The PESH in a manger

[LadyGoneGaga]

No booze for our heads,
No clubbing, no Class A's,
No more pants of red

The midwives in the hossie,
Looked down where we lay,
A bunch of old, evil hags,
Fucked on Gas and A.

Ho, ho, ho you bunch of Hoes.

BESH BAYBEES
dontrythisathome, girl born March 25.
Cheggers, twinz girlz, born April.
FannyPriceless, boy, born June 8.
CurlyCasper, girl, born June 24.
CUNextTuesday, boy, born June 29.
AlpinePony, boy, born 1 July.
Carrots, boy, born July.
IggyPiggy, girl, born July.
Cosmosis, boy, born Sept 5.
Backinthebox, boy, born Sept 7.
Skatergrrrl, girl, born Sept 10.
VAG, boy, born Oct 2.
Silversky, boy, born Nov 1
SomethingSuitablyWitty, girl born Nov 2
okiecokie, girl, born Nov 12
Honeymoo, boy, born Nov 11
ReginaMonologue, boy, born Nov 13

UPDIFFED

maswera, can't possibly be having a baybee next week, due December 11
PollyPoo, wants to name her baybee after the dog, The New Messiah is due December 25
MrsFC, joining whether she wants to or not, due 22 Jan
ChoChoSan, "and Lo! The lord did resurrect her petrified womb", due 31 Jan
CluckyKate, hatching an egg, due February 2
Perfect Dromedary, defied medical science, due February 24
Muser, blooming at last, due February 27
Ginhag, reckless cake-carrier, due 28th Feb
Medee, finally over the Haribo craving, due March 12
Casserole, completely out of witty things to add, due April 8
Scorpette, now carrying a RL baby in addition to Clothilda and the squid, due 18th May.
Laurielou, the unmarried hussy with the "surprise" diff, due 31 May (ish)
Rocketleaf, no longer jealous of morning sickness, due 1 June.
Twinkle Toes, supergluing her fanjo shut, due 23 June.
LadyGoneGaga, Compulsive Stick pisser, due 28 July

And I'm sure the farmer could help out, Pol. Calves/lambs - what's the difference? There must be a manger he's got lying around somewhere. Or is he arable? You'll be fine.

3 strangers walking up the lane yet?

Polster sounds like it's all systems go at your end! Well done you on getting the shopping ordered - I still need to go and get mine... If it puts your mind at rest two of my RL friends are due now too and they are both measuring small (both anticipated girls who I believe can measure smaller) so you may be well be in for girl no2 rather than there being a problem. I second Alpine though, that if you CAN get out to the docs, it may be worthwhile getting checked just for piece of mind.

Lozza and Bitey pants on the M/W appts front. Having appts cancelled does nothing to help the psyche.

LGG absolutely brilliant news on the scan front. I'm SOOOOOO chuffed for you. I cried at mine last week - I hadn't realised I had got so wound up about whether there was a heart beat or not until we were there. I also sobbed in the waiting room after as we looked at the photo's. I am most definately not a DHB these days

In our news, after the MIL's visit which I thought had gone well, she phoned Mr O to say she needed to speak to him in private. He phoned her yesterday on the way home from work thinking it was stuff relating to her current marriage breakdown, and she asked him if him and I were ok and if he was about to leave me . We've been having a tough time of late and, yes, I have been neglecting him. I've been so sick and ill that each day has been about survival, not about romancing Mr O. She has got it into her head that he is fed of me being ill and him being a single parent that he is going to walk!!!!!! FFS! She of all people should give him some credit. If he can't hack two momths of a sick wife who is carrying his child then it doesn't say much for him does it! I was intially upset as I wondered if he had said something to her to make her think that. He assured me he hasn't and that she's just badly affected by her own marriage breakdown, but I can't help being a bit miffed now. I never envisaged being so ill for this long, given I wasn't with mini O, but give us credit. We can hack a couple of months of not spending any quality time together I'm sure. Anyway, rant over. Just needed to get that off my chest.

MAS hope the silence means things are happening for you

and a little drummer boy?

Thanks scorps have emailed local private hospital for more info. Also have a friend who is a radiologist and has been very helpful to diffed friends in the past. Will give her a ring tonight. Have stopped howling now and am thinking about my lunch instead

Wow, Orchid - can't quite believe your MIL. What does MrO make of it? I feel the same. Mr G is pretty much doing everything round the house, he hasn't had any sechs since the conception, I am grumpy and picky and generally quite horrible a lot of the time. He is his usual patient self. But in a couple of weeks we will both feel a lot better and things will get back to normal, Orchid. Christ - can't she remember feeling like sh*t when pregnant. And that men should really suck it up as is only for a little while and to be honest it's better than feeling shit ALL the time. Hope you're ok.

Hope Mas has had a successful night's labouring and has a little snow baybee in her arms.

Bitey and Laurie I think both of you have had quite rubbish miwdife care. the NICE guidelines are tehre for a reason - women do need checks at regular intervals and I think you are within rights to be annoyed you are getting a check 5 weeks late. Is not acceptable. If you do feel worried about anything though please feel free to ring midwife - they are quite happy to answer questions etc over the phone in my experience.

My booking in appt was sweet yesterday. A student midwife did all of my booking in discussions, took my bloods etc and was really clued up and nice (regular midwife still there to chat and observe). But she has to take on a case load of patients and she has chosen me as have Thyroid issues so will be shared care with consultant and a potential home birth and therefore interesting for her. Soooo, she will attend all my appointments with me (even the consultants) - I have to text her and let her know when it is) and will be coming to my birth. Isn't that lovely? I was really touched - I know she's just a student but normally you see loads of different people so will be nice to see the same person a lot and I'll still have proper midwife support as well.

Orchid - I think you should give her a big pair of scissors for Xmas and when she asks what they're for tell her they're for cutting the bloody apron strings!

Talk about transference - her marriage is on the rocks, so everyone else's must be?! She sounds like she's a bit over-invested in her precious son (I must confess to being v that your she and your DH planned for her to go to your scan - my mum is smothering but it'd never occur to her to come to a scan). It doesn't exactly say good things about her opinion of him if she thinks that's all it would take to split you up. And shouldn't her concern actually be for her very poorly DIL?! Yes, it's natural for her to sympathise with him having an ill wife, but that is topsy-turvy shit going on there

Do you have to see her over Xmas? Mmm, that will be fun!

Talking of the joys of MILs, I'm currently composing an email to mine about her skank and hygiene rules (as TYF has chickened out of asking her himself, bok bok). Is v hard to strike a balance between being too apologetic ie 'I might sound like a nutter but' which could lead her to dismiss what I write and being a bit too harsh ie 'sort it out, you mental skank!'. Am going down the route of saying my MW has insisted I re-iterate hygiene rules to anyone whose house I visit. Am a bit at having to politely ask a woman of nearly 60 to wash her hands after going to the loo/touching raw meat, etc.

Pol, in case the car doesn't work, do any of your farmy neighbours have a little donkey you could borrow in case you need to go to hossie... ?

LGG, that's lovely about your dedicated student MW, as well as all the other good care you're getting. It really does seem to be a bit of a lottery, doesn't it, judging by our various experiences of reliability, etc.

LGG yes that is lovely You're a lucky lady, as is the student who will get to see a lovely experience. I had a student M/W come with mine last time too, although she didn't see the birth. She was the nicest lady ever, I think she was more excited than we were!!

Scorps you make me laugh , I can rely on you to make me feel better! MIL is fundamentally a nice lady, although ironically is not actually that close to Mr O (a lot of stuff went on when she left his dad and Mr O, rightly or wrongly, he sided with his dad and didn't speak to her for few years). I do think it shows she has a low opinion of men if she genuinely thinks this rubbish. She's got her head up her backside at the moment and her own marriage resembles something off one of the soaps - we're talking DNA tests and giving the neighbours dogs chocolate laxatives here (I'm not joking!). I'm hoping that is what has prompted this, but I am still pissed off about it. Mr O can do without the sechs and watch a bit of telly by himself in the evening for a few months without feeling the need to wander off into the distance. We actually have a very good relationship and I love him to bits. He's not going anywhere!

Good luck with the skanky inlaws!! You sound like you need it. Does she really not wash her hands after using the loo? Not sure you can change a 60 year old though? Make sure you don't leave her in charge of the baybee when it's here! When mini O was born I was quite up front with people about asking them to wash hands etc when he was very little, especially smokers (we don't know many but anyone that did got asked politely to make sure their hands were washed before they held him). Only my MIL got afronted when I said I was going to ask her brother to wash his hands when he arrived (he chain smokes). She asked me not to as she thought it was impolite. I told her that was fine but that he couldn't hold him if that was the case. She relented! The M/W had told us to do this many times over so I felt completely justified in saying it and that it was on the advice of the M/W. I may have been a little over the top and hormonal but my god, that baby was my world and I was certain nothing bad would happen to him if I could help it. I am better now he's older but he's still my precious wee man .

It's only nice becasue I liked her, Scorps. Luckily I did. Good luck with the MiL. Didn't you have to talk to her before? Maybe just focus on one thing each time you have to talk to her about it.

Ah, Orchid, I think you've missed the previous revelations about my MIL's sense (or lack thereof) of hygiene. It is so bad that I have asked my MW about it and she was so horrified that she told me not to visit or to tell MIL to buck her ideas up or else her level of filthiness could actually pose health risks to me and the baybee! I always get a tummy but when we visit them and I ain't going to risk anything because she's filthy. I'm-a gonna email you a few gory details, rather than repeat it here (whether you want me to or not . Oh, and when TYF's cousin was there this summer with her baby, MIL would hold it after preparing a raw chicken or change its nappy, visibly get poo on her hands and then just go off and start cooking stuff, or tidying up, etc. WRONGNESS. He won't say a word, so I will have to be evil DIL with our baybee, I can forsee.

Your MIL and FIL sound a bit Jeremy Kyle at the mo! Just shows that love makes fools of us all, at whatever age. Mr O always sounds a v decent sort and of course nothing bad is going to happen if he doesn't get as much attention as usual. He's going to get even less when you've got 2 DC!

And good for you with the smoking Uncle. ATTAGIRL!

I've just emailed her, LGG (I was very nice too). This is the same thing I had to talk to her about, but TYF has bottled it until now so I've done it (I do think that the child of whoever you have to say something awkward to should be the one who does it, as is softens the blow).

Speak to her??? You're mistaking her for someone who would ring up (or stay on the phone if we rang her) or even visit us...

Poor Scorps - MrG is completely non-confrontational too so I empathise. Although my MiL the nicest woman you could ever meet (cried when I MC'ed) and not a skank so not quite the same. But you know.

I've just booked my 12 weeks scan - as have to have the Nuchal done privately in my area. Good though as can pick and choose times etc. So is three weeks tomorrow. T'is good as not long to wait after Christmas.

Oh, I hope Mas is ok today . She sounded so fed up yesterday. As a veteran of a looong labour I know how exhausting it is - even when the contractions are far apart they keep you awake as every time you drift off you get another one. But hopefully her body has done a lot of the hard work in advance and baybee ready to shoot out now.

Pol they can still helicopter medical peeps in and out if necessary! It happens in the episode of Budgie the Helicopter that MiniG has on his Christmas DVD collection And if Fergie says it, it must be true, right?

Fergie is the font of all knowledge about the real world.

Ahem.

I now have a rather alarming mental image of Pol and TG as Mary and Joseph, Boo as an adorable angel (already looks like one!) and 3 wise men attending them in a stable and suddenly Budgie the Helicopter appears to whisk them orf. To Holy City, probably

MIL is nice despite the skank, I must stress. And so if FIL, if he actually speaks. They're just so different from my family (and not only because my family are super-hygienic!), so it can be stressful at times. Is no doubt stressful for them with me being different! TYF can find my folks overpowering whilst I get upset that his are so uninterested. But no-one that created TYF can be that bad :)

it all makes me very grateful for my lovely though slightly bonkers MIL.

Scorpy I really do think your PIL are interested...just emotionally repressed in a 'stiff upper lip' sort of way.

And I know a LOT about disinterested inlaws

MAAAAAAAS are you HAVING A BAYBEEEEEEEE????

poops as Virgin Mother

I'm here & still hurty - but a bit less miserable today... Went for my term+10 this morning which was fine - checked over heartbeat, movement, fluid etc & had a sweep too, which much to my surprise didn't hurt at all (was lovely, gentle, sympathetic student midwife - I luffs her). Contractions still all over the place, so still booked in for induction tomorrow morning - am quite apprehensive but the thought that it will at least be over one way or another outweighs anything else at the mo. Going in at 7.30am, so if I'm not back tonight (being v pathetic & not managing to do much at all besides lie on the sofa whining) - will report back from the other side....! Fanx all for your thoughts & concern, tis muchly appreciated xxx

Good luck tomorrow mas. I hope it all goes ok and your snuggling your baby soon.

Good luck, Mas. You'll have that baybee very soon xxx

Loads of luck mas Eyes on the prize now! Hope all goes well tomorrow.

Laughing at the MIL chat, pretty shocked at yours orc I think its lovely that you can be so understanding and put it down to her projecting her own relationship woes onto you guys. I still think it is a bit tho.

pol do you have an actual tile roof or is it thatched? And are there any farm yard animals in the vicinity? All I now have in my head is Silent Night....

Not much to report this end. Belly is proper popping out at the mo and I am starting to look diffed rather than just fat. Last day in work tomorrow whoop whoop, its supposed to snow again here tonight but I'd rather it didn't as I would like to go and get my pressie

Oi ya cheeky bint!

But Pol did have an Immaculate Conception! She came for a date with me and went home endiffed (all that hot lesbotic sex can't have done it, surely?). I should change my name to Gabrielle

Good luck for tomorrow, Mas. We luffs ya and will be thinking of you and sending you gentle sneezing-out vibes all of tomorrow. See you on the other side XX

Awww, Rocket, that's lovely. I wanna see a festive bump pic from you! My bump has just turned tighter and higher now and I feel so proud of it. Can't stop stroking and rubbing it and looking at myself in every reflective surface (so what's new? ).

Am getting flustered by the constant not-at-all-scary 'every preggo's gonna die!!!' news coverage about getting the flu jab. Am going to contact my GP tomorrow and try to chat again about if it really is too risky for me to have it, as I fall into three of the high-risk categories (diffed, asthma and lowered immune system) Virtually every ICU bed in my county is taken by a flu/H1N1 sufferer at the mo!

PS Gin, you are probably right about the ILs. I know what they're like and I know how to handle them and we do all get on v well (takes a lot of effort on my part but is worth it).

Maswera Will be thinking of you tomorrow and so excited to think that when you next post you will have your baybee at last

Mas I expect this is the last place you'll be right now, but I'm still sending positive vibes your way & thinking of you lots. Good luck, x

Scorps, Rocket am quite envious of your proper differ-bellies. I think I still just look lardy. Even Mr Loz whined "when are you going to start showing?" Before diffment I thought I'd be dee-lighted with comments like that.

My MIL (ish) is bonkers of the highest order. I do get on with her, & for some reason she constantly showers praise on me & SIL. But I like her in small doses. So I shall be mostly praying to the airport Gods today that she gets on her flight for Christmas with her other son. My FIL (ish) is an absolute peach, I heart him muchly.

Pol any twinges or owt your way?

thinking of you this morning, Mas, hope all goes smoothly!