April 2011 - nearly there, all set for dropping Mofo C bombs in the delivery room

[SnapFrakkleAndPop]

Executive decision that at 987 posts we're moving over!

New challenge - can we fill up 1000 posts before the first babies arrive, given that we managed to keep our legs crossed all through the last one?!

First babies are due, officially, next month but are there any in such a hurry to see the world that they can beat our chatting?

Happy Birthday for yesterday Petal! :)

With regard to sheets - if you put a folded muslin under the baby then when they are still little that will catch most of whatever sick/milk/nappy explosions etc you get. Much easier than changing a sheet and does help to cut down on the washing slightly (and means you need less sheets so cheaper!)

I feel like shite today. Despite the fact that I'm getting reasonable sleep, I'm just soooo tired. My SPD isn't as bad as it was with DS, but it's upsetting me more because I can't just sit down all day. I'm trying to get out for at least a little walk with DS when it isn't pouring with rain, and being down on the floor doing jigsaws or building train set is so painful. Couldn't even get my trousers on this morning it hurt so much, and burst into tears, so I had my 2.6 year old saying 'it's ok Mummy' while helping me get my leg through my trousers. but :(

Thanks for the birthday wishes everyone! What an anticlimax today is - although I'm not at work because I've got a breast-feeding antenatal thing right in the middle of the day.

ILTMITMI I think you could be right about the dehydration. I was surprised at the shade of my wee when I got home yesterday! Although I don't know how I can drink any more at school - maybe I should just talk less!

Any suggestions for awkward questions I can ask will be much appreciated! (I figure, we all know why we're supposed to breast feed, we'll all try it, enough with the brainwashing!). My sister's already suggested "if breastfeeding burns 500 calories a day, how can I avoid losing too much weight?" and "is it really painless if you do it right?" (she says it was painful in the first week, but settled down quickly - but that that could be enough to put people off).

Happy wednesdays, everyone. x

Not so much an awkward question, but make sure they give you information on BFing support. Who will be available while you are in hospital, what is their policy on skin-to-skin/helping with first feed? Will it make a difference whether you are in MLU or CLU? What about when you go home - who can you ring, who will come and see you if you have difficulties? Is there anyone specialist or is it just from the community midwives (who IME don't know anything like as much as they should about supporting BF)?
Info on any local groups/BF cafes etc that there might be.

I had access to a specialist BF counsellor through the hospital for a month after DS was born. We went to see her 5 times in that month, she was amazing. Massively under-utilised though, she always had loads of spaces. She definitely saved my BFing 'career', almost certainly my sanity, and quite probably my marriage!

Petal contrary to common belief and government advice breast feeding can still hurt for some women even if you are doing it correctly and have the perfect latch. The MW who discharged me from the hospital was a star and without her throw away comments I wouldn't have BF my daughter for 11 months. She was handing me leaflets that stated BF was painless provided you did it right but told me to quote "that was bollocks" and she found BFing her 3 children initially painful but just for the first few weeks, and even then it was just the initial few sucks till it settled down. My experience was just the same. Hurts at first but your boobs just toughen up a bit after a while and all is well.
She also said the whole nipple confusion issue in her experience was total tosh provided you introduced a bottle within 2 or 3 weeks. I introduced a bottle of expressed milk at 2 weeks and daughter happily switched between them. Though I gave this up after a while because I found expressing a total faff.

I'm a big advocate of breast feeding but it's not right or possible for everyone so I hope today is a positive experience for you.

Petalouda I had the NCT breastfeeding class last night and it was really interesting. Wasn't at all preachy about you must do it, was more if you are going to, here is some practical advice. Most of it was based on big studies and if it was just her opinion then she let you know that it was just what she had experienced.

Right at the end we were shown a video that showed newborns being placed on their mother abdomen and them using their natural instincts to crawl up and latch on completely on their own. She is supposed to be sending some links to good videos so I will post them later.

And she says you can have a while feeding.

Hi all,

Frak suggested I post here.

I was originally on The April thread and used to post a fair bit, but haven't posted on thread or really even been on MN for a long time.

I was due April 13th. On Jan 16th I was diagnosed with HELLP which is a life-threatening condition causing liver failure, and so was immediately delivered with an emergency C-section.

Eva Rose was born 16th Jan, 13.52, at 27 weeks & 4days, weighing 1lb 13 oz. She has had an understandably difficult run with sepsis, chronic lung disease, heart surgery, but is currently doing well. She's now 6 weeks old, or 34 weeks today which is how I still think of her as her 'real age', and now weighs a positively hefty 3lb 1oz - we've spent the last week referring to her as our 'little chubster' as she looks so different now!! She now has the proportions of a term baby, but is just on the wee side!

She'll be in hospital at least until her due date, and probably beyond, and may well come home with oxygen, but she's done so well so far and is such a spirited little trooper.

Just wanted to update you all, and would be nice to still post and hear how things go for you all, and for any of you that are first timers - it's amazing. You really have never felt love quite like it!

JoEW - Congratulations! I'm sorry that you've had a difficult time too. Hoping all goes well for you and Conor, and hooray for the cuddles - they really are amazing aren't they?! Glad you're feeling better post section, hoping that your BP behaves soon - I found things easier to cope with once I was back at home. Wishing you both all the best, and would be good to exchange stories / developments / little moans. Sending you, Conor and OH all my love.xxx

Weirdly, my hospital is the one on One Born Every Minute - Eva is in the same room in NICU that the girl went to visit her baby, and I was delivered in that same theatre! I think in a few weeks there is an episode based mainly in NICU, which will be weird to see, bnut it's a fab fab department. Agree though, the editors clearly run that programme!!

Hope all going well with things for you all, will join in on the buying stuff chat if that's ok, as we still have quite a bit to buy before she comes home - we weren't entirely prepared 3 months early!

Good luck ladies!xx

Thanks folks!
I'm going in with a completely open mind - and I promise I'll be nice, and not dive in with my stubborn wind-up mentality in full swing! But I do want to make sure we're getting good information (unlike the "well it's been proven that water has a memory" conversation about Homeopathy last week).

Ali - asking about support is probably the best tip. Thanks!

I shall report back this afternoon!

Gormers!

Brilliant to see you again! Sorry you've had such a traumatic time, but glad Eva's doing well despite her difficulties.

Do stick around here! xx

Jo ? So lovely to hear you and Conor are doing well

Petal ? Happy birthday! My 30s have also been the best years of my life.

Ali ? I feel your jigsaw pain. DD1 keeps patting her little tiny chairs and saying ?sit down mummy? ? as if!

JKS ? I?m ?glowing? too, in my own humongous, pale, spotty, hairy and in desperate need of a hair colour and cut way...

DD1 has gone out with my mum today and I?ve told myself I?m not allowed to get dressed until I?ve done some work on the novel. I only have 3 chapters left to rewrite and I know I?ll be gutted if I don?t manage to send it back to the agent before DD2 arrives. Guess that means I?ll be in my PJs all day then

I?ve also found my yoda ball (am hoping the force is strong with me!) and finally put some babygros in the wash. I daren?t pack anything bigger than ?Up to 10lb? into my hospital bag, never mind what the MW says about me measuring big for my dates ?

Oh GormersCongratulations. A beautful name. Great to here Eva is doing so well. Keep us posted. How are you now? Of course stay and chat :)

xx

Welcome back Gormers - just read your post, Eva Rose is such a beautiful name! Congratulations and sorry to hear you've been through such a tough time. You're little girl sounds like a wonderfully brave little fighter, I can't resist sending you both lots of unmumsnetty hugs xxx

Wow Gormers that's quite a story and has put a big lump in my throat for your little battler - not least because I have a two year old niece also called Eva Rose who also had a rough start and who is also as tough as old boots and cute as a button these days.

Wishing you all the very best for the future and sending virtual cuddles to your little lady.

Welcome back Gormers and congratulations on your little girl :) It must have been a very difficult six weeks and so pleased to hear that baby Eva is doing well. Hope all is well with you too :) Hugs from lucieloo too! x

Some drama for me. 35 weeks today & started bleeding this morning - like a period - and now in hosp being monitored. Contractions are increasing to 3 in every 10 mins. Have been told I need to stay in overnight and they'll give me some drugs to block the labour.

So my uneventful pregnancy has gone up in smoke - knew it was too good to last. The girls were delivered at 35 weeks and I so, SO want to get to 37 weeks and at least be normal.

Will keep you all posted. Am really quite pissed off.

kitstwins - sorry to hear you've had to go in, hoping all goes well and will be thinking of you.xx

Bless you kits, really hope they can do something to keep you going for another 2 weeks x

Ahh kitstwins hope you're ok x

Yes while feeding is v.important

Although - some women (me included) find that more than a few sips can inhibit letdown. So if your baby is struggling to latch or getting frustrated then steer clear right before a feed.

Thaney - if you google 'biological nursing' then you should find some good videos of that technique - it is pretty amazing and I wish I had known about it when DS was a newborn!

Good lord, loads of x-posts.

gormers oh my goodness, what a time you've had! Congratulations on baby Eva, so pleased to hear she is doing well :)

kits - oh no, you poor thing. Keep us updated, will be crossing my fingers that you can hang on for another fortnight. x

Kits fingers crossed for you.

Thanks Ali, I couldn't for the life of me remeber what the technique was called. I googled all sorts of things but failed to find what i wanted.

Thinking of you kits keep us posted. Big hugs x

gormers, congratulations on your little girl. glad shes doing well :)

kits- hope everything is ok. keep us posted x

Gormers congratulations on your daughter and what a beautiful name. Really hope she gets stronger by the day and you have her home soon.

Kits thinking of you. Hope your baby holds on for a bit longer before being born

nevermind waiting for the labour room, I very nearly jusy dropped a MoFo C bomb when my chuffing laptop closed itself down halfway through my post.

Lovely to hear from you gormers, but so sorry to hear you've all had such a hard time of it . Congratulations on the arrival of Eva, I hope you are all home where you belong very soon.

Another one here keeping my fingers crossed for you kits. Whatever happens, remember none of this has anything to do with you being normal or not, sometimes these things just happen.

There's quite a lot of debate about painful bf'ing, even among the bf'ing experts and professionals. I have spoken to my sister about this many times (she's a NCT BF Counsellor and also a supervisor of counsellors). With ds1 I had pain in the early weeks and that was most defo to do with latch - you only had to look at the state of my nipples to see there was a problem.
With DS2 I had pain for about 5 seconds at the beginning of each feed for about the first week. My nipples were fine, no grazes, not misshapen etc, so it wasn't the latch. However some people believe that in the early days you can suffer from a (muscle) pain during letdown, and I think that is what I had.
However, rather than suffer in silence it is suggested that you see/talk to someone whenever you experience pain during bf'ing. I would say that's especially true for first timers - I really was quite clueless

I was going to try the breast crawl with ds2 when he was born, but when it came to it I couldn't be arsed . Maybe this time ..........

Good to see you here gormers - we're getting pretty expert at shopping and always happy to help

Fingers tightly crossed that everything is okay kits

petal happy birthday for yesterday!

I plan to introduce the MWs at the hospital to biological nurturing. They seem really open to BFing and demonstrated lots if different positions but no matter how I tried to explain BN/laid back feeding vs positioning the baby they didn't get it!

On the subject of yoda balls (love it, has to be in the next thread title because I don't see this one lasting all the way!) my favouritest gym instructor lent me a book of exercises to do on them with loads of notes about adapting them for pregnancy so if I come across any good ones I'll post them. She also paid me a really sweet compliment and said that she hoped when/if she gets pregnant she'll be able to carry on doing as much as I can and that I've kept up my strength and flexibility really well . Given that she's super fit and I'm starting to get out of breath going up stairs that was a lovely thing to say.