Remember, remember, the month of November (2010), babies all over the shop!

[PrivetDancer]

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Congratulations to wallace, mibby, sarah, dairymum, blondecat, clueless and the gemjars! Phew, hope I've not missed anyone out. Am very now my due date buddies are popping wallace!

comtessa - i thought back to the left was best too as they do a little 90 degree twist on the way out ... or something. Mine's back to left too so I'm going with that theory.

Bugger all happening here, despite head being fully engaged for a couple of weeks now. Reckon its about time my body had a little practise at least but not a single braxton hicks, no show, hope it knows what its supposed to be doing.

Finally tearing myself away from work though so maybe that will help, will have one whole day of maternity leave on Monday before due date on Tues.

Sounds all a bit overwhelming comtessa. How long are the PIL visiting for? Maybe you can just dress her in the pale pink a few token times while they're there and then in the proper clothes you've chosen the rest of the time.

Hi comtessa (and all),

I posted on her many months ago, but never got into the habit and, as my due date's today, guess I won't be here long. Thanks so much to everyone for the reassurance reading your posts has given me in these recent days as i wait .. and wait!

Felt the need to post now, tho, cos I had v similar experience with my (quite controlling!)MIL over 11 yrs ago with my first baby. Won't bore you with the details, but it affected our relationship, and we had been good friends. It was always over things that, as you say, I thought I should have felt grateful for.... with hindsight I know I was mum and gut reaction is always right. If you don't feel comfortable, I'd recommend trying to gently speak up, but my advice would be to treat it very firmly from the beginning - so wish I had.

YOU ARE MUM - even if your gorgeous girl hasn't arrived yet. Your concerns are well justified, even if over a material thing, such as clothes choices, cos you prob have the fear that it may be an indicator of how she will behave when DD is here.

The 'my' sweet baby comment from her is inappropriate in my view and I think you may need to be firm about telling her that - even if only once (hopefully one comment should be enough, but if she doesn't take hints, being blatant once may be best). She has been mum, and still is one, and now this is your turn.

My thoughts, for what they're worth. You will clearly be a fab mum cos you are already very bonded with your girl - none can threaten that ever. You are mum.

All the best. x

Have popped! Ramona lily was born on 15th at 9pm. Long but exhilarating birth thanks to hypno birthing. She is a happy little angel. Congrats to all others will catch up soon! Probably with some nipple related q's!

Hi comtessa you have my sympathies. At least they live far away so even if she does insist on "my sweet baby" you won't have to put up with it live for very long or very often.

If its any consolation my PIL have gone weird since DS's arrival. I think it's just some general insanity PIL go through. Do as sancerre suggests and save the least worst pink clothes for Skype and go and buy something of what you like to balance it out :)

Congratulations Wallace, Gemjar and lulastic!! Hope you're all recovering well.

Comtessa It sounds like your MiL is going to need boundaries. Wanting to choose your child's entire wardrobe sounds warning bells for me. IME GPs, including sweet ones, can get very peculiar around the birth of GCs, especially the first ones. It's a difficult adjustment for them too - but don't make that your problem. You're the mother now and things will work better if you make that clear.

Like pkugirl I wish I'd been firmer sooner. It felt like I was avoiding hurting PiL's feelings, but in the end treading too gently meant everyone got upset, including horrible rows with DH.

congrats to lulastic glad the birth went well.
comtessa it's a difficult one but like others have said, you are the mother and you need to try and enforce those boundaries - can your DH help?

went to midwife and convinced her to give me a sweep - after all the build up and after several attempts (up to her elbows practically) she couldn't reach properly
have to say when she did touch my cervix albeit briefly it bl00dy hurt. bless her she gave it a good go - needs longer fingers
she did say she could feel DSs head though
am now booked in to the post dates clinic on weds where they will try again. oh joy

Who was it talking about IKEA rats? DH has just come back from a trip to get changing mat covers with no covers but, yup, a rat :) "but it was only 99c" haha our men are all ridiculous.

comtessa I suggest a large pack of red Dylon, we changed the colour of several things like that. If she questions it say it got stained or washed with something dark or whatever and your just covering that up.
I do sympathise tho, my MIL has bought tons of stuff in styles/ colours etc that arent my choice (to put it politely!)
And she is your baby, get your DH to correct this if you can, better a mini sulk now that it irritating you for ages

Oh, Comtessa, how long are they going to stay? I think you are very foolish brave to host your PIL before/after the birth.

As someone has said, the advantages of them living abroad is that they won't know if you stuff all the clothes in a drawer and don't use them. Saying that, you might appreciate the multiple change of clothes when she's tiny and pooing everywhere. Even if they aren't your style. Dyeing them is a GENIUS idea, however!

I suppose you can't stop her from sending you things later, but I doubt it's worth the probable hurt feelings to tell her she's bought things you don't like or that you don't want any more clothes. In the future, though, you could say, "oh since she already has so many lovely clothes, maybe some toys or Amazon vouchers would be nice."

Hope she's just a bit over excited and not trying to wind you up. It is hard to set boundaries, but if her attitude is really bothering you (and it's not just down to hormones :)) then say something now before baby arrives. You are likely to be more easily set off after baby, with being tired and hormonal. And you don't need PIL drama added to the mix!

Congrats to blondecat, Mibby, gemjar, Wallace and lulastic!

Hope mr gemjar is feeling ok now :o

Well my scan showed that the baby is the right way round, thank goodness! And fully engaged. So who knows, maybe something will happen in the next few days.
There's a boden clearance sale nearby on Wednesday which I'm quite keen to get to, so really the baby needs to turn up by tomorrow or it'll have to wait til Thursday! Booked in for a sweep next Saturday if nothing has happened by then.

Phew, privet, glad to hear that!

BTW, umf. Pamphlet on labour signs was pretty useless. Basically listed things like "your waters break" and "contractions will grow in length and intensity". So, not a lot of insight there. I was hoping they might mention that a choir of angels will announce the birth, or something. Alas....

lol jfly.
I was hoping for some kind of internal alarm to sound out loud with red flashing lights too ...

Evening all. Hope everyone is ok, apologies but I really can't keep up with what everyone has said.. this thread is really busy atm!

Congratulations on all the latest arrivals, I love hearing about them.

Went for my growth scan this morning, turns out baby is fine sizewise, but I have low fluid around the baby (this has a posh name but can't remember what it is )
Anyway, went on the monitor for 20 mins then had a sweep - ouch! 2cm dilated so all the BH are doing something. V uncomfy now tho, previous braxton hicks were painless, now they have the ouch-factor! No regularity whatsoever though so not holding my breath.

Induction booked for fri 26th if she doesn't put in an appearance before that.

Off to watch the Children In Need show - enjoy your evening everyone!

40+1

Congrats to sarahbuff, gemjar, lula, blondecat, Mibby and Wallace.

Just checking in with birth story, James has fed non stop for the last two days so this is the first chance I have had.

I went for my sweep with mw in Tuesday, the mw called to book in induction for the following week but conultant had wanted to take me in at term but was happy for me to go further if I wanted it, by Tuesday I was term plus 5 so they said they wanted me to come in, I was 2 cm dilated at mw, 3 cm by the time I got to hospital and 4 cm by the time I got to labour ward to have my waters broken and was dilating every 10 minutes.

The mw broke my waters things kicked off really fast, an hour later I was looking for the gas and air and within another hour he was born, no stitches and not as big as ds ( thank god) I got home the same night and it was lovely to get to our own bed with dh and not seperated, the kids came home before school in the morning to meet him and are completely in love.

Congratulations to the new arrivals. Nice to see that we are getting going, I have to say that having a thread for July 2011 made me realise how long we have all been pregnant for.

A belated Happy Birthday JFly, no I won't forget the 9th November again.

Fenouille the name Aino is actually Finnish, DH's mother is a Finn. Aino does, of course, have Bavarian citizenship, having been born here! We will have to find her a little dirndl for the Oktoberfest next year.

Birth story:
Finished work on Thurs 4th. I would have worked until the Friday but made a mistake filling out my forms. Just as well really, it's the only day I had for pottering about.
Had a show on the morning of the 8th and went off to my scheduled doctor's appointment where she told me that I was leaking amniotic fluid and sent me straight to the hospital. Spent the day hanging around with monitoring every couple of hours and in the end they decided that I should be induced as the contractions weren't strong enough and I was showing signs of a slight infection. By midnight things were pretty painful and I was offered an epidural - fantastic, anaesthtists are my new favourite people. By the time I was fully dilated the epidural had worn off enough that I could feel the contractions. Unfortunately the baby got distressed when I pushed and the pushing wasn't effective enough to get her out quickly, so they ended up fetching the doctor who decided to use a ventouse. No idea how many people were in the delivery room, there seemed to be a party going on by my nether regions. The baby came out with her cord wrapped round her neck twice (protest at being kicked out?), so I think getting her out quickly was a good decision. She had no problems breathing immediately and I only had a small tear, no episotomy.
All in all, a rather medicalised birth but I felt that we were well looked after and there was never any point where I was worried about either of us.

The downside to being in a big teaching hospital was that it was hard to get help after the birth with things like feeding and I ended up being told to express milk and feed it using a bottle. My post-natal midwife is being really helpful, but feeding feels like a bit of an uphill struggle.

JFly darn, you mean it's not going to help me answer the "is this labour or have I just eaten too much pizza" question which is my chief concern this evening?

clueless and cardi v glad to hear about your safe arrivals! also v glad to hear that second babies not necessarily bigger... hope feeding settles down asap.

Kiwikat's baby Georgia safely delivered at 37 weeks (due to Obstetric Cholestasis) on 5th November - she's the most delightful little thing. After an absence from MN of about 3 weeks, I'm starting to emerge (very slowly) from the fog of sleeplessness, and am looking forward to talking to you all again. Hope everyone else is doing well.

Morning all,
Well it's been a long silence from me too, but DS is finally here! Born Sat 13th - birth totally different from plan - had to be induced due to meconium in waters and ended up with ventouse. But it didn't matter because we got our perfect baby - and as he was 10lb11oz, I reckon he needed some help getting out! Do I win the biggest baby so far prize?!

Many congratulations to all the new mummies and good luck to those waiting. I look forward to catching up in the thread during many sleepless nights ahead! Short message for now as am feeding, but will return...

Morning

Fab news from kiwi and pidgin , congratulations!

That's great news Privet. Hope DC comes along soon!

Congratulations to Lulatastic, Kiwikat and Pidgin!

Morning all, thank you for your helpful replies re. PIL situation. I had a brief chat with DH last night and he thinks that I don't necessarily need to set boundaries with them - not least because they'd then probably go a bit far and feel they could never buy anything for LO ever, ever again (sigh - and I thought I was being oversensitive). But at least he understood how I felt.

Thankfully they're not staying with us, but they're staying in the same city and the routine for the first week was for them to turn up late morning and stay until after evening meal.

Thanks pkugirl, I think I will be saying something about the "my sweet baby" as that was the thing that I think most got my back up. I think I'm just also panicking as I worry that if I'm feeling like this now, how will I feel when the LO is here and in my arms? I think I will try and take each day as it comes and make sure I have my own life while they're here. Had mini-facial at local beauty college yesterday followed by afternoon tea with friend and baby and felt a lot more sane after that.

Love Mibby's suggestion of Dylon - may well do that. Also, MIL has been muttering about a Christmas outfit for DD. Without being mean, I feel she's done enough shopping and I've seen a lovely chocolate brown cord pinafore with cream babygro and cream doves on pinafore. That'll be her Christmas outfit then. Think it will be better if I can feel less taken-over. Like when I found her arranging the baby clothes on Thursday, not having asked knowing whether there was a system in place and which ones had been washed or not.

Also Fenouille that was my DH who was obsessed with the Ikea rats - clearly something about them! Ooh must get one as MIL hates rats (okay, will not go from being model DIL to horrible one. Honest).

Thanks to Fenouille, Sancerre JFly and anyone else who posted advice. Consider thread un-hijacked now! Well, unti the next time . Thanks for helping to save my sanity.

Oh, and 39wks today.

Thanks for all the congrats and I wish the same back to everyone else who has dropped in the last few days - they seem to be coming thick and fast.

Despite a second 3rd degree tear due to Finn's urgency to enter the world we are both doing very well and are happy to be home.

Has anyone else's DH/DP passed out on them? Mine certainly gave the midwives a good laugh! Everything seemed to happen at once, as soon as i heard a thud as he hit the bathroom floor a really strong contraction started and the urge to push came. About 6 pushes and several midwives picking dh off the floor later and Finn had arrived into the world, much faster than expected, so much so that DH asked if he had been passed out for a couple of hours :)

yay more babies, congratulations

pidgin your ds was almost the same size as my ds4! lovely chunky babies :)

39wks+2 now and no sign of baby arriving tho i have a horrible upset tummy again

spent three hours today watching ds2 in a korfball tournament, everyone was paranoid that i would go into labour any minute but i bet i am still here a fortnight from now!

anybody want a grump dp? i know he is stressing about work/baby/labour blah blah but ffs i am 39wks preg and still managing to be cheerful and get on with everything! he has done sod all today and is in a right grump, i could so lamp him one.