

DF glad you had a nice leaving do, although must be a bit odd to then have to go back in next week. At least you only have a few days left.

Kelle sorry to hear about your MIL. Chinese, chick flick and duvet hogging sounds perfect.

cheryl hope the money comes through so you can get your new car. I have to say I'd be housebound without the car at the moment as I can't make it to the bus stop.

kittybump I liked your nesting story :) I have been having braxton hicks which have been getting stronger over the past couple of weeks. This is baby no 2. They are a bit uncomfy but I think because of the position of the baby. I got them IIRC from about 34/35 weeks last time and they really ratcheted up when I started taking raspberry leaf tea.

notso sorry you're not getting your nice tea. Can you order in a takeaway instead?

max I am massively of your 11 hours.

C&G I feel like I ought to get my bags packed too. I have most things assembled but need to wash some baby clothes (we have a big bag of gender neutral stuff with plenty of vests and sleepsuits that we were given but it smells very strongly of fabric softner so I want to give it another wash).

reshape gald your pamper evening went ok.

So another poll who is sleeping ok and who is totally shattered ? I'm starting to average about 3 hours a night and feeling it, although it is good training for the early days.

DH and DD have popped out to get the paint for the bathroom. I'm not sure I can restrain myself from doing some, but it should be ok if room is ventilated and I don't go balancing on a chair to do the top, shouldn't it?

Hello WLL I'm sleeping ok, occasionally I wake up at about 2am wide awake and can't get back to sleep for a good 2/3 hours, this happens about once a week other than that not too bad, up once a night for a pee and a few shuffles around for achey hips but usually drop off again if DH isn't snoring (blimey - I hope you wanted a whole essay, that's more than my MW knows about my pg now!)

We're painting the bathroom too, I'm deffo too much of a control freak to not do some! I will just do low done bits and edges - yes no climbing on chairs!

kellestar sounds like a good revenge plan - does he know he is in the doghouse yet? - that must have been weird seeing the trace but not feeling it, like the 12 wk scan where the baby is jigging all over the place but you can't feel a thing!

Thanks for all the BH feedback - So far my extensive research has revealed that first timers seem to be having less BH, I think i may try the raspberry leaf tea to get my uterus going but... I'm allergic to raspberries - does anyone have any opinion as to whether i'll be allergic to the leaves too !

Hi, to answer the surveys...

I'm getting loads of BH - not painful, but some uncomfortable. This is number 3 and I'm getting them more than other preganancies.

Sleeping-wise, I'm much better since I kicked DH into the spare room. I just can't get back to sleep if there is a noisy person next to me - and as I'm up 5 or so times a night for a wee, I need to be able to get back to sleep easily. Hope this LO is listening - no being noisy .

Good to see you back GGG - there must be others we've lost along the way and hope they return too . Glad all is going well.

Your plan sounds fab kellestar - nothing like a bit of indulgence - what has DH done?

Spanishlady - same thing happened to me - well kind of.... My labout wasn't too bad but my placenta got stuck with DS2 - horrible thing as you think you're over the worst as LO is here, but then you find out you need to go into theatre... I was given a spinal, then drugs to stop me being sick, drugs to reduce the bleeding then drugs to stop me shaking... I felt like a pin cushion!!! Thankfully DS2 was quite relaxed and DH enjoyed spending the time with him once I was in recovery.

Hope everyone else is doing good?! I've been doing some nesting and so has DH and we're pretty prous of ourselves!!! Lots of cleaning and finishing some of our house 'projects'. We'd been meaning to finish off the hallway for ages but finally its done - and looks lovely!

Had a nice lazy day and really enjoyed the boys . Poor DS1 was ill in the night last night and sick a few times, so he's been a nit subdued today but enjoyed just chilling with movies and some good colouring / drawing. Just the sort of day we all needed . We missed a bithday party and lunch with friends though...

Speaking of the boys, I'd better get the littlest one into bed.... hope everyone has a good night sleep

WLL if it's any consolation, last night was the first decent amount of sleep I've had in months! I think the combination of complete and utter exhaustion coupled with being emotionally drained from the appt in the morning did it!

kellestar how's the revenge coming along?

kittybump I had no BH in my first pg (and I went 2 weeks overdue so had extra time to have some ).

chooster glad you had a lovely day

wholelottalve I am getting ok sleep. I do wake a couple of times a night for a wee but I am getting back to sleep very quickly. I am finding I am knackered by 2 in the afternoon though and really loving weekend lie-ins! I tend to go to bed really late (gone 1am last-night) and then wake up every 2-3 hours.

I don't find my bump that uncomfortable to be honest but my mum thinks that's because I am all up front and also used to sleeping on my side; I've never slept on my back or front!

kellestar hope you are tucked up in bed watching a good film and full of chinese?

I think I should start on the raspberry leaf tea!

Hello, and happy Sunday

WLL Think I am tending to wake up at about 3 or 4 and then struggle to get back to sleep.. hence having just caught up with thread..

Have been having really strange middle of the night thoughts as well about LO's life.. the things she will see, and what the world will be like when she's an old lady! Then I get up and tidy up mess that DH and me made the evening before. Round two sleep will be between about 6 and 9. Think this is prep for a baby??

Kellestar I had a lot of revenge thoughts going on this week, DH went to Rome for most of last week.. and didn't call or text for four stinking days.. an 8 month pg wife! Unforgivably outrageous i think.. i seriously considered changing the locks.
His excuse was that his phone wasn't working, and neither was his card.. But I have forgiven him because on fri before work (eve shift) he picked my little bro who's 15 up from London and took him skiing at the snowdome which made me very happy. Has also been very lovely all weekend so far.

Cheryl maybe they overcooked your steak on purpose, like a corporate risk assessment thing - same as the checkout workers in sainsburys that won't sell a pg lady soft cheese and become front page news (at least in my small town area!)

button good job he's redeemed himself. My dh is a bit lIke that - never his fault but he's never tried hard enough to overcome the obstacles, eg just phone in from hotel and make a plan for what to do if you do need him urgently. Still he is much better this time round. I think you are being quite generous all the same if you forgive him just yet!

Had a big stress at my sister who is supposed to look after dd when LO starts to make a move and is terrible at answering her phone etc. Was starting to wonder if I could rely on her at all but she is very contrite and promises to listen better and KEEP HER PHONE ON.

It's starting to seem very real now...

kelle hope the revenge plan worked out! Sounded like a lovely way to spend the evening

wll I get up a lot to go to the loo but otherwise am sleeping pretty well. I tend to sleep very deeply and drop off quickly so that helps too.

I am making lists this morning, possibly to be incorporated into multifunction spreadsheets later on. I am a very sad individual but it makes me happy . In my defence moving and renting at the same time is complicated...

Another survey: most entertaining comments from older siblings, cousins etc? Love the mr strong one kitty.

My favourite from dd, after a conversation about why her cousins had willies and she didn't and how her brother will be a boy was her asking the next morning when we would stick his willy on? I guess the default is not to have one so you must have to attach it at some point....or at least that's the logic of a 2 yo.

She has also pulled my trousers down in public, right over my pants when we were walking along so she could see the bump, just yanked them down in the street

Well I can answer the question asked about sleeping. Constantly knackered, getting up all the time to go for a pee through the night, probably around 3-4 hours of sleep at the moment. Been trying to go for an afternoon nap when I flag, but that's usually when MiL pops in or DH calls with a list of things to do and I end up doing that and then getting tea.

He snuck in halfway through the night and then hogged the bed. He knew he'd done wrong, and that's why he didn't check on me. He did apologise a lot last night, but it doesn't make up for how he treated me and sided with his Mum.

notso - thanks for asking. I do not have PE, woohoo! Just high bp. Found that out on Friday at a horrible DAU appointment - was there over 3 hours to get my test results, have my bp and urine checked and get a prescription that had been forgotten at my antenatal appointment on the Tuesday!

The MW who really stressed me out on Tuesday was there again (though luckily not seeing me) and she stressed me out again. Seems like she's horribly officious to everyone as we heard her tell off a labouring woman for walking in the corridor without shoes on! I'm now seriously considering writing to the Supervisor of Midwives and saying that this MW is not to be assigned for me for labour. Will ask my CMW on Wed what to do - DH is prepared to kick her out if necessary but at my NCT class it was pointed out that that would be stressful for me.

maxpower - glad you're MW apt went well.

Fwiw Anusol suppositories are the best thing for piles!

SpanishLady - I really wouldn't take formula to hospital. Newborn babies do not need much food - it's natural after all for proper milk to not come in till at least day 3. What they want most is comfort - they've just been forced out of their Mums and they want the nearest thing to being back in the womb (mommy comfort). Did your friend's partner try skin-to-skin?

If there is medical necessity for formula, the hospital have it and would always give it - but a screaming baby is not necessarily starving, even if boob is the answer. Unless the baby is born with health issues, such as blood sugar issues (e.g if Mum has GD) or bad jaundice, they really don't need much food at first and anything you give them that's not your milk could affect supply.

ReshapeWhileDamp - I have trouble with my veins too but got great advice early in pregnancy. Make sure you drink lots beforehand and eat something too and then after they put the tourniquet on, really pump your fist hard and hold it clenched until the blood is coming out.

KittyBump - I'm getting braxton hicks but I've only just learnt to recognise them again. LO's movements were so violent I was struggling to tell BH from her sticking her bum and back out, but BH now make my whole bump go rock hard, whereas if it's baby, my bump is soft around her.

They're getting very strong and uncomfortable actually! I have to now stop and breathe through them. DH freaked out some friends we were having dinner with last night when he called to them to wait as we walked to the car saying "hang on - contraction.... oh don't worry, only a practice one!"