July 2011 - the final push!

[buttonmoon78]

I'm not going to do the stats as it took up so much of every page! Welcome, everyone!

I think I've pulled or strained groin muscles this weekend which is not helping either!!! Can't believe it! Really painful if I move either side so am hoping I have time to heal before birth

oooh nasty. hope it does too, plenty of rests and a nice warm bath for you x

Jimmy, if it is your lower back that is sore I found doing 'figure of eights' with my hips really helps loosen my pelvis up including the groin muscles.

No labour symptoms this end. We have a bbq so cleaning the house and DH is looking at me with a huge grin on his face. I don't think he wants to do his ribs tomorrow but his baby isn't going to let him off that lightly!

Ok, short version as we are still in hospital! She is fine but they just want to keep an eye.

SAturday: nesting big time, cleaning floors etc.
Sunday: suddenly decide to go to a baby show and buy the last essentials. Think I have wee'd myself. Later, realise its waters. Go to pub for final family meal. RIng hospital. ADmitted until baby born. Me v stroppy and lots of tears to mourn lost hope of home birth.
Monday: floods of tears as missing my son and home.
Tuesday: better after a good sleep. Threat of induction on Thursday. Decided to get the show on The road. Long walk. Played with son in hospital garden.
5pm period pains and backache. Rang OH. STuck in traffic on m1.
6-7 walking round carpark with mum and OH having mild contractions.
8.30 OH sent home by midwife. Cue big strop from me along lines of, I'm going to be having this baby soon, I need him here to help me feel relaxed, I can't contract in this bloody place etc. Midwife says well you'd better take control of it then, and sends him home.

9-9.45 shut myself away in my bed area. Birthing ball. Contraction timer. Word puzzle for in between contractions. Quickly builds to every 2 mins. Call midwife.6cms. Feeling smug. oH races back.

10.10 labour suite. Lovely and dark, calm, relaxed, one friendly midwife. Contractions of increasing strength. Suddenly remember gas and air, big help. On monitors cos baby is prem, but still able to be upright.
10 something 7-8cm. Realise I am having too much fun with gas and need to focus on getting to 10. Less gas, more intensity.
11.10 transition. Know I'm in transition but still pretty intense. I can't do it, I need to poo etc.
Pushing on all fours. THen sitting. BABy nearly out. Bossy 2nd midwife tells me to go in stirrups as baby slightly posterior. ME grumpy but agrees.11.47 2 pushes and she is born!
THen midwife tells us she is in great condition and I have lovely long cuddle on chest. ME, OH and baby left alone for ages. No tears. shower. Put baby to boob myself and she feeds.

Overall, calm, relaxed and I felt totally in control. Really positive experience, even with constant monitoring and stirrups at the end!! The gas And air allowed me to pace things more. With my son, I can't remember the contractions as they were so intense that I went into some strange zone, but this time I remember it all.

As she was officially prem, by 2 days, we are still in but hope to be home in the next couple of days. It's been nice to have a proper rest and we have really bonded. ALthough as you can imagine I am desperate to be home.

Good luck to the rest of you! Babies have a way of taking you by surprise, no matter how prepared you think you are.

aw thats lovely Cara.
Well its my last day, still got to finish my hospital bag, tidy guest room where in laws will stay on Wednesday when they come over (hoping theyve gone by the time i get out of hospital :o) ironing to put away, some more to do. Had a really bad night getting DS to sleep (2.5), its was gone 11pm and is gone 10pm most nights, i cant cope with it anymore and its stressing me out so going to see a gp to see if there a sleep clinic i can attend with him. Also going to Ikea to buy furniture for the new conservatory, so quite looking forward to 3 days in hospital just me and my little man no2. Hope there some more birth announcements by the time i come home (Friday all being well) as i dont have internet on my moible so look forward to catching up then.
Good luck spannerpants and Jimmy and also Wanttobe - hope things move quickly for you soon.
suz xx

Congratulations on new babies.

Thanks for all messgaes of support. Waiting to hear today from heart tests to see if her heart has been under strain from the fluid they've drained off her lungs. They've been telling her for the last month her struggle to breathe was due to extra bad asthma with the extra bad hayfever season .

All seems ok here. Still engaged (I think!). Off to physio today then MW tomorrow when she'll check position again. I've been doing everything I can to ensure it doesn't turn OP but it's hard when everything hurts!

Oh, and I had a tiny bit of a show last night - just a little bit of clear jelly. TBH though I hope it doesn't mean anything - I'm not sorted yet! I've only had a show once and dd1 stayed put for another week after that.

morning, im not the only one up at silly o'clock then!

couldn't sleep well last night, just ordered all of ds3's bits for his gruffalo party on Sunday so thats one job off the list. My friend is making the cake too. So im hoping it will not be too stressful, unless i go into labour of course!!

Sues are you section tomorrow?
Button thinking of you xxx
oh and Cara, lovely birth story!

oh button so sorry to hear about your aunt. Thinking of you all.

Lovely to read your birth story cara although a bit and at your bossy midwives. Reminds me a little of when ds1 was born and dp had been similarly sent away. It took a lot of persuading to get the midwife on duty to finally call him back.

thinking of everyone with their back pains etc. I've been having a few which I'm trying to ignore. Ds1 is away on a residential holiday camp for the first time ever and I think it will be a shame if this baby comes bef ore he gets back.

sues ds3 (just 3y) has been similar about bedtime and really wants me all the time, won't let dh cuddle him or anything. I think it's just anticipation of the change when there's a baby around. Even though he's not really sure what the change will be like, he knows it is coming. I'm finding it difficult as I'm so tired by his bedtime and I really don't want to be staying up until gone 10pm with him. But it's always better if I've managed to have a rest during the day.

nicola I have done parties for ds3 and ds2 in the past week. Ds2's was the least stressful ever, I think. It was at a local rock-climbing place and although we did the food ourselves it was so much less manic than kids' parties tend to be.

we've hired out local leisure centre, bouncy castle trampoline etc then have room to do party food after. Keeping food realy simple and minimal as they never want to eat much at parties do they should go quite well im hoping about 18 of them coming.

Yes - I was up early to see dh off to work. Then I went and watched OBEM USA which I've been recording. It's bizarre - obv way more medicalised than the UK but there were two totally different births on this one. One was obv epidural and although long was calm and straighforward, MWs didn't appear too pushy etc. The father made me laugh though with his ADD tendancies! The other one made me a bit though (although TBF you never see the whole story). The mum wasn't getting on very well so the MW told her to push to see 'if they could get things moving' . Ended up with a healthy baby though had to get past the shoulder dystocia first (maybe why she wasn't progressing? ) Just goes to show wherever you are in the world, you can have hugely different experiences, even within the same unit!

July, thankfully, is a birthday free month for me (except at the end when it's dh's but he's not really into bouncy castles ). So now I've got last weekend out of the way I have no pressing social engagements. DH is away a lot so that is making me slightly nervous in case anything happens before my induction date but even so, my track history is not speedy so he'd have plenty of time to make a motorway dash or catch a fast train.

Nothing exciting happening here yet, the back pain eased off eventually and I managed to sleep reasonably well. The TENS worked really well for it so hopefully it will be just as useful in labour!

Your DS's gruffalo party sounds great Nicola - I saw the paper plates/cups/hats the other day and thought they were really cute.

I know this is really sad but now I'm on maternity leave the highlight of my day is deciding what to have for dinner and spending ages cooking it - today we're having slow cooked BBQ pork shoulder and I'm really looking forward to it! Tomorrow we're having a variety of curries (chicken/lamb plus a veggie one of some description with bhajis etc) so I might get that started later as well. I'm really enjoying having time to spend cooking now instead of getting home from work, having pasta and pesto and going straight to bed :)

Sues good luck tomorrow! You'll probably be next then, unless anyone sneaks in first.

Congratulations pesha you got there in the end!

Good luck sues

congratulations pesha

Congrtulations Pesha!

And Cara - sorry you didn't get the homebirth you wanted, but glad things worked out ok in the end - despite the bossy midwives!

Button - so sorry to hear about your aunt - it must be a hard time for all while you wait to hear the prognosis. Will keep everything crossed the news is better than expected.

Had my last scan this morning and baby is growing fine - already at an EFW of 2.7kg - DD was 2.3kg at birth. But the consultant wrote in my notes that I'm ok to have a homebirth which is really what I wanted - as although I was determined to go ahead anyway, it's reassuring to have the medical approval too. Just can't believe this little person is already so big - not sure I'll be able to cope with a normal sized baby as we just expected another tiny one! Hard to know what to buy for it now - it's put on a kilo in a month so will it continue at the same rate over the next 3-4 weeks?

In other news, our kitchen is now nearly finished - and we've been able to put everything away which has been lovely. I can now start focusing on the fact I'm going to have a baby in the next few weeks. Just washed some of the clothes from DD1 but need to buy lots now - going to have a trawl to find some lists others have put together as my brain isn't functioning today!!

Good luck with the section tomorrow Sue!

Button sorry to hear about your aunt and I hope you have recovered from the car incident last week..

congrats to Pesha and good luck Sue.. sorry to anyone else I've missed..

just a quick update here.. am 37+1 and going for a scan on Thursday to check baby's position as midwife is still querying breech. Certainly still feels that way to me.. but hey, what feels like a head may in fact be a bottom ! Feeling totally out of sorts today and can't quite put my finger on why but think it's just because I kind of want to know one way or another what the next steps are e.g. ECV, poss Csection or natural delivery.

Looking forward to getting a peak at baby on Thursday anyway as long as they don't show me anything that gives away the sex !

Hello everyone, how exciting to have more babies!! I see Posh is having hers today by c-section - is she on our list??
Absolutely nothing to report here - did a 3 mile walk yesterday, swam 20 lengths breaststroke this morning and am about to eat a pineapple.... :)

Hi all,

Good luck with the section Sues. And also happy birthday to FAB for tomorrow, which was my due date.

Button sorry to hear about your Aunt.

Jimmy this was my third pg, but the first one where I started panicking about the actual birth. My best advice for contractions is deep breaths and blow out slowly. Also don't tense your body, relax all of your muscles and that helps with the pain.

Meant to say I am surviving my first day at home. It helps that DD has settled down now and doesn't need holding so much.

I do have stress though as I just got a letter from HR to say I'm not entitled to SMP because I don't earn enough so I now need to apply for MA. Total pain, as typically of any form that comes from the benefits office it is a book rather than a form. Really don't need this right now.

I've just applied for MA too so if you need any help Eglu just shout! Glad you're surviving...

I've had to fill in that horrible MA form as well Eglu - it takes ages! I'm just hoping they don't lose my payslips/MATB1

Good luck for tomorrow Sues - I'll be thinking about you!

I've just made a vat of curry, I'm just hoping it doesn't give me too much heartburn! It's only a rogan josh so not particularly hot but I've got a feeling I might need a gaviscon chaser anyway!

BTW, re MA, last time (2007) it was sorted within a fortnight. Might take you twice that long to fill in the form but once it's done it was quick. Then anyway!

My new M&S bras arrived today. They are still enormous (and dh is mildly entertained that I've had to order a D cup!) but they are nice. They've got a lace overlay so not too plain and one is white and the other is black but the cups in the black are actually pale pink/mink colour so a bit more special than dull black. A nice fit (certainly better than my one and only Mothercare one) so if I end up needing more than my current ones I shall order from M&S again. They seem to have more in the way of individual boob support so I still look like a have a pair rather than a monoboob!

I think I might actually pack my hospital bag tonight

Thanks Button and Spanner. I had to ask the mw for a new MAT B1 today as HR did not send mine back, which they should have done. Now I just need to hunt out some payslips. Glad to hear it doesn't take long to sort out.

I did at your D cup comment Button as my GG nursing bra is currently too small. The H cup one is okay. I'm just waiting for them to settle down before I buy more bras as I'm hoping they shrink slightly.

On a different note this is the first pg that I've weighed myself while pg. I weighed myself today and I'm already down just over a stone, so that has cheered me up. Still have no clothes to wear though.