April 2011 - we'll shop til we pop!

[GoldFrakkincenseAndMyrrh]

Continuation from our old thread here

So maybe this thread we'll see some babies?! And definitely lots more shopping

What on earth did people do before MN?

BF advice is all fab. I'm lucky in that my mum BF all three of us successfully and it was very difficult with my older sister as the birth went horribly wrong, she was injured by the forceps attempt and therefore a a bit traumatised, mum was given the wrong blood type after the EMCS so was ill and the midwife was apparently horrible to her.

I say I'm lucky because it means that my mum's had the experience of having to really persevere alone and succeeded so I reckon she'll be a huge support if I struggle.

Does anyone mind if I have a little rant? No, good.

DH was chatting to a colleague and mentioned we were going to visit friends & relatives for the weekend when I'll be 29 weeks (1 hour flight), colleague pulled a face and said are you sure that's ok, tell you what I'll check with my BIL gynaecologist for you. BIL gynae comes back saying "I wouldn't let any pregnant woman fly after 28 weeks the risk of DVT is too great"

Now DH is really worried and thinks we should cancel the trip, I'm totally raging this is the last chance I'll have to go home until mid-June at the very earliest - aaaargggghhhhh

furry - if the flight was only an hour, wear DVT stockings and spend the majority of it walking around instead of sitting. Would that be a good compromise?

Thanks ILTMIMI I'm hoping it will be

To be honest I'm just having a particularly shit day at work and I could just do without unsolicited medical advice from someone who's never met me ruining a weekend I'm really really looking forward to. If my own doctor or midwife advised me against flying I'd be really disappointed but I of course wouldn't do it. My DH means really well but gets very worried and tends to take everything everybody tells him about pregnancy and babies as gospel and it gets a bit annoying at times.

Anyway rant over, I have a midwife appointment two days before we're planning to fly so if I will drag him to that to get some reassurance if necessary.

Feck that. I'm 27+4, flying for 6 hours tomorrow. I'll be just under 29 weeks when we return. Potentially doing an hour's flight at 34 weeks if MW approves.

I have a note which says it's fine but MW didn't even blink and told me to have a lovely holiday.

Are there alternative travel methods?

GFAM cool, where are you going?

The alternative option is car and ferry (Belfast to SE England) we'd probably end up travelling longer than we got to be there and I'd be sitting down for much much longer than any flight I could take.

S Africa

Potentially Mauritius at 34 weeks

Very jealous, particularly about you living 1 hours flight away from Mauritius

Was in SA for 6 weeks over 10 years ago, absolutely loved it, have always wanted to go back but haven't got round to it yet (too many other places to see and not enough money). Hope you have a great time.

My mum flew to England from Ireland near her due date with my younger sister and it was fine. Just make sure you have travel insurance and that you've complied with all its requirements just in case.

Do I need travel insurance? I'm not leaving the UK!

It's not that great living here :). Nice holidays but day to day it's a bit of a PITA.

I woukd get travel insurance. Several companies offer it for travel in the UK.

But what would I use it for? If anything happened I'd be using the NHS same as I do here, I'm staying either with friends or at my Mum's house and flights between the two places are pretty reasonable if I can't get my original flight back to NI for whatever reason. Do people normally get insured for domestic travel? I've never thought about it before.

I do have generic within Europe travel insurance that comes with my bank account, I can see what they cover.

I guess it's things like if your waters go and you need to stay in hospital they cover private transfers to a hospital closer to where you live so your DP can be with you. It's more if you need to stay for the rest of your pregnancy I guess!

I wouldn't have thought you'd need insurance for within the UK though, eg i won't get it to travel to Norfolk (from Essex) for a weekend next month.

Also i'm sure there's a difference between domestic (ie lower) flights and long-haul but could be wrong.

Frakk - so envious of your trip tomorrow, have a fab time.
Have spent time in SA & Cape town over the years, love it.
Ignoring anti-seafood advice, i would recommend 2 places at the Waterfront for prawns, one was called something like Quay64, a cheapish and cheerful place, fab for prawns and chips (& beer!). Another was much pricier and we sturggled to get a booking, had a latin name, maybe something like pesca.....will try and google.
If you are travelling about, there's a fab seafood place on the way between the Cape & CT, again i'd need to google though.
Also, we stayed in a beautiful b&b in Franschoek, can't remember the name but all of that town is gorgeous, loads of lovely food and fab scenery (& wine - can you tell i wasn't pg when i was there lol!!).
Mind is mush which is annoying me, another wine town we went to for a tour was pretty industrial and i wouldn't recommend...name escapes me!

They do fab picnics (with wine obv!) in .....bugger am off to google lots of things

Great bf'ing advice there ladies.

I cant add much more to that. Only thing I will say and I say to everyone is..... Do it because YOU want to not because you feel you should. Dont put any pressure on yourself in terms of length of time doing it. With DS (dc1) i only managed until 10 wks although he had been mix feeding before that. Dd1 was bf until 7mths and Dd2 until 8mths. I fed for as long as I was happy to. You cant tell any difference between mine in terms of health or ability. I plan to bf ds2 but if it doesnt work then I know I will have tried my best for him.

Re the milk couriers/bank.. I enquired about it with Dd2 as I had a stash of ebm in the freezer and I was told that you need to go for blood tests etc before they will consider taking your milk.

I used the medula swing pump and rate it very highly.

Midwife appts for 1st timers are approx 8-10wks, 16wks, 25wks, 28wks, 31wks, 34wks, 36wks, 38wks and 40wks. As a 2nd timer plus I miss out on 25, 31 and 40.

Baia is the posher place, Quay4 is the cheaper place, both at the waterfront.

Paarl - was the industrial town (admittedly our trip was years ago though).

Boschendal was the picnic place, though lots of them do them.

The place towards the Cape was in Fishhoek i think.

taken me ages to google as my internet keeps crashing, grr.

I think I hate Wednesday's more than Monday's. I guess they're known as 'hump day' for a reason! But over for another week now.

Little Insect has been wiggling away all day today, and none too lightly either! Did add an extra dimension to a meeting this morning as people kept getting distracted and staring at my tummy moving at random intervals

My antenatal appts are a April has listed as I'm a first timer, though the 25, 31wks and I think it's either 38 or 40wks are with the GP rather than MW. It's quite nice because the GPs don't see pregnant women so much you can tell they quite like the antenatal appts (well the ones I've seen have).

I'm now off to set myself up ready for the Leeds match on TV, I need to make sure Little Insect will be a Leeds fan despite being born a southerner!

im a 2nd timer and i have all those appointments apart from 31weeks is a 32 week 1, it says in the bounty pregnancy book that you dont get as many appointments in your subsequent pregnancys, so i didnt expect to but mines just remained same this time as last time, must be different where i live dont know why though

I was just thinking insurance in case your OH needs to stay somewhere if your waters go and you have the baby. Plus transport home if you need it because you miss your flight. Is probably unnecessary, I'm just so clumsy I can think of millions of ways to damage myself en route!

No worries cyclebump, it just feels odd to be worrying about insurance when I'm going to my Mum's house IYKWIM.

To be honest I'm normally such a worrier that I'm a bit worried about why this isn't worrying me more. I have travelled a lot in this pregnancy though so I guess I've just normalised myself to it and I even thought my self imposed cut off of no flying post 30 weeks was an example of me being overly cautious!!

On breastfeeding, I was able to borrow an electric pump for the first couple of weeks from the community midwife. It was a really high spec model. Can't remember the name. May be worth checking this option out before you fork out any cash for your own. Despite best intentions it just doesb't work for everyone.

My friend has just has her daughter a month early and the BF just isn't happening probably due to the fact that she was born early. Has brought home to me how I've just assumed that I'd be able to bf no problem because I did with my daughter but I have to remind myself that each one is different.

And an advance warning for the first timers, I was told the biggest pile of bollocks by the midwives that babies fed every 4 hours approx whether they were bf or bottle fed. Total Pants! My daughter fed every 20 minutes through the night for the first 3 nights. I don't want to scare anyone but those were the worst 3 nights of my life, mostly because I thought soemthing was wrong with her or I wasn't doing it right. I seriously thought I was going to lose the plot from sheer mental and physical exhaustion. Luckily a colleague of my DP reassured me that she'd had exactly the same experience with her 2 kids and that it would settle down within a week. It did, to every 90 minutes. If you have a hungry, big baby then that just may be the way it is initially. But it does get effortless after a while and I didn't miss the faffing about with bottles and formula. So stick with it if that's what you've decided you want to do.

Phew! It's just taken me a hour to catch up! Not bee online for a few days! I'm not suitably versed in Bfing and pumps!!

1st Antenatal class was yesterday! I was quite surprised to be one of the oldest there! I'm only 29! All bar 1 are on our first! So we ask lots of silly questions! Poor mum on DC2 just laughed at us when enquired if we would really know when our waters break! Hers first time went in Asda! Nice!

GTT on Friday then another scan on Tuesday to check Buster! Been a while since our 20 week scan!

Today is our (mine and DH's) 3rd wedding anniversary! DH got me a "Yummy Mummy Nice Things Fund Jar" So will have to start adding to that! And a beautiful card that had me in absolute gut wrenching sobs! I have no control over my crying just now.

Then today a huge bunch of flowers were delivered to work! I love my DH so much!!!

On the bump front (and it's all out front) I have stretch marks, after months of cream application twice a day. Pah! I was expecting it though as I have faded marks already for years of dieting then putting it back on, losing, gaining etc! But I thought mother nature might let me off just this once :(

Can anyone r3ecommend a good birthing book. Nothing too hippy earth motherish. Just something that I can read/get DH to read to prepare ourselves.

thefurryone yes, 'What to expect' is the Clare Byam Book book. As justkeepswimming says, CB-C seems to get a rough ride on Mumsnet, but I'm not sure why. I guess it's personal choice but I do think she covers all factors of breastfeeding 'kindly' and without stress and that's pretty invaluable. Helped me feel less of a crap failure when I was struggling to get milk down my teeny babies.

Bought my pram today. Mountain buggy in black on its way to me via Kiddicare. Wierd, never thought I'd be pushing a pram again...

Thank you, will check it out. I also realised that my university library has loads of breast-feeding books so will be taking a trip over to the medical section to see what they have anything of use, should help me keep the amazon bill down a bit.

lmao Muffin I thought you did have to keep pumping, that's why I looked at electric pumps only before I had this one give lol, I feel a bit daft now but if you don't know and all that