Due late Jan 2011 - come and join us in the countdown...

[BubbaAndBump]

New trimester, new thread. Here's to us becoming grumpy, impatient, fat and uncomfy while counting down the days... :o [hhmm] :o

Glad all ok RK definitely take things easier if you can, you'll never have a better excuse.

Know what you mean bubba I have started telling bump to please pipe down when I'm trying to get to sleep!!

I think my belly button is starting to pop out arrrggghhhh

mine popped out yonks back and is now starting to flatten out again because of vastness of belly

Good news RK and congrats to JJKM!
Been a stressful day for me - heard I've got to tell my 3 staff they are at risk of redundancy as our organisation was cut by 32% in the spending review last week and we are being restructured. My job currently safe, but our Director is going plus the staff under us. Made me feel quite stressed and sick so I need to get my rest up for telling the team tomorrow.

Poor you WYG, not good. My organisation scraped through with an 11.4% cut over the next 4 years which they think they can achieve without redundancies. It does mean we all have to work much harder though as the workload will increase over that time due to the cuts. It will be a very different place when I go back.

67% of the way there.

My nips leaked a little bit tonight .

Up late tonight as have been overdoing the napping during the day this half term so trouble sleeping!! Anyway, I was just checking in to say hello. Congrats JJKM on your news. Have you thought of names yet?

florapost is this the first time you experienced leakage? I'm kind of intrigued and waiting patiently for something to leak out of mine. Is that weird? I had a very strange dream last night that I breastfed a cat whilst holding my baby! Sorry tmi I need to stop waffling. . . Night night

Dreams get weird during pregnancy. I dreamed once I gave birth to a squid - ick!!

My sleeping's bad too but just up early every morning - asleep by half nine most nights !!

Any news jjkm?

flora mine too, didn't do it in my last 2 pg so was a little bit of a shock!

My belly button will never pop out, still can't even see the bottom its so cavernous

WYG hope it goes ok its really crap at the mo, my job isn't safe but I couldn't care less TBH, its most certainly just a stop gap whilst the DCs are small, I lost my dream job whilst on mat leave with DS1.

pootle you must finish work around the same time as me, I have 8 weeks left after this one - I CAN'T WAIT!

hope all is well jjkm

ladybuzz my belly button's same as yours - always been so so deep - but now - well - it's fluff free for the first time in ages! [hgrin]

WYG Poor you - how horrid. Doesn't help much knowing your job is safe when colleagues are going to lose yours.... but just think - 8 weeks to go!

I had dream where me and baby came home from hospital and i kept forgetting to support his neck.... and I was also really upset as the hospital didn't do skin-to-skin contact after birth. Odd.

I think i finally look pregnant!

No leaking from me - but odd weird yellow scabby bits - but i've been assured that's normal!

My visitors are wearing me out a bit - but we sent them to a site with a trusted cab driver today - and we have a halloween party tonight - so i'm busy trying to finish costumes!

Isn't time marching on?

Dh still can't feel baby kicking. God knows how he's missing it - it feels so so strong to me - and i can even see ripples on outside of tummy sometimes!

8 weeks of work here too, although with the annual leave I'm taking it's 35.5 working days now.

Baby is becoming my new swimming coach, I stopped for a breather at the end of the lane this morning and s/he promptly kicked me till I started swimming again. I'm not sure if it was a complaint about my technique or because s/he was enjoying the bobbing along.

Belly button also attempting to pop out here, it really hurts as well!

Sorry to hear about your work WYG - I was in a meeting yesterday where they were reviewing something else and one of the points was all about significant loss of personnel. As there are only 46 of us here heavens knows what they are planning next.

Wow 8 weeks left at work for me too, woo hoo!

Sorry to hear about your work WYG that is stress you could do without.

flora my nipples started leaking at about 20 weeks, can't believe how long I'm going to be wearing awful breast pads for

Only 7 weeks of work left for me - school breaks up on 17th (!!!!!) December. I'm taking maternity leave from 31st Dec. Hurrah!!

Shall we take bets on who's in bed earliest on 31st December? I'm odds on favourite

Only 4 weeks left for me as i have a bit leave left to take and my job is driving me crazy so leaving a bit earlier this time. I can hopefully add all of next year's leave on the end though.
Having a very lazy morning as DH has taken DD out, suppose i ought to get out of bed soon though.
I reckon I'll give you a run for your money on New Years Eve Bubba there is no way I'm seeing midnight. [hgrin]

Afternoon ladies

Is it me or are new born baby clothes a nightmare to buy?

We don't know what we are having and today I had the urge to go and but something for our little one (the first thing) and having trapsed around the local town unless you know what you are having, there is nothing in neutral colours tried Asda, Marks and Spencer, Boots, M & Co, Peacocks & TJ Hughes. Not the best selection but I was really disappointed I thought I would find something, had to consol myself with a pick and mix!!!

I went for whites and colourful stripes for our DDs (didn't know their gender) but didn't get too many as I knew I'd get loads of babygros etc from friends and family (although you can never have too many).

I got mine from boots & mothercare if I recall correctly. Poor #3 isn't likely to get anything new from us :(

bubba same here, I have enough neutral from the boys and my niece has lent me alot of girly things so this too will be a hand me down child!

I went to get some pink things and found nothing that really took my fancy either.

I have been washing though - I love tiny clothes round the house

I've done some washing too - a good blast of biological to get the (ahem) stains out, then non-bio to pander to my family's fussy skin - have also washed the blankets/cellulars/nappies and cot bumper so everything looks nice and new (even if we know it's not!)

btw not to panic everyone, I'm only doing this now because a)I won't have time before or at Christmas and b)I'm sure this little bugger's going to be early...

jjkm- good to hear that both are doing well and that you're getting there too. Thinking of you!
Running- glad to hear that things have calmed down with you too.
WYG- what a horrible thing to have to go through at the mo. It's horrible having to be the messenger- thinking of you!
Bubba- hope you don't mind me asking but I've been told that if I don't go back to school after Xmas, my maternity leave will start on lest day of term (17th Dec). So I'm planning on going in on the first week for at least a day (4th Jan) so that it'll start after that as I'm hoping to take as close to a year as we can afford and I'm due 27th Jan. Does that sound right to you? Cos I dont understand why I can't say it's starting on the 4th Jan?

I really can't believe how quickly the time's going! We ordered pram (iCandy Apple), car seat (Maxi-cosi) and some nursery furniture on Thurs. Couldn't belive it when they said furniture would take 8 weeks to deliver- and there I was thinking I was being organised!

My belly button also looks like its on it's way out but no boob leakage as yet! Knowing my luck it'll start when I'm in the middle of teaching a lesson!

btw- how do I bookmark so that I'm going straight to the new posts when I log on? I keep getting lost!

As far as I know, you take maternity leave from the day you choose - I've personally chosen the 31st Dec because I'm doing a sabbatical promotion (therefore higher pay) until the end of December so it makes sense to stop then rather than the 4th. If your school are being stupid about it, then go in for the 4th and start your maternity leave on the 5th - gives you an extra week's pay for one day's 'work' - so the school will lose out, not you.

Bookmarking - I just go to 'Threads I'm on' at the top of this page (left hand side) and click on the last blue thread (rather than the purple ones!). Not sure it's the conventional way but it works for me :)

7.5 weeks left for me too meaning I finish at 36 weeks. Am then taking leave till 17 Jan when mat leave will start unless baby comes earlier and then your mat leave automatically triggers. I had 31 applications for my job and am interviewing 6 on Weds so it's all a bit final now!!

Very busy weekend here on the house renovation with the builder in making more mess which have only just stopped clearing up! DH is currently glossing woodwork whilst I have a rest!

Telling my staff on Fri about being at risk was hard, but not as bad as I thought and they appreciated me doing it ASAP. One of them cried and being a bit emotional myself I only just managed to keep it together, but am feeling a lot less stressed. Will see what next week brings. Thanks for all your thoughts.

On baby front, still lots of wriggling and some firmer kicks now! Had a good chat with my SIL about what we will actually need earlier and she gave me some useful suggestions. Re clothes she said to get a few neutral babygros and vests and hats and that will see us through for a bit and then wait and see what people buy you. Pootle disappointed to hear you've been having trouble in that department - sounds like I'm going to have to brave Mothercare soon... Ours has recently moved out of town to one of these retail parks with a Boots and Next and Homebase so it's heaving at weekends which puts me off and gets DH is a stress!!

JJKM Pleased to hear things going ok. Hope you are getting enough rest.

Re dreams - I had a funny one last night where we were at someone's house (strangers) and I went into labour early and the baby just flew out across the room. The strange man caught it (phew). I wonder if this is a sign of possible early arrival...?

Thanks for that Bubba- I'll have a word with them tomorrow!
We've spend today moving living room furniture around (well poor hubby's been doing the moving with me directing and then changing my mind!) It's our attempt to do the nesting gradually because we've ignored bits and pieces piling up for ages. Lucky we've started now if today's anything to go by!
I'm getting lots of wriggling and quite a few kicks. Then on days when I don't have so many I start panicking! Having one of those today- grrr!
Thinking about investing in a sleep pillow and a natal hypnotherapy CD- I've asked on here about them and people seem pretty positive- you ladies considering any?x

Try cold orange juice Mad to get the kicking going - works for me (not that I'm currently wishing any more kicking, but certainly used it as a test for previous pregnancies when I needed to know they were still there)

FWIW my bump wriggles loads once I've sat down and done nothing for a bit - all my running about during the day lulls it to sleep so it makes up for it when I'm trying to rest! :o

Glad things weren't so bad at work WYG

AmIGoingMad When my back started playing up, I got one of these and can't recommend it enough for helping you get comfy www.mothercare.com/Dream-Genii-Pregnancy-Feeding-Support/dp/B0011EV79C/ref=sr_11_1/276-3297556-5876417?_encoding=UTF8&mcb=core
I couldn't take the risk on spending £45 and it maybe not being as good as it said it was though so looked n Ebay and got a second hand one for half the price - there's loads on there and they are all washable. Look for one with the removeable cover.

Mad - I've got the Pregnancy Relaxation CD, managed to listen to it once and fell asleep so it might work a little too well. I get the lulls in kicking too, bump was very quiet this morning until I got in the car after the gym and started singing to the radio. S/he's making up for it now by having a fight with my desk as I'm obviously sitting too close for comfort.

We were having a nesting session this weekend, sorted all the donated clothes into sizes and then realised we didn't actually have a clue what babies wear during the day. Whenever I've babysat my sisters brood they've been dressed or stuff has been laid out for me, I've never had to make clothing decisions until they were much older!

jjkm - thinking of you, hope you're getting the rest that you need and that the girls are doing well.