Jue in June -Waters breaking everywhere and not a drop of Gaviscon to drink...

[NurseSunshine]

Here's another :)

Still up with baby - 4 hours of screaming with sore tummy now

Awfully quiet on here this morning...I hope that means we have more baby news coming!

Hope you managed to get some sleep Sasa - poor Celeste

Clarkiee and Gillzz, glad your LOs are doing well!

Almighty, you deserve a medal for still shopping at this stage!

Joanne, did your NCT ladies turn up in the end? I would be quite annoyed if I cleaned and they didn't come!

Hello all!

Love the new thread title

Just updated the chat thread, but no I didn't get the HB thanks to MW thinking there was meconium(it was) but I have to say had a brilliant experience in the Low Dependency Unit. DH admitted he was kind of glad to be in the hospital as the room was really big so plenty of space plus we didn't have any mess to deal with So I don't have any regrets!

Nurse - I had quite a bit of G&A from the bottle that I had at my house, but barely made a dent in it, so rest assured one small bottle will be plenty

Moufflon - yey 4 hourly feeds, do you feel a bit more human now?

Barbie - fantastic!!! Congratulations on baby Kate! Have been thinking about you And yey for avoiding the induction!!!

TTL - glad you got checked out and everything is fine, don't be embarrassed you did the right thing!

SSD - I really hope you get the go ahead for your water birth, sounds like you could be on for it!

crazy {{{{[hugs}}}}} you time will come!

Sorry going to have to cut this short, will try and catch up properly later.

Congratulations Kara, Barbie and Prisoner on your new arrivals, and to anyone else I may have missed. It's my due date today-no signs of anything happening-Prisoner, I too have been taking your tips for bringing on labour

Hope all new mums and babies are doing well and look forward to hearing about some more new arrivals over the coming days!

Morning,

Has quietened down on the thread - hopefully more peopel having babies / cuddling newborns :)

It is my due date today and I am obsessing about every BH / poo activity etc - but I dont' reckong anything is going to happen today...

I am however in a good mood. Off for a 3 mile walk now :)

Congratulations on the new babies barbie and kara.

Clarkiee I'm very impressed that you are feeding your little girls with breast feeding and EBM. I'm trying to do that with Ethan but he is always so hungry I am having to top up most feeds with formula, and he's just one baby! Do you (or anyone else) have any good tips for increasing the amount that I can express? I'm currently getting about 50ml every 3 hours.

Yesterday was Ethan's due date, the past 3 weeks have been so different to my old life which now seems like it was a million years ago. The change has been quite a shock, I don't think that I had quite come to terms with becoming a parent when he was born because I was still expecting 3-5 more weeks of being pregnant, relaxing in the sun and not having much responsibility.

I had a bit of a weepy moment on DH yesterday about some of the less nice bits of the past 3 weeks which was partly brought on my my mum "helpfully" commenting that she expected my breast milk to dry up soon because I was doing more expressing than breastfeeding. This is based on her own experience of breastfeeding 3 children without ever expressing i.e. no relevant experience!!! Grrrr! Unfortunately she is turning into one of those older people who just say what they think and have lost the ability to be tactful or to sensor what they say based on what the other person needs to hear at the time. She winds me up like this quite a lot, but not many topics are as emotive as feeding your child .

Today we are braving going into the city centre with Ethan so that I can take him into my work to meet everyone. The preparations started last night with DH spending a good half an hour studying the pram instructions and practicing folding and unfolding it so that we can get it in the car (reading the instructions was another one of the things which was on my to do list for when I started maternity leave!). Now to start packing the changing bag with multiple nappies, outfit changes etc......

Happy due dates Sarahmumtobe and Moog72! I hope that your efforts pay off and start things happening!

Kara I am sooo pleased for you, all that effort and frustration finally paid off! Please post a pic on the fb site

Am 39 weeks today! 7 days till B-day! No sign of anything yet, have been bouncing on ball, and having sex, tonight may try spicy food...

No sign yet tho, been getting more low stabbing pains, can I take this as a positive sign? Sooooo eager!

DH has decided to stop him going to work on Monday because he is eager to meet baby, we will use the 'swallow' technique 5 times on Sunday

Morning all - it has indeed quietened down loads on here, hopefully it is the calm before another baby-storm! I am just popping on to say Congratulations to Kara, I have been following your labour thread and am really pleased all that hard work paid off in the end without too much intervention.

For those of you who still have time before d-day I am half-way through this book. It is great, and gives some really good practical tools for dealing with pain in labour. I am still really anxious, but this book amongst other things is helping me feel like I'm taking control of the situation.

79monica I know exactly what you mean about life changing beyond all recognition once you have your first baby. As time goes by though your old life will start to return in increments and slot in nicely with your new life as a Mummy, and parenthood will not be such a full-on 24 hour mission! My Mum also had the ability to wind me up something rotten shortly after I had ds, you just need to put your foot down and tell her that her comments aren't helpful IMO, she may not realise how sensitive you are to her "helpful" pointers .

8 days until due date! Cannot wait to hold my baby!

79monica hope your trip into work was successull and you got to show off your gorgeous little boy.
I had to purely express for 4 weeks whilst DD was in nicu.........in order to keep my milk in they recommend 8 x per day ( i only managed 7) and it was important to do an express between 1am and 5am due to your hormones. I found when i started to BF i had to express the other boob and empty the one she took as she wasnt strong enough to complete a feed.
Drink plenty of water, eat well and snack lots......you could see your gp for some medication - domperidone i think which helps to increase your milk supply. Dont worry if you ar BF and expressing im sure you will not lose your milk. Have you tried holding your DS when expressing.....just the contact can increase your supply. I am no expert believe me but this is just what i had to do in order to not lose my milk and it worked for me. Good luck and relax.....stressing wont help
so in other words......lots of cuddles, cups of tea and cake, what more do you need as a new mom

Morning everyone.

I am still here. What a glorious morning it is here today. I have a real spring in my step! Friend from my NCT group has gone for a sweep this morning.. am popping round there later for tea and victoria sponge that I am about to make!

79monica I have no children (as yet) but have lots of friends that do and one in particular was determined to make breast feeding work despite numerous problems. I have emailed her before about breastfeeding and she highly recommends going to speak to La Leche. However she also says that expressing after every feed will help with your supply as will lots of skin to skin. She has emphasised the importance of the latch to me and has mentioned making sure the boob is lifted up! She uses a hairband for this :o
I'm sure you will manage to continue. It is very frustrating when you get these 'words of wisdom' from your mother!!!

X-post moomin :)

I should have added that the expressing after every feed is to ensure that the boob is fully drained which apparently helps to calibrate your supply?

Morning all, The NCT ladies did turn up and we had a good chin wag. All of them brought biccies though so now I have 6 5 packets! I said I would take them along next time... but i might have eaten them all had a baby by then. I really need to stop eating so much. I mean I have never been a skinny minnie, but it is going to be painful once this baby comes out. I think I might have to keep wearing my maternity clothes for months! On the plus side I ordered a web cam from ebuyer yesterday so we can skype my family and it arrived this morning even though only paid for the cheapy shipping option.

by the way......how do i find the fb page and how does a secret group work

Great to hear from you Clarkiee and lovely to hear the girls are doing so well :)

Kara sorry you didn't get your home birth but I'm really glad you had a good experience in the end :) Hope you and little Cara are doing really well

79monica It sounds like you're doing really well for Ethan. Did you tell your mum how incredibly unhelpful that comment was? If you feel like you can't maybe DH could? It must be incredibly difficult for you at the moment, you certainly don't need extra upset on top of it all.

Hope Celeste feels better soon Sasa

Happy due dates Moog and Sarah

Hang on in there Crazychic

Well, somewhat predictably, my itching has now spread to my legs, hands and feet. I rang my MW who told me to ring Triage, and I spoke to a lovely MW there who was a bit at what the GP and practice nurse had told me and said they should have done a blood test there and then to rule out obstetric choleostasis. She told me to go to the nearest drop in clinic and the MW there would take a blood test which will take a day or so to come back and if it is OC then we will have to deliver I'm kind of in denial that it could be OC but who knows.
I then asked her if the MW would be able to give me anything to help with the itching and she said oh yes, you can take piriton, it's perfectly safe to take in pregnancy! So when the GP said there was "no point" prescribing anti histamines and the Nurse Practitioner made it sound as though I was the worst person in the world for even asking if I could take them in pg and I may as well ask if I'm allowed to drink an entire bottle of vodka, they were both talking absolute bollocks! GRRRRRR

Moomin message Milliemuffin and she'll add you. Secret group means it won't show up on your wall that you've posted in it/joined it etc.

Joanne I'm also going to be in my maternity clothes until this time next year :(

thanks nurse..........im not in maternity clothes 12 weeks down the line ( well some tops i am) but i have had to go and buy a bigger size jeans :( In fact i would say BF for me has made me put on weight or maybe it was the stress initially and hospital food that made me lose and now i am home, happy and eating cake the pounds are piling on.

ages and ages ago........someone posted a link about some fab wallpaper they were going to use in their nursery. Can anyone remember what it was. When we move i will actually have a room to do a nursery so its quite exciting :)

Thanks for all the hellos

What a lovely day, just been for a walk with the girls. Takes me ages to organise everything and putting up the pram is still tricky but I'm sure I'll get quicker.

Monica what your mum said about expressing making it 'dry up' is rubbish (which I'm sure you know). All I did was express for 5 weeks and I continued to make more and more milk. Lots of good tips about breast feeding- whoever said express after a feed is spot on. But what I've found really useful for making more milk is expressing with the pump (or feed) until you're not getting much more milk then hand express. It's amazing how much more milk you can still get out. Takes a bit of practice and it defo gets easier (I use a pirex jug cause it sometimes squirts at random angles) but its really satisfying when you get a duct squirting out like a milky water pistol- is that TMI . It sounds like you're doing really well though- try not to get disheartened.

I'm doing 6 feeds a day (every 4 hours which is what they were used to in hospital) I breast feed three times a day (usually with a top of EBM after as they need to continue to gain weight) and feed them EBM three times a day. It means that DH can help out and I'm not continually feeding because with them still being small they are not very quick at it. When the girls were in hospital I was very regemented with the expressing and they didn't need much which meant I was producing much more milk than they needed (they started out on 1ml every hour- bless) so I filled my freezer. Some days I have enough EBM for the top ups and feeds other days I have to defrost a 3oz bottle to make up the difference. I've got about 30 bottles left so should be okay for another month then I'll have to suppliment one feed with formula. I'm really pleased that I've managed to feed them on breast milk especially with them being premature but I've not found it easy and I am doing in quite a random way. Well done to everyone who has been able to stick at it!

Wow moomin Florence is 6lb 11oz now . Had another weigh in today Naomi is 5lb 11oz and Ciara is 4lb 11oz.

I can't believe how generous people are I've had so many gifts for the girls. Make sure you write down who buys you what ladies because you might struggle to remember in baby brain haze. I'm thinking about taking some pictures and doing one of those thank you card things on line- any recommendations?

Thought I might take a picture of Naomi and Ciara in 'I love daddy' bibs and make it into a moonpig card for fathers day.

Its crazy to think that there are still so many people on here who have not had their baby yet- if we have a few over due babies our LO's could spread from March to July!!!

Thoses people who have had their babies do you randomly sit up in bed in the middle of the night and check your baby is breathing? I'm driving myself mad doing it but I can't help it!

Just checking in...no movement here. Have just mowed the lawns and worn myself out but no twinges or baby coming out signs. Seems quite a few of us in the waiting room this week. Anyone got any inventive suggestions re how to reply to all the 'any news?' texts apart from a blunt 'bugger off'?

Nurse I'm not so much in my maternity clothes as bursting out of them...which must take some doing! Hope your itching gets sorted.

Maon of the day....Im having a 'just shoot me' moment....got neighbour coming round (despite replying to her request for a visit by saying things like ' not really best day' and 'tomorrow would be better') because she says I'm too relaxed about the birth and really need to be better prepared, and she can tell me all about what to expect. OMG I'm so going to kill her....with the garden shears....the blunt ones....slowly....

Clarkiee lovely to hear from you and so pleased to hear the feeding is going well. I remember doing the whole checking breathing thing with DS - this time I'm much more into sleeping . I had some thank you cards done for DS - am now trying to remember which company.

Monica lots of good advice but also remember expressing is not necessarily a good indication of how much baby is getting when they bf.

Moomin I'm also ridiculously hungry and thirsty. DD has been very unsettled today (must be the day for it sasa) and so have not really moved from the sofa trying to feed and settle her today - this hasn't gone down very well with DS! But he has had lots of TV/DVDs - bad Mummy emoticon. Fortunately my Mum is flying out on Saturday for 3 weeks so that will be a great help.

Joanne skype is great. We pretty much rely on it.

Morning ladies, sorry not to catch up with everyone individually but got a splitting headache and DCs are driving me round the bend. I know they're bored and I'd love to take them over the park but it's so uncomfortable for me to walk now. MW came this morning and baby is between 4 and 5/5s engaged, she could only just feel the head if she really tried. I'm booked in for another session of reflexology on thursday so I'm hoping baby will be here within the next week if not days. I said I was slightly worried about being out with the kids and my waters going but she she said more often than not waters go when you're totally relaxed and content and not stressing so most tend to go in the evening or during the night.

Anyone know any good tricks for entertaining the kids without getting off my butt?

Jasmine - good luck with your neighbour - she sounds like great fun and exactly what you need right now! (Where's the shovel?)

ps. Just realised it's no longer morning, I should know as I picked DS up from school at 1. Really not with it today!

Attack! jasmine She so needs telling to get lost. In reply to 'Any news?' I believe there's a massive amount of civil unrest in Syria... clarkiee I still get up and descend a flight of stairs to check the big snortpigs are still breathing. It is quicker to check than lie there wondering. Well the news here is not great. Percy got very yellow and sleepy yesterday so we are now in the JR (the big hospital). He's not under lights but on iv antibiotics as he might have an infection and they have to treat and investigate at the same time. It is possible that last week I didn't have milk fever but something else more nasty (I'm on antibiotics already). If all's ok should get home tomorrow. Congratulations on all the new babies :)

Get well soon little Percy.

Jasmine just don't answer the door! If she asks about it next time you see her say you must've been napping and not heard it. "too relaxed about the birth"! How stupid

Millie I'd stick some cartoons on, give them some haribo and leave them to it

Had my bloods taken and will get results on thurs. MW said it's probably not OC so am not too worried but just all the more fed up and wanting this baby to come so I can stop feeling like this

MOSP hope Percy gets well soon.....and you, and i hope you are getting good care at the JR ( I used to work there many years ago :))